We can make 2013 our best year ever. It is a matter of choice in paying the price in doing our part. A lot of things have been written about 2012. For many, it was the worst year in living memory. For me, it was my best year ever. I have seen God crown my efforts with success in an unprecedented way. The year of course had its own challenges, including personal and national tragedies. There are certain things we do not have control over. I remember growing up, the serenity prayer whose rhyme sounded fascinating but whose import I never grasped until much later in life:
God grant me
The serenity to accept the things I cannot change
The courage to change the things I can
And the wisdom to know the difference
For most of us, especially in the area of business, finance and relationships (communication), we lack the wisdom to know the difference. We ask for serenity to wait for the things we can change to change by themselves. According to the late Jim Rohn, acclaimed as America’s foremost business philosopher;
– If you will change, everything will change
– To have more, you need to become more
– Don’t wish for things to get easier, wish that you get better
– Don’t wish for less problems, wish for more skills
– Success is something you attract by the person you become. Success is not something you pursue. Success is something you attract by becoming an attractive person
The summary is that you have to set yourself up for success by working on yourself. You prepare for war in time of peace. The outbreak of war is not the time to enrol in the Defence Academy. That is too late. God will pass the ball, but it is your responsibility to score the goal. If you are not ready and prepared, no matter how beautiful the pass, you will miss the shot.
Let me give you a simple illustration. A building contractor believes God for a financial breakthrough, and daily bombards Heaven with his request, doing all he knows how to ask. Let’s say the opportunity presents itself and he messes up the job. He becomes an embarrassment to the person who linked him up to get the job. He will not be given other jobs, and no amount of prayer and fasting will change things. A story goes that when the male lion wakes up in the morning, he stretches, announces his presence with a bone chilling roar and prays a simple prayer:
God, show me the animal that is my lunch today and leave the rest to me.
Our success in 2013 will depend on how much we cooperate with Heaven. Prayer, giving and confession alone are not enough. Faith without work is dead. We have to roll up our sleeves and change the things we can.
We need a new mindset, new thoughts, attitudes and beliefs about ourselves. We need new goals – spiritual, mental, physical, financial, relationship, career etc. We need new skills, new habits, new information, and new way of looking at things. What we have so far has brought us this far. We have reached the last bus stop and the bus is not going farther than this. To move forward, we have to leave the old bus and join a new bus. We have to leave the old behind and embrace the new. We cannot do the same old things and expect a new result. We have to raise our standards. We have to go where we have not gone before and do what we have not done before. We need to go the extra mile. We need to exceed our former limits. We need to move to the next level.
Our best years are ahead of us. They will not manifest through slogans for the year only. It is when opportunity meets preparation that miracles happen. The supernatural happens when the super meets the natural. We have encompassed this mountain long enough. It is time to blow the trumpet and move camp. We can make 2013 the best year of our life and 2014 even better. Happy New Year!
Usiere Uko is editor of www.financialfreedominspiration.com and author of Practical Steps to Financial Freedom and Independence – www.amazon.com/Practical-Steps-Financial-Freedom-Independence/dp/147006832X .
A few days ago, someone said to me – “wow! The year went by so fast, I can’t believe we’ve got just 3 weeks left!”
I find it interesting that early in the year, most people count how many days or months in the year have been ‘spent’. E.g. By the 1st of February, people say – one month of the year is gone. However, towards the end of the year, most people talk in terms of – how many days or months are left. Some begin to rush to get many things accomplished when it dawns on them that the “time left” is dwindling.
In life also, you may have noticed people’s disposition to the change in time frames from “time since birth” to “time left to live”. For most people, this change occurs around age 40. Let’s face it, most youth count from “time since birth” and they always think they have time. A man once narrated his plans for his retirement to me; he assumed he had a superb plan as he beamed with one of the best smiles I have ever seen when he told me how he would spend his “time left to live” mainly doing God’s work. I asked him these questions: What about your “time since birth”; whose work would you be majoring on during this period? Your work? You bet he didn’t like my questions.
My message for today is simple – you need to ensure you work with the calendar of God for your life. Don’t reserve the main thing you should be doing in life for your “time left to live”. Ephesians 5:16 says – redeeming the time because the days are evil. By age 30, Jesus’ steps were already treading towards the finish line of his purpose. How old are you? If you cannot walk with God today along purpose lane, don’t be too sure you will do so tomorrow. Whatever you are going to become tomorrow, you are already becoming today. A bird-like creature cannot be too sure to realize its dream to be a cock if it is not like a chick today. That mammal with four legs should not think it will be a lion at its “time left to live” when it is just a cat at its “time since birth”. If God wanted Jack and John to live 70 years, I don’t think in His wisdom that He would want 50 of those years to be wasted. Every day counts in the kingdom. Give your best shot for God daily. Make your life count by making every moment count … for God!
Tope Aladenusi
Life is full of choices. We make them every second. Conscious choices and unconscious ones. Good or bad, those choices affect and reflect our lives. Every choice we make is multidimensional. That means it affects us in more than one way. The choice we make affects us and those we did not make also affects us positively or negatively. However, considering the choice we are not making is very important in establishing a right decision.
There is always an “alternative forgone” whenever a decision is made. It is called “opportunity cost”. Opportunity cost is important in making financial decisions. Onegood way of making sound financial decisions and creating long term wealth is to always consider the alternative we forgo when we spend money or borrow money. The virtuous woman of Proverbs 31 is said to “…consider a field and buys it”. She weighs her options, various alternatives before she makes a decision. I like that.
Let’s take two scenarios to illustrate. First, when we spend money and Secondly, when we loan money. If you decide to spend just one minute less on phone calls every day and we assume the monetary value of that one minute is 1(currency). You forgo one minute and you gain 1(yen, dollar, naira etc). If you do that daily and invest it for 30years at an average of 10%, you will be worth over 1.5million. Wow! For each “just a minute please” you spend on the phone you forgo 1.5million in thirty years. Imagine if you decide to reduce your call expenses by 1/4 –you might be worth 10million in 10years. So considering the opportunity cost of making a call might make all the difference in your life.
Also if you decide to loan money to buy a car today, you get comfort, mobility, prestige and so on. But what do you forgo: You forgo the compounded interest on the principal, the compounded interest on the interest you pay the bank and also the compounded interest on the interest both principal and interest would have earned. So while you lose all these at the end of the loan period you have nothing but a seriously depreciated vehicle. Two zero in my opinion. Considering the opportunity cost, the alternative you forgo sure makes a difference.
Please don’t lose the message; it is not meant to stop you from making relevant calls or buying new cars. It’s just a reminder that before we make any financial decision, we should ask ourselves “WHAT IS THE OPPORTUNITY COST”.
– emmanuel aladenusi
