Akindele Afolabi
In what looks like a reset, the New Year presents fresh opportunities for businesses and individual, so also challenges and hurdles. Whether the opportunities work to your advantage or not is a function of how you have chosen to play your games in the New Year.
People play games to win or not to lose. The two are different and they require different strategies, mindsets and approaches. When you play not to lose, the minimalist approach to issues is just fine. The desire to win is absent but at the same time you do not want to lose, so the average to mediocre view of life can help you not to lose.
Where you are playing to win, you must realise that you are up to a challenging task and you must have a strategy. You must understand that there are other players that want to win too and they are likely to draw same resources as you would need to win. Such other players may not necessarily be outside forces but internal that prevent you from focusing on what you need to do to win.
Your 2018 strategy on how to win is therefore very important. Your strategy, which is about how you make choices to win, must help you answer the following questions;
- What is your winning aspiration? What does winning in year 2018 mean to you?
- How will you win?
- What capabilities must you have?
- What systems must you put in place to enhance the effectiveness of your capabilities?
If you are going to win in 2018, it must be a game of strategy and execution. The plans that God has for you in year 2018 require that you must have a strategy. Do not stop at the word you receive alone, there must be a pathway that positions you for the fulfilment of the word.
Joseph gave Pharaoh the interpretation of his dream and said to him in Genesis 41 verse 32 that “The fact that Pharaoh dreamed the same dream twice emphasizes God’s determination to do this and do it soon”. In other words, God gave Pharaoh the dream so that he can let him know what He is about to do.
Like many people respond when God gives us a piece of His mind through His word, Joseph could have kept declaring the word or praying for it to come to pass, but he went further in verse 33 to 36 of Genesis 41 to give Pharaoh the strategy of how what God is determined to do should be executed.
While we are right to say ‘none of God’s word return to Him void without accomplishing what He says it will do’ we have a role to play to better position ourselves for the fulfilment of the word. That is our strategy; that is our answer to the four questions listed above.
I pray that at the end of year 2018 we will all be victorious.
Akindele Afolabi is Professional Human Resource Leader , Career Counsellor & Capability Trainer