Living Beyond The Certificate

1. Why are you here?

Why are you here? Why are you enrolled in a higher institution? Why are you studying that course  of yours? Did you choose it or “they” gave it to you? Answering these questions goes a long way in unlocking the answer to the more fundamental question: Why are you aiming for the certificate? 95% of students in higher institutions of learning are there because it's the “natural thing”, that is, the next step in their life cycle. 

Nowadays, it's only natural to be sent off to school: Nursery, Primary, Secondary and then a Higher institution. After getting the degree, what's next? NYSC and then the job search (Yes, these are the next natural progressions).

I am not condemning this approach to life, but I always ask myself: must everybody follow this pattern? Shall we consider this? It is compulsory for every child to receive basic education and it is a great evil to deny children this fundamental human right. The definition of basic education varies from place to place. In Nigeria, basic education is specified as getting educated to the Junior School leaving certificate level (JSCE) that is the basic educational level parents are expected to give their children. This means that after your “Junior WAEC”, you are literate enough to decide your next actions. Of course, nowadays we have even B. Sc holders that are illiterates, but that's another topic for another day.

At JSCE level, the child is expected to make a decision that will define his/her life. You decide in which areas of life you want to function. Senior secondary school gives you three options: Sciences, Arts or Commercial studies. Then I begin to wonder; what if I am interested in functioning in other areas of life not covered by senior secondary? What if I'm interested in becoming a professional footballer, a musician or a tailor? Where would I fit into under this scheme?

A footballer is better off learning at a football academy like Pepsi Football academy than learning History, Literature,  and Government in the arts department of a Senior Secondary school. But if the footballer dares to leave school and enroll at a football academy, he is immediately labeled a “drop out” and made to feel inferior by the society, so most times everyone takes the next normal step and advances to senior secondary school. And that’s when dreams and passions start to die.

Dear Friend, no matter the nature of the answers you provided, there are many ways by which you can still improve yourself. The main key to unlocking our potentials and deciding what to do with our lives is finding our place.

2. Find Your Place
There are over Seven billion people on earth, yet each one is unique and distinct from the other! Each person has his/her own areas of strength, weaknesses and opportunities. There is a place each of us is meant to function, a space no one else can fill. Have you found your purpose? You are not on earth by mistake, there is a reason you are here and your first assignment is to find it out. Do you have a reason to keep living or you are just living, taking each day as it comes? Do you have anything you are aiming at?

If all you are aiming at presently is graduating with a first class, the question is after the first class, what next?
There is nothing wrong with aiming for a first class certificate, the point I'm drawing your attention to is that your certificate is actually a means to an end. It's not the end in itself. Your certificate is neither a meal ticket nor a ticket to fulfillment in life. Your certificate becomes useful if and only if it is in line with your purpose.

Finding your place is not optional, it is very compulsory and crucial to having a fulfilling and rewarding life, it is your purpose that will determine what tools you need to equip yourself with. Whenever someone fails to find his place, things get misplaced.

Finding your purpose
If you want to discover your true purpose in life, you must first empty your mind of all the false purposes you've been taught (including the idea that you may have no purpose at all).

How then do we find our purpose?
There are many ways of finding it; I'll share some methods with you. First of all, finding your purpose isn’t actually finding, it's more like learning. Finding means to come upon, sometimes by accident, but finding purpose is more of learning, it's a picture that usually gets clearer as the days go by.

It's ok to feel very confused about your purpose at first or to get a vague picture at first, but as each day goes by, you'll get more understanding of it. The following exercise will help you discover your purpose: Only you can find or learn your purpose, no one else can find it for you. The most anyone else can do for you in this area is to guide you.

You will need to sit down and ask yourself some deep questions. I always believe that whenever we ask the right questions, we unlock the right answers.

Ask Yourself:
What are my talents/gifts?
What are the things I am passionate about?
What are the things that pain me or make me mad?

A proper and honest breakdown of these questions will help you find your place. Most of the time, we use our talents in areas of passions to fulfill purpose. Take a look around you; there are many problems, which one do you think you can solve with your talents?

As with all matters of the heart, when you find your purpose, you will just know it! Most times, we use all our talents (no matter how multi-talented you are, it will align) in areas of passions to fulfill purpose.

Here is another small exercise you can do to assist you better:
1. Take out a blank sheet of paper.
2. Write at the top, “What is my true purpose in life?”
3. Write an answer (any answer) that pops into your head. It doesn't have to be a complete sentence. A short phrase is fine.
4. Repeat step 3 until you write the answer that makes you cry. This is your purpose.

Try it and see what you come up with. To some people this exercise will make perfect sense. To others it will seem utterly stupid. Usually it takes 20 - 30 minutes to clear your head of all the garbage and the social conditioning about what you think your purpose in life is. The false answers will come from your mind, your memories and your environment. But when the true answer finally arrives, it will feel like it’s coming to you from a different source entirely.

You can also find your purpose by asking the Manufacturer: A manufacturer always has a purpose for whatever he manufactures. We have a manufacturer: God and we even have a user manual: God’s word, the Holy Bible.

The bible says in Jeremiah 1:5 (NLT version) “I knew you before I formed you in your mother’s womb. Before you were born I set apart and appointed you as my prophet to the nations.” From this verse we can deduce clearly that God has a purpose for everyone, before they are even conceived. You can (and should) ask God for your purpose, He knows it because He created you for that purpose! Draw close to God and ask him in prayers, He will tell you and even help you fulfill it.

Once you correctly identify your purpose, you can now draw out a plan of how you are going to get there. Your purpose determines what level of education you will need, other skills like leadership, communication, relational skills you have to learn, who you will marry and when you will marry. Your purpose will give you a DREAM. A dream is the mental picture of a preferred future; it is that picture of what you want your life to become.

Find your place and work towards fulfilling your dreams, live your dreams every day.

3. Increase Your Value
In life, everything around us has a value we attach to it. Even in our relationships with people, we value some
friendships more than others. Dictionary.com simply defines value as “worth or importance”. Mathematically, we can say that the level of success you can attain in life is directly proportional to the amount of value you have inside of you. In simple English: The more value you have, the higher your chances of success in life.

The questions we ought to ask ourselves frequently are:
1. What is my worth?
2. How have I increased my worth today?

You should make it a point of duty to consciously increase your value on a daily basis. You can think of this as the habit of fattening rams before a festival, any farmer who fails to fatten his ram fails to make sales because little or no value can be perceived in his ram. Similarly the world will only pay you for what you know i.e. the amount of value you have within. Indeed, information is crucial for survival in this age.

How to Increase your value
1. Read for Life: The sole reason many of us read is to pass exams, so we read not to learn but to scale the present hurdles: certificates, CGPA. We need to stop the mindless cramming! Whenever you learn something, it is for life. It is the amount of information you receive that will reform you and make you better.

Some people will even complain that their courses are too abstract (especially science students) or unnecessary. You need to change that mindset. The PHY 101, MTS 101 are the little building blocks that will form a better you.

Great men always have great minds, they build their minds, and honestly you cannot build a great mind by reading only school books, you need to expand your horizon. There are different areas of life, and you need to pay attention to all of them. In most cases, school only prepares you for your career. It is now left for you to prepare yourself in the other areas by reading sound books. In today's world, you can be an academic genius but still be an imbecile in other important areas.

Well, what should I read? That is the question that usually follows, my response is usually the same: You have to read sound books that talks about life issues like: personal finance, relationships & dating, marriage, spirituality, leadership, inter-personal communications, wealth, inspirational and motivational books. You also need to keep abreast of latest news and trends in your chosen fields.

When I say read, I'm not only talking about things in written forms, we have other forms of books: Audio and Visuals. These two are great forms of learning, off-load junk music from your phones, iPods and music players, replace them with audio books and messages. Watch good movies and documentaries, they all do lots of good and teach life lessons.

Reading increases your value a lot, set a target of reading a non-school book every two weeks and see how much value you would have added.

P.S.
Its okay to have some good songs on your music player for relaxation purposes, but please don’t listen to junk music else your mind becomes clogged with junk.

2. Learn new skills: Every time you learn a new skill, you increase your options in life. Apart from your certificate-in-view, what other things can you do? Nothing?

You shouldn't be a one-way robot, you need to learn other skills and develop existing talent. What do you know that the world can pay you for? It doesn't have to be something grand like Oracle database administration, Networking, JAVA, programming and the likes. It could be something as simple as barbing, catering or interior decorations just learn something! A barber or seamstress can never go broke. Before you get to your final year, ensure you have at least two other skills and a professional certification related to your field.

3. Look for platforms to apply your knowledge: Knowledge not put to use is useless. You need to actively look for ways to apply what you know. Look for platforms first, not money! Platforms give you a chance to test and train yourselves more.

Remember: If there are no open doors for you, create a door. Start within your social circles, your friends, how can you help them with your knowledge? Don't run away from responsibilities, embrace them instead. They help you sharpen your skills. Join clubs and societies that have your interests. You can join a book reading club to help inculcate a reading habit, join a literary and debating club to learn the art of speaking and writing. Team up with friends and colleagues on projects, just get a platform, it helps.

Once you get a platform, put in your best and from there, you are bound to be celebrated, just be patient. Be a leader in service, don't run after posts, posts should run after you, don't become obsessed with looking for posts.

It might not be easy to increase our value, after all it takes a lot of conscious effort and dedication, but on the other hand, we can't afford to do nothing – there is so much we stand to lose. We don’t have an excuse.

4. Be addicted to personal development
The difference between You, Barrack Obama, Fela Durotoye and Christiano Ronaldo is personal development, not luck. Personal development stands you out wherever you go. Personal development is the art of constantly improving yourself in your chosen field. Sir Isaac Newton was one of the greatest scientists ever, this guy made discoveries upon discoveries and it is every scientist dream to become as successful as Newton or Einstein, but do you know how much time he invested into his personal development? There is a drop of greatness in everyman, but greatness won't come by merely wishing for it. You have to work hard and develop yourself.

This is the reason why we have few outstanding people, no one is willing to develop themselves further, and they are easily contented with little success and see no need to improve. But GOOD is actually the enemy of GREAT, even good things can be improved upon. Those days when Michael Jordan was the No 1 Basketball player in the world, he still kept training hard, so one day his coaches asked him who he’s still trying to beat, he replied “me”. He had realized that although he  was a great player, he could still be better! Why should you become satisfied with ONE Supermarket, when you can own chains of Supermarkets?

You need to be in competition, not with your classmates or colleagues, but with you. Always strive to outshine what you did yesterday. Don't hate or envy people that know more or has more than you do. Why hate them when you can learn from them? Try making friends and mentors out of them. Most successful people like sharing their knowledge, all you have to do is ask.

Read books to develop yourself, not because you want to impress people – especially that pretty lady in your class. She wouldn't even listen to you anyway until she sees substance in you. So rather than showing off what you know, just keep developing yourself and people will seek you from afar off.

In conclusion, let me drop this nugget: If you study one hour a day in a chosen field, you will become an expert in that field in ten years and if you increase that to two hours daily, then you become expert in five years.

5. Control your shipClose your eyes take a deep breath and then ask yourself: what percentage of my life do I control? Go on, do it. What is your answer? An honest response will vary from 30% to 70%. Who is in charge of your life, is it you? Most of the time, we are controlled by external factors: parents, friends, society etc. The blunt truth is that unless you get 100% control of your life, you cannot move far. The reason is that this is YOUR life, not their life.

In your daily decision making, who/what determines what you do? When you do it and how you do it? What about the crucial decisions like course of study, universities of choice and the person you are dating?

I am not suggesting that you don't listen to advice from people, what I'm saying is that you have a mind of your own self.

Train and groom your mind so that it is not easily tossed here and there.

It is a good thing to have a teachable attitude to life, which is everyone you meet, can teach you something. The problem starts when you start thinking one person can teach you everything! No one should be allowed to impose him/her self on you. Control your ship.

How to take control of your ship

• Make all your decisions yourself, consciously.

• Take full responsibility for your actions: Always take responsibility and be ready to bear the consequences    of any decision you make, don't shift blames to others, rather accept the blames and work on ways to        rectify the errors. Always take your actions boldly.

• Be self-reliant: Don't be overly dependent on others for anything in life. When we were babies, we had to rely on others for everything; mom had to bathe and breastfeed you, but now we’ve grown up. Stop waiting for your Dad or Uncle to make that important phone call for you. You should always plan and execute your plans independently of anyone, stop depending on people. Be self-reliant.

• Control your time: We all know the wise saying: “Time is money”, but I always say: “Time is life” because you can never recover time, and time is the quantity by which life is measured. Wasting time is therefore equivalent to wasting life. Also note at the back of your mind that WHOSOEVER controls your time controls your life.

The most powerful tools needed in controlling time are time planning and time management. If you don't have a destination, any destination will do, so also if you don’t plan your time, other people will not hesitate to plan it for you. Always draw up realistic schedules for each day and adhere to such a schedule. Remember that each day is an opportunity to add more worth to yourself.

In the end, it's everyman for himself; control your ship.

This is not the end; rather it is just the beginning. I do hope I was able to enlighten you in one way or the other. I'm sure you'll make it to the top, and when you do, I'll enjoy your company.

Life goes far beyond the certificate.