Tag Archives: Hardwork

The Greatest Success Possible

The Greatest Success Possible: Self-actualization. Self determination. Hard work. Achievement. Success. A pleased God. Reward.

I was on a church retreat recently that spoke on Jeremiah 2. During a quiet moment with the Lord, surrounded in a world of self-actualization and self-determination, a sudden hard truth impressed me. Regardless of your primary purpose or calling or destiny in this life, you’re actually incapable of doing it. Doesn’t matter what it is, you are incapable of performing the one thing you are created to do by design.

Despite your most intense focus, intention, and effort, you cannot glorify God. By your own efforts, you cannot please Him. Think about that and let it sink in. How could a finite and defective being, even one that’s been redeemed by Christ, ever please an infinite and perfect one? (Isaiah 64:6) By your own efforts, you cannot stop sinning. You cannot add one day to your life. And you cannot achieve anything at all truly great. You simply lack the capability to do so on your own.

We may immediately think of some superstar celebrity names that achieved greatness. Well greatness by our standards. Truly I tell you if they did it on their own then whatever they achieved was far less than what God designed them to be. They failed. Funny, the one thing we all were ultimately created for: to glorify God, is actually the one thing we are most incapable of doing.

Depressed? It may seem sad, but it’s by design.

“My people have committed two sins: they have forsaken me, the spring of living water. They have been for themselves cisterns, broken cisterns, that can hold no water.” – Jeremiah 2:13

The harder you try to make yourself under your own power a usable cistern, the more useless you become to God. Even when grace saves you under Jesus, if you continue to power forward under your own might, you’ll fail to please Him.

Only God can glorify Himself. Only infinite and eternal can satisfy infinite and eternal.

So the only way you can please God, your actual ultimate destiny regardless of what your calling may be, is to be as humble as possible. Be honest with your inner core of your condition of a being as useful as a broken cistern, sinful and useless under your own strength.

“The sacrifice you desire is a broken spirit. You will not reject a broken and repentant heart O God.” – Psalm 51:17

It is through humbly becoming as much of a shell and clearing out your own determination, drive, and passions that God can finally fill Himself in you as a usable vessel. This is in stark contrast to our current culture’s understanding. It’s by breaking yourself down into a limp puppet that God can finally attach His strings. He brings you to true animated life. Then and only then when you have “self-actualized” yourself to what you really are (nothing) and have identified your greatest capability (completely incapable) is when God can finally assume control. He uses you for your real destiny. This will now be 100% by His hand alone and not one iota of your humanity.

Related Post: The Greatness of Humility

Logically, the only thing we humans are ever in control of, is the first step: removing our pride. We were never in control and capable of anything. Under God’s rule and measurement of true success, our own power and strength exists for the sole purpose of removing our own power and strength. We are to make room for *His* power and strength. Hence, the greatest thing we could ever actually “do” for God is to “undo” ourselves.

This post won’t be possible without the inspiration and support of Jesse Hunter.

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5 Simple Steps To Re-activate Yourself, If You Work Hard With No Results

Tips for life.

You’ve spent a lot of time, energy, effort and money to achieve your goal.

You’ve even sacrificed your favorite TV shows, shopping, dating, and your sleep. You utterly, wholeheartedly want to succeed.

And yet your results seem insignificant.

It’s frustrating, isn’t it?

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But remember this: “Giving up on your goal because of one setback is like slashing your other three tires because you got a flat.”

It’s not the time to give up yet.

Here are 5 simple steps to revive your motivation and keep going.

1) Take a Vacation and Rest

“When all else fails, take a vacation.” – Betty Williams

You have been striving hard for so long. If you feel you can’t go any further, stop, rest, and travel. Detach yourself from seeking for solutions, forget those miseries, and just have fun. Besides refreshing yourself, you may even gain new insights and inspirations.

2) Do Some Revision

“Efforts and courage are not enough without purpose and direction.” – John F. Kennedy

Of course you have a target. But it’s easy to lose focus when you’re too busy working on your plans. Revise again – What’s the reason that you want to reach the goal? Write and rewrite it on papers. Then imagine the excitement and contentment when you finally succeed. Keep that fire and march on.

3) Make a Different

“Be stubborn about your goals, and flexible about your methods.” – Anonymous

Don’t just work hard without reflection, you are not a cow. If things don’t turn out well, dwell on other possibilities. You can observe others’ strategies or ask your friends for suggestions. Most importantly, dare to make changes, reflect, and improve again. Continuous trying brings progress.

4) Believe

“If a goal or dream is slow in coming, envision it on a delivery truck, just a wee bit stuck in traffic, but still headed toward you.” – Karen Salmansohn

If you start to doubt your abilities, you have lost half of the battle. This is because you will tend to put less effort, passion, and love to your work. To gain confidence, praise yourself for managing to come this far. You’re halfway there. Don’t worry about failure; just do your best.

5) Be Patience

“The key to everything is patience. You get the chicken by hatching the egg, not by smashing it.” – Arnold H. Glasgow

Understand that great things take time. After all, an oyster needs around 7 years to make a pearl. So don’t feel sorry for yourself, and avoid comparing yourself to other people’s achievements. The truth is that there’s no overnight success. You need to go through this journey filled with challenges, trials, and errors to become smarter and better. Just carry on, persist!

You see, sometimes what you need is just a change of attitude and approach to help you get over the hump and be ready to keep fighting for your goal.

Do you have other tips to pick yourself up? Please share with us in the comments.

 

Photo credit: Google Images

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Live And Work

A Father was a hardworking man who delivered bread as a living to support his wife and three children. He spent all his evenings after work attending classes, hoping to improve himself so that he could one day find a better paying job. Except for Sundays, Father hardly ate a meal together with his family. He worked and studied very hard because he wanted to provide his family with the best money could buy.

Whenever the family complained that he was not spending enough time with them, he reasoned that he was doing all this for them. But he often yearned to spend more time with his family.

The day came when the examination results were announced. To his joy, Father passed, and with distinctions too! Soon after, he was offered a good job as a senior supervisor which paid handsomely.

Like a dream come true, Father could now afford to provide his family with life’s little luxuries like nice clothing, fine food and vacation abroad.

However, the family still did not get to see father for most of the week. He continued to work very hard, hoping to be promoted to the position of manager. In fact, to make himself a worthily candidate for the promotion, he enrolled for another course in the open university.

Again, whenever the family complained that he was not spending enough time with them, he reasoned that he was doing all this for them. But he often yearned to spend more time with his family.

Father’s hard work paid off and he was promoted. Jubilantly, he decided to hire a maid to relieve his wife from her domestic tasks. He also felt that their three-room flat was no longer big enough, it would be nice for his family to be able to enjoy the facilities and comfort of a condominium. Having experienced the rewards of his hard work many times before, Father resolved to further his studies and work at being promoted again. The family still did not get to see much of him. In fact, sometimes Father had to work on Sundays entertaining clients. Again, whenever the family complained that he was not spending enough time with them, he reasoned that he was doing all this for them. But he often yearned to spend more time with his family.

As expected, Father’s hard work paid off again and he bought a beautiful condominium overlooking the coast of Singapore. On the first Sunday evening at their new home, Father declared to his family that he decided not to take anymore courses or pursue any more promotions. From then on he was going to devote more time to his family.

Father did not wake up the next day.

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Things Change #inspiration #motivation

For most people, graduation is an exciting day – the culmination of years of hard work. My graduation

day was a day to remember.

I remember that weekend 8 years ago. Family and friends had flown in from across the country to watch me walk across that stage. But like everyone else in my graduating class, I had watched the economy turn from bad to worse my senior year. After the university, I went on a compulsory full National Youth Service Corp for a year, which was mandatory for all graduates in my country. We worked and got paid by the government and where we worked. After a year, we are done with the programme. We graduates had degrees, but very limited prospects. Numerous applications had not panned out and I knew that the next day, I will start to carter for myself.
The weeks ahead weren’t easy. I gathered up everything I couldn’t carry and put it into storage. Then, because I knew where I was coming from, they couldn’t offer me any opportunities, I packed up and went back to Lagos to find work. But what I thought would take a week dragged into two, and then four, and 100 job applications later, I found myself in the exact same spot as I was before.
You know that feeling when you wake up and you are just consumed with dread? Dread about something you can’t control – that sense of impending failure that lingers over you as you hope that everything that happened to you thus far was just a bad dream? That feeling became constant in my life.
Days felt like weeks, weeks like months, and those many months felt like an unending eternity of destitution. And the most frustrating part was no matter how much I tried, I just couldn’t seem to make any progress.
So what did I do to maintain my sanity? I wrote. Something about putting words on a page made everything seem a little clearer – a little brighter. Something about writing gave me hope. And if you want something badly enough… sometimes a little hope is all you need!
I channeled my frustration into creating an entertaining blog. Where I vent in current entertainment news and some personal write up. I got used to blogging and started making some small change and recognition. Never did I refuse to give up.
And then one day, without any sort of writing degree or contacts in the writing world – just a lot of hard work and perseverance – I was offered a job with a media house to be a writer/ Public Relations Officer to some of the biggest artists in my country. After that, things slowly began to fall into place. Then, a few months later, I got an interview with a telecommunications company to be the Admin Officer of the company. Now I found my part in writing and spreading the good news around for people who are depressed or unmitigated to move on in life. I stopped the entertainment blog and created this wonderful blog “Motivated And Free”. To help people, and also draw them close to Christ.
The moral of this story is… don’t give up. Even if things look bleak now, don’t give up. Several years back, it was a different story for me. But I thank God for His grace and mercy with continuous favour in my daily activities.
If you work hard, give it time, and don’t give up, things will always get better. Oftentimes our dreams lie in wait just a little further upstream… all we need is the courage to push beyond the river.

I will appreciate if this is shared to your loved ones, family, and enemies. Let us kick depression out of the way.

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