HOW TO FINISH TOO

                

Interesting story, I was introspecting the other day and mused at the ultimate irony of not finishing a post titled how to finish. Now wouldn’t that be something? Hope you had a wonderful week? The Ukrainian ceasefire was called off this week and I pray that a swift solution will be found for this impasse. In football news Brazil won last week and the French were knocked out of the world cup, to the pleasure of Nigerians the world over, I hope your country or your adopted country are doing well in brazil am supporting the hosts and the nationalmannschaft . In other news I got a massive set back in the bid to host a conference this fall, it was immeasurably infuriating but hey, take it on the chin and keep on keeping on. The best things are never handed out but are achieved through consistence and persistence. That’s what separates those that are celebrated from those who are celebrating. That provides an excellent segue to the theme of this post “how to finish too” see how I’m not imitating the “think like a man too”.

On a more germane note, the last post suggested that the way to go out and finish was too look inside because, ultimately our outward expressions are basically a mirror of our inward selves. So if you’re reading this post and you’re lost just read the previous one to get a better hang of what I’m talking about. Finding a way out of a rut is a much a function of acknowledging that one is in a rut as much as it is in identifying how one got there. That is why telling ourselves what the mistakes we made were, is sine qua non. If we must begin to finish the things we have started or the thing which we need to start. In my opinion and from my experience how far we go in anything is as much a consequence of our dedication and persistence in that thing as it is a function of our ulterior motive for embarking on that course of action in the first place.

The question of motives is fundamental to all human action. Intent and purpose is what separates man from all other animals that live on this planet. Many people accord human development to being a product of a higher intellect but I would argue that while that may play a role, it is the fact that those intellectual capacities are all focused towards achieving an aim that is not immediate, is the single factor has enabled us to excel. In a nutshell we have advanced because we do things that facilitate our doing other things we have understood that big tasks can be broken into smaller tasks. If we bring this down back to the subject of motive, we can begin to see that we are increasingly likely to finish something which we have the correct motives for.

But this raises the question what are the wrong motives or more importantly, what are the right or good motives. As I have said earlier the motive is oftentimes of greater importance than the resulting action. It is the motive behind an action that is the fuel that sustains it. Motive specifies how much effort is put into a task it determines how much persistence will accompany an undertaking. So important is motive that people will do the menial of tasks if it brings them closer to their destination. So  all of this talk about motive and motivation will be of no value if we do not see how it leads one to finish a task? Well as it turns out, the motive is the reason we take the first step. As long as the motive is wrong or flawed in some way the chance of abandonment of any project midway goes up exponentially. Consider this, if a person wanted to make a wooden sculpture for instance there are very few people who would view this as a wrong objective but say perhaps that the  desire was borne out of jealousy which they harbored towards a friend or colleague who excelled in that area, or the desire to show that they too could do it. It wouldn’t be hard for frustration to get the better of someone like that when the wood, refused to take the desired shape or form. In no time, no one would be surprised if the said person gave up on this “dream” midstream. For the person whose desire is to be a sculptor because he has the aptitude for it, the difficulties he encounters along the way become not sources of failure, but lessons. There is no better example of this than the story of Thomas Edison the man who invented the light bulb faced with thousands of repeated failures he famously said “i have not failed i have just discovered 10,000 ways that won’t work…” this quote encapsulates how motive significantly determines or shapes perspective. What for one is an “I give up” moment is an source of study for another.

Going back to our central theme of finishing and drawing on the findings from the last post (which I insist you go read again) it won’t be hard seeing how many failures can be linked to starting something for the wrongest possible (forgive me English) reasons. Now if you would go back to the list you already made critically go through those things which you highlighted as failed projects and ask yourself the question why did I actually start this? Question your motives again, look at the preceding circumstances and how they informed your choice to start up on the project that ultimately failed. Now this is in no way suggesting that the reason one venture or the other failed was because the motives were wrong no, in actuality they might have been perfectly good, but perhaps not backed with a strong enough conviction. The lesson here is to understand that finishing is far more important than starting. Before you start consider this; are there some things which made you fail before which are still around you, or that you are yet to deal with? Next, why exactly are you starting this really why is it important that you do this?

At this point I think it pertinent to state that although the title of this writing is to finish what you started, there is no one way to finish what you started, there are several reasons why some things fail and if you know why they failed you will agree with me that you stand a better chance of doing a better job the next time around.

Remember the prizes are given at the end of the race if the prize is not worth the race for you, or the track is not one you’d really want to be running at this time, why start ? your life will be more fulfilled if you finish three things than if you started thirty. Go through your list with this perspective and perhaps you will take the next first step with clearer eyes.

The next post will touch something most of us refuse to acknowledge as a problem.

ciao

How to finish what you started..

Its officially summer again and there are tons of stuff to do; weddings to attend, party invitations, the beach, hiking , travelling the entire works so with more time on my hands i have more time to research and write something that I’m sure will help someone and myself as it turns out become more productive.

Watching any of the talent shows or stories of people who have made some achievement or the other in a field where we feel have some competence, One refrain that is popular with people who watch or read about it is “… I’m sure I could have done it if I could just find the time to sit down and do it…”sounds familiar? Me too. I've been known to spout that line from time to time especially when I have done something that I know I could have done waay  better because I couldn't be bothered to sit down and concentrate or one other convenient reason or another. I was inspired to put something down on this subject following a stirring conversation I had with some friends over the weekend at the beach, the subject was the things that hinder people from succeeding. As it turned out we were almost unanimous in concluding that discipline and application were the single most significant determining factors that separated people who had potential and those who became successful.

For the purpose of this piece I will define discipline as an inner will or force that enables those people who have it, to stay on course and last the distance in spite of any weakness or distractions. Discipline is the ability to know first and UNDERSTAND that you have exactly 24 hours in a day and that each second you spend doing anything that does not get you where you want to go to essentially takes you away from it. This means that if you must get to where you need to get to in whatever sphere of life; academic, career, social and political, there is a need to clear your field of view of the things that can and potentially will derail you.

The Olympics are a very simple yet visceral example of the results of discipline. It comes around every four years and the athletes, who participate and win, all perform at the very peak of human capacity, nothing not even the temperature of the water that they drink is left to chance. They eat precisely measured quantities of food and exercise to specifications for almost two years or even more just so they can run 100 meters in less than 10 seconds. Pause for a second and imagine yourself living under those conditions for a week!

 The thought of it just makes you shudder. But we are all  not going to be an Usain Bolt, nor a Yelena Isinbaeva yet we do need to sit down through some unpleasantness in order to achieve aims and goals that we have set for ourselves. In order to be the best we that we can be, we need to be disciplined and consistent. We cannot however be disciplined if we do not have a focus, an aim or a destination, because discipline is only a means to an end. One cannot be disciplined without a focus or destination, but we all have destinations and dreams and the reason why most people never get there is because the just can’t find it in themselves to be disciplined and consistent. So if you are tired of being a perennial underachiever you need to ask yourself how do I become disciplined?

Let me start by saying that, being disciplined is not a thing, in the sense that it can be done like getting a haircut or a weave no! it is a gradual painstaking process that involves unlearning several behavioral patterns that we have accumulated over time and replacing them with new behavior patterns. The first step in this process is to recognize and define those things which have been distractions for you. This is perhaps the most important step to take. It involves asking yourself the critical questions of why you have not done the things you wanted to do or finished the things that you set out to do. It involves asking yourself what are the reoccurring factors in the narrative about your failures or lack of success because, if you’re honest with yourself there are very few specific obstacles that we all have and as long as they are not treated and dealt with they will reoccur in various aspects of our lives.

So take a book preferably a small one and write on one page all the things you ever tried to do and the things you wanted to achieve up until now giving each of them numbers. When you’re done, on a fresh page write the first aim or objective down and painfully tell yourself the truth about why you couldn't do them. Be honest with yourself and its very important that you write them down because writing many times provides a perspective that introspection(i.e looking into yourself) cannot provide you with, because it enables you to step back and really see the reasons in a very painful but objective way allowing you to really see yourself as you really are. Finally, writing the reasons and explanations for not finishing anything can provide some form of catharsis or healing enabling you to see the failures and knowing that you have taken the very first step in the bid to correct them.

If you do this for all of the things you wrote down earlier, you will begin to see a pattern emerging, it might be the loss of patience, the loss of interest the presence of distractions or something else entirely which appears in each and every one instance when you tried for something and did not finish it. It could be a hobby, or a friend, a place or a pattern of wrong choices which you have consistently made time and again.

The above is an exercise and you will do well to do this as much as you possibly can and be honest with yourself you could do this alone or with a friend ;A journey is always shorter with company, and a friend can provide you with an invaluable support structure. 

The next part of this post on this blog will be available by the weekend there I will talk about what to do with you findings. Remember like the Chinese say the journey of a thousand mile begins with a single step. Hang in there the best is yet to come. Till then

Ciao

If you have questions please put them in the comments section or write to me directly at lorenzodwin@gmail.com.

phew cobwebs...

It’s been a really long time since we were here. Last year presented so many challenges that I had to drop some things in order to find a new balance. Unfortunately this blog suffered. anyway i'm back And boy! were the cobwebs on this page humongous. they’re not here anymore in case you’re an arachnophobe.

Since that time I managed  to fill my days with tons of activities and books, some of which kept me away from this place, anyhow a darling friend told me how much the few articles I put up here were an interesting read so I made I promise that I would resume writing this year just so someone can benefit and be blessed by the articles. Malwi you're my inspiration

Before I post anything, I’d like to give updates on the stuff that has happened since I was last here, I’m now in my fifth year of medical school in the wonderful city of Odessa Ukraine, the students group that I lead, in this city is beginning to show better signs of vitality, and we’ll be hosting the entire country, at the international medical students conference this October 23^rd-25^th(pray for us). Ukraine has in the last few months gone through a bloody upheaval that has led to the loss of over 60 lives, as I write this some calm has returned to the polity, and reports today say that a Baptist pastor has been appointed interim president, and elections are slated for May 25^th. Please don’t stop praying for Ukraine.

In less traumatic news, in the first week of February this year I attended a delegates conference organized by the Christian Medical Fellowship in London. It was an absolutely unforgettable experience it was easily the most unforgettable two weeks of medical school for me, till the time of writing this. There were times of studying the word with a depth and robustness that I have missed since the days of my first degree, then there was the experience of people speaking English in the streets: the only way you will appreciate that is if you live in a place where your mother tongue is heard in snatches on the bus 3 times a year for the first time in a long time I could pick up conversations of people around me while listening passively. The only thing that could come close to that for satisfaction, would probably involve me, immersing my gastronomic proclivities in a celebration of culinary excellence that featured lots of meat and more meat. I had the unique opportunity to meet with young medical students that love the lord, and were sharing the travails of medical school, it was an awesome experience, I made tons of new friends and some special ones too who knows…?

As part of the program, we visited the British museum 

with a Christian archaeologist/theologian or historian (not too sure of his discipline) Jay smith, and I gained an invaluable lesson that even though until then I had accepted the bible as the infallible word of God, there were irrefutable evidences of its veracity that would stand even the most rigorous academic inquest, should the urge to question its accuracy arise.

Several archaeological discoveries like the liitle drum in the picture above,were there that reinforced the truth of the most minute details of the bible (not that it needed reinforcing). The Bible is indeed the infallible word of God, as against other religious holy books without a single piece of physical evidence to back them up even though they were waaay younger that the bible. I took the time to visit my club Arsenal FC's stadium in London. and i took some pics with some of the wonderful people that i met.

In the next few days/posts I will be talking about a lot of the various lessons that I have learnt about life, love, relationships my study of the bible and my opinions about events that are happening around me.

till the next post... ciao