It is a universally acknowledged truth that the only thing standing between you and your goals is YOU; the things YOU do and things YOU don’t.
Blame yourself if you’ve not been able to achieve anything since schools closed down.
At a time, you’ve wished to learn a new language, learn an art, improve your handwriting, acquire a new skill and a lot more on the list, but you haven’t been able to JUST DO IT.
The question you should ask yourself is why? Why haven’t you been able to DO IT? Why haven’t you been able to achieve those things, start up that thing, or acquire those skills? Why have your wishes not come true?
I bet every answer you can come up with would still be pointing to you and things you let affect you.
I believe a large percentage of us during this whole situation, would have taken a course or two.
We’ve probably watched YouTube videos on “How to…” or googled new things that could be engaged in. We’ve joined WhatsApp groups and we’ve signed up for classes. This shows that we want to start breaking barriers and start raising bars for ourselves. We really want to do something for US.
It could be that we intend to do those things for the love of improving ourselves. It could be so we can increase our source of income, for the fun of it or to kill boredom. And some of us are just bagging the skills up to fill our resumé.
As Medics, it is indisputable that our life revolves around our academics. Whether we admit it or not, we all tend to put our studies first in most, if not all that we do. For most people, it will be like that from the year they matriculated to the year they’ll have their convocation/ induction. School, school, school, school and only school!
Maybe that’s not really how we want it. We all wish to do other things besides Medicine(or whatever field we’re in). We want to have side skills or hustles. We want to have befitting sources of income —at least till we start earning through our years of education— We just have things stopping us; we have things in our way, or rather, things we’ve allowed to stand in our way.
Things like;
PROCRASTINATION: We believe there is always later.
“I would love to know how to do this, I’ll learn later. I’d like to know how to bake cakes, I’ll learn later”.
Really? You think there’s later? Trust me, when we resume(for those who haven’t) school programmes will move like Flash. There’s no time to waste. This is probably the last long break we’ll ever have, ever. If not, then expect the next one to be after your retirement. Stop being lazy, stop saying you’ll do it later. Mostimes later becomes never.
JUSTIFICATION: We all seem to have excuses for whatever we have failed to do. That excuse you always give is in fact, a lie which you tell yourself and try to make others believe. It’s nothing but a flimsy self defence mechanism.
“The reason why I haven’t started is because I don’t have this, I don’t have that,I don’t know how it’s done, I can’t do it, I don’t have time, I don’t know what people will think, I might not be able to do it well, I might not blah blah blah”.
My dear, improvise. Start with what you have, start from somewhere. Rome, as they say, wasn’t built in a day. Stop blaming circumstances, stop making excuses, excuses are nothing but well planned lies.
FEAR: “I want to do this but I’m afraid of the outcome. What if I can’t figure this out? What if it doesn’t become a success? What if it doesn’t work out?”
Ask yourself, What if it DOES work? You’ll never know if it will work out till you actually do it.
Taking risks is human, after all.
COMFORT ZONE: “My parents have more than enough to cater for me. I am shy. I don’t need to acquire a new skill. I’m perfectly okay the way I am.”
Come off it, will you? There’s nothing like ‘I’m perfectly okay the way I am’. You need to improve as a human. How many markets do you know with a single entrance? Come out of your comfort zone and see how better you can become. Imagine resuming next week for you to be the same person you were in January; with no change whatsoever in what you know and/or can do.
Great things never come from comfort zones.
If this whole pandemic situation has made me realise anything, it’s that; THERE IS MORE TO LIFE THAN SCHOOL.
This whole thing would be over soon and we’ll all go back to the lives we used to live; our academics.
After that, it won’t matter how much you read during the break but how much you learnt. Later, it won’t matter how much you learnt but how much you implemented.
I implore you to stop researching and learning how to do things without actually doing them.
I believe that at a point in time we’ve had to google search or watch a video on how to do something, and we never tried that thing out after learning it. That’s not the way things are done. You’ll really never know how much you’ve learnt until you put the knowledge to use.
All that has been said should not be understood as you needing to put pressure on yourself or to start up anything illegal to feel among. Don’t feel you have to do something because others are doing it. We all discover ourselves in different ways.
We should all face our books as much as we can but at the same time, not limit our future to whatever comes out of our education. Let’s not assume the pay from our future jobs would be very sufficient to live the lives we wish for.
To those who have realised long ago that there’s more to life than just school, don’t stop where you are. Keep going and keep growing. Improve on what you’re already doing. Learn more skills that’ll make you better at what you do, but don’t try to do too many things at the same time, hence, you end up not doing anything meaningful at all. Don’t be a Jack of all trades and master of none.
To the ones who planned to finish the syllabus during this break, what exactly have you allowed to stand between you and your goal? You can still do it.
If academics is your only calling, there is nothing wrong with that. As long as you’re not deliberately limiting your prowess. Do what you know how to do and do it well.
I know this is definitely not the first time you’ll come across advice like the ones I’ve given, you’ve just always discarded them. Try not to discard this one. Get up now, work on whatever you’ve gained from this boring article, and in the nearest future, I pray that you’ll be happy that you did.
I’d like to wrap it up with my 5 best tips that I hope would be of help:
- Stop
- Wishing
- And
- Start
- Doing!
Your wants or wishes won’t get you anywhere, only actions will.
You want to take that graphics designing course? Take it. You wish to start a YouTube channel? Start it. You want to attend that photography class? Attend it. You wish to have a flawless skin? Start working towards it. You want to learn more about your religion? Learn it! You want to be a fashion designer or a make up artist? Get into it. You want to hit the gym to get your dream body? Hit it. You want to take that culinary course? Take it. You want to be an entrepreneur? Be it. You wish to grow your business? Grow it. You want to sign up for that writing class? Sign up. You want to read your books? Read it!
This is a reminder to myself before others; Let’s push ourselves to success as much as we can, and not allow our imaginations to be our limitations.
Written by Bint Hussein(H.K), University of Ilorin, Kwara State, Nigeria
Awwwnn.Thanks so much for this..I feel like this write up was written especially for me…Thank you very much…❤
You’re welcome💝. Hope you took most if not all of the advice.
Woww 😊
Thanks so much for this piece
You’re welcome🌟
This is a fantastic write up!!!
The writer is very good!✨✨
💝💝💝 Thank you soooo much. This made me smile like crazyyy.
Wow….this is indeed so inspiring thanks dear ……there is more to life than school……
I hope it didn’t just inspire you but also motivated you to take a bold step. You’re welcome.💖
And since it inspired you, why not share the link with your friends. So they can read and be inspired too 😉#wink.
Why not “your limitations are nothing but your imaginations and commitments.”??
Meaning nothing is gonna stop me except my imagination & my commitment towards it.
Sometimes do have lots of wild imaginations but without my commitment towards carrying out that task, it’s more like am just challenging myself and ending up not doing that stuff eventually or I keep on procrastinating.
So what have discovered is that, my wild imaginations aren’t enough but also have to commit myself towards achieving that goal.
Without commitment , I find myself in a loophole cuz I can’t even solve those problems and challenges.
So my limitations are nothing but my imaginations and commitments.