How To Improve Yourself In The Next 3-5 Years

It is absolutely human of us to want instant success, instant gratification, instant happiness and instant wealth. But on the other hand, it becomes another torment just thinking about what we are facing right now in comparison to our expectation of instant goodness of life. We feel that this deal is too good to be true after trying some things that are out of our comfort zone and expecting some good reward out of it.

When building your 20 one bedroomed apartment, it will take you 6-9 months depending on the factors of architecture and financing for its completion and maybe on the 9^th month with favorability swinging your side, you may get tenants filling all your 20 units. But wait, for you to enjoy rent, you have a loan to pay and remember the bank granting you a loan gave you a grace-period which is interest accrued and you must pay as an additional cost to your loan. It may take you, let say 3-5 years to complete paying the loan but is worth it? Yes, it is.

As patient as a certain landlord paying his loan for 20 units apartments so we ought to be patient to build ourselves in which your rewards will be experienced in 3 to 5 years to come according to your life purpose.  Let’s glide into the 7 take home points that you can bank on.

1.   Go the extra mile- Don’t ask permission to give more and better service to your family, your employer, your friends, your neighbors or even your enemies, just do it. Get into the habit of doing extra and in a special way and mark excellence. We should expect excellent things so we must contribute to excellence by going the extra mile.

2.   See value in people- Treat people with value, which instinctively means value yourself, then you will be able to value others and the value will return to you. In short, be human to all regardless of race, tribe and creed.

3.   Invest in yourself – You can never be better than who you are today without reading, studying and learning. It doesn’t mean you need a Ph.D. in what you do but to identify what is your purpose, then with the curiosity of a child start to ask the right questions to what you can do to achieve your purpose. You can enroll courses related to your purpose, attending seminars or just buy books which is the most inexpensive form of education- Someone spends the time to write them in order to add value to our lives (an investment made to you if you only choose to read these books)

4.   See value in what you do- with a purpose in hand, you will understand what you are doing is important. It may be your job, your salary, your loans/debts and your assets. Your job may be employment or your own business. You value it so that you can concentrate on bringing the value of excellence and we know that excellent things are surely rewardable. Your salary for the employed is the main source to build up your own financial dynasty for your family. Your loans and debts play a big role in bringing your vision of success much faster than your savings can do within the reason of investment not spending.  Your assets are the fruits originating from your job, your salary, your savings, your investment loans and your sole efforts of going the extra mile.

5.   See value in failure- There are many things we understand outside the arena of failure but we get something new something profound in our failure if we choose to look at it that way. Failure is not in a real sense permanent but a temporary defeat. It has a time limit in that it has a beginning and an ending. Like Robert Kiyosaki puts it Being broke is temporary, but poverty is eternal. Poverty is looking at failure like it is permanent – we are not learning, we are hopeless, we are resentful of other people’s progress and we loathe ourselves. That is poverty – burying your one talent in the earth and blaming everybody for your fear of failure. Failure being temporary is a guide with a universal language showing you the wrong way so that you can look further to the right road to your purpose.

6.   Try something new – It’s insane to do the same thing over and over again and expecting different results as well stated by Albert Einstein. Deliberately, go the extra mile to do something new but we must be clear about this. We must first learn about it, study it and practice it to achieve mastery and produce excellent quality from our service.

7.   Retire early – “I never resign until I die” (our African Politician mindset) should not be existing in our minds, our hearts or our purpose. Retire early means working hard with the purpose of being financially independent. It is earning from our inner resources without necessarily working because you have but because you want to.

8.   Bonus- Carry heavy- We should seek not to meet our daily needs, our monthly needs but our semi-annual needs and annual needs. We ought to focus on how to afford to live our lives unchanged at the face of unemployment or financial disaster that may occur in our lives. It is not about you and your family. Seek to be more productive, financially free, more generous, more supportive, more intelligent, more creative and more and more. Carry heavy means to build yourself to more dependable, reliable, loyal, positive and more faithful to meet your family, your friends, your neighbor and your enemies. Have something you in your pocket at all times- financial threshold in your wallet that can assist you or your fellow man’s needs.

Liabilities into assets.

In the holiday seasons, there is one thing we need to know that January will always be January whether we are broke or not. We must assume the rightful powers and authorities over our lives. And one to do in conjunction with our creator is we better our liabilities into assets. Liabilities are things that take money from our pockets while assets put money in our pocket (Robert Kiyosaki's simple definition). There are two kinds of liabilities namely:

1. External liabilities are the Financial ones that take money out of your pocket. These are loans and debts, mortgage, car loan, advances, credit cards, payday loans ( one month repayable loans)

2. Internal liabilities are the mental one, the ones that are unseen or unsubstantiated as a liability. These are the negative emotions, habits and attitudes. These are anger, hostility, hatred, competition, fear, anxiety, worry, envy, jealousy, guilt, contempt, greed and dishonesty and other survival emotions, habits and attitudes that steal away your resourcefulness to your ideal world - your future.

The law of correspondence states that as within so without, as above so below. This refers to our outer world is nothing more than a reflection of our inner world. Our inner world is our mind, our heart, our spirit and our soul. What foundation have we laid on ourselves to become who we are today and that is why we are referring to them as internal liabilities.

A good man brings good things out of the good stored up in him, and an evil man brings evil things out of the evil stored up in him. (Matthew 12:37) The Bible points the law of correspondence what is within you is revealed from your thoughts, your speech, your actions and motives.

Our mind, heart, spirit and soul brings out our personality and this is where our personality becomes a liability or an asset. Yet again, I am driven to define two words again but I will do it in another way. Assets are things that increase in value over time while liabilities are things that diminish in value. So our personality being the total sum of thoughts, habits and emotions, it is either invaluable personality or worth-less personality. In other words, our personality is either pleasant or unpleasant.

During our holiday joy of giving gifts to ourselves and everybody, we showed pleasantries to everyone which is quite commendable to do so in every respect but it must done under restraint. It is this sharp balance of giving and saving which brings us to the habit of frugality. As we enjoy our December holidays, we must be mindful about January. Create space for yourself and your family to get you through January - make sure you have your shopping that will get you through to the end of January.

In Kenya, January has a nickname called Njaanuary which comes from the Swahili word " Njaa" which means hunger. The word is merged with January. January is usually hotest month of the year and there is no rain for that ideal traditional farming. It is the driest month of the year in Africa -a famine month you can say. But the circumstances or conditions of this month is by no means to make us think that it is a tough month, no we are tougher than this month. Transmute your liability into an asset -your asset and stop blaming Njaanuary for your December spending.

How to transmute your liabilities to your assets

1. Change your personality from a liability to an asset - Get off the horse ride of the victim hood and ride the horse of victor. As I said earlier, get rid of negative emotions and habits and replace them with positive thoughts, emotions and habits. Practise virtues, good thoughts and emotions and build them up into habits that will attract the things that you want in your life. Develop a pleasant personality is an asset that will appreciate in value  and income every time it's in use. 

2. Stop blaming January for your December spending -You are in control over life and it is within your will to enjoy at the right place and right time. Do not be a victim of circumstance, accept the failure and learn from it and plan ahead. The next time January knocks your door, you will be ready waiting for him or her. Ha ha. We cannot control the nature of January but we have full control of our thoughts, ideas and perceptive about how to handle January.

3. Establish your laws, your values and your principles - Have your own values, laws and principles to govern over your thoughts, your emotions, your habits and your actions to get the right results. January may be the worst enemy but do not forget that the end of January does not mean your rainy months of blessings are on the way and you have not planted anything. Plant those values, those laws and principles into your mind, heart and soul to furnish your future with a year of 12 December holidays instead of 12 January famine months and say 2019 was a bad year. No, it is your fault, there is no such thing as a bad year, you were lazy to think. Get up and do something for you, you are not lazy. You have energy. You have life and full of it with talents and abilities unknown to you.

4. Financial skills are learnable - Be student, don't be follower. Let the past be your school and make the promise your future dear, the price will be easy to pay (Jim Rohn's qualifying words). What am I talking about. I am talking about you being financially independent. What does it take for you to be financially independent? Who should I talk to about this matter? When you begin to ask the right questions, you are on your way to a beautiful place where everything of beauty grows. Learn how to be financially independent is a wonderful gift you can give yourself and everybody who comes into contact with you.

5. Show gratitude -It is in the giving where receiving occurs. Giving a helping hand to those people who face a year of 12 January months. Share a part of yourself with others in dire need. This act of generosity goes up as thanksgiving and comes down as things falling into place -that is the greed, jealousy and envy together with negative mental enemies of mind will be vacated out of place. For negative thoughts and emotions cannot exist in a positive mind and vice versa. Therefore the joy of giving is complete and you will be happy to see that you have added value to that person in need. A good deed will never go unrewarded, sooner or later, the law of increasing return will work to multiply your service to rewards. 

He replied, “Because you have so little faith. Truly I tell you, if you have faith as small as a mustard seed, you can say to this mountain, ‘Move from here to there,’ and it will move. Nothing will be impossible for you.” Matthew 17:20