Early into the year, I began taking someone through this journey but the process got abit derailed amidst so many personal commitments. It stalled abit and upto today I am not sure whether we shall proceed. Therefore I thought of just sharing my thoughts of how the lessons were to progress. Hopefully if one can use this journey and make it impactful for themselves, I would be glad to be a part of that journey or the very least get feedback of how it changed your life for the better 😊😉.
1. UNDERSTANDING YOU.
I began the journey by making the individual understand who they are because very few people know themselves beyond their name. They don’t know what makes them happy or what makes them sad. Some people also don’t know about their individual strengths and individual challenges. I wouldn’t want to call them weaknesses but rather challenges, because unlike weaknesses, challenges give you a chance to face them, change or embrace them.
When you focus on your strengths, you learn what excites you the most, what triggers your happiness, when facing your challenges you understand how to respond to situations that call for you to do a self evaluation of yourself, do you get tired of wanting to face them or do you get derailed along the way? Do you want to make better choices.. Etc
Understanding oneself , enables one to know a little bit about themselves and their character. This includes their hobbies, what makes them smile, what makes them unhappy. Some of these things may seem obvious, but one may actually have no idea how important it is to understand who you are. Understanding who you are makes you comfortable enough to help you identify the traits within you which ultimately helps you find your purpose.
Why YOU..
It is important to understand who you are because knowing who you are builds into who or what you become. Which version of you would you want to be known for. Understanding you also helps you to be cognizant of your surroundings, being self aware of what goes on around you and how to respond to various challenges in your environment. When you are aware of what goes on within you, you become even more certain of what’s around you which makes you easily adapt to any life’s situations. If you are still unsure of who or what you are please,,
Attempt the below:
In a few words, talk /write about yourself, who you are, what are your hobbies, likes, favorite things to do, what don’t you like, what makes you stand out, what makes you get constantly picked on about, how best do you learn, are you a leader or a follower, what are your accomplishments, your strides and lastly when you are in doubt of who you are or what you can achieve try to have affirmative mirror conversations with yourself with the words enough at the end of each sentence like i am good enough, i am brave enough, i am intelligent enough. These words of affirmation will make you believe in what or how you truly think about yourself and what sets you apart.
After you have done that write up, keep that note with you and read it every time you feel indifferent about yourself and see if that changes or uplifts your spirit.. And once you have an idea of who you are, then you can now embark on the journey of setting your goals /vision because you are now sure of what you want in life for yourself.
2. CREATING YOUR GOALS /VISION
As the saying goes, if you don’t know where you are going, any road will take you there. And without a doubt, some roads may be passable and others impassable and that is why its very important to atleast have a map that you can use to help you navigate throughout your journey ahead. Its also worth noting that even though you may not end up using the exact road throughout your journey as outlined on the map, you could use alternative routes, but having that map gives you an idea of your destination. A map here stands in the place of your vision, it outlines your paths, keeps you focused not to lose your way and that is what goals do, they define and lighten our journey clearly.
Goals clear your path off any obstacles, they make your journey ahead clearer and that. They assure you that in as much as you may at some point opt to use a different route, you are certain of where and if possible how you shall arrive at your destination. Goals also show you which routes to use, even outline the shortest or longest routes you can take to reach your destination and they also help you to know how soon you can even get there if you focus.
Just like any other journey, Goals need to be just as SMART. They need to be simply Specific , Measurable, Achievable, Realistic and Timely. As simple as that.
Most of the times we set goals that are probably too high for us to reach and we end up being frustrated. Our goals need to demonstrate the vision we have for ourselves but at the same time they should be achievable, should have timelines, should be able to get measured. Goals need to be properly written down because that’s the only way to make them clear and realistic. They need to be written down because that way, you speak life upon them and make them exist and worth fighting for to achieve. Goals are both SHORT TERM AND LONG-TERM. And even so, how long or short a goal is, is subjective depending on the specific individual. Your long-term may be another’s short term and vice versa hence the reason why goals should be specific because they are meant to be for an individual.
Why do we set GOALS.
>We set goals to give or get Direction
>We set goals for Inspiration
>We set goals for our own Happiness.
Goals always remind us what we are meant to do each day. They keep us abreast of knowing which routes to take in our journeys of successes, they keep us on track not to deviate from our main route. If we are traveling by bus to Mombasa, and we get to Machakos and divert, then we would know that we have veered off from our journey, and we ought to get back on the highway if we still want to get to Mombasa which here is our goal
Goals enable us to boost our morale. They help us visualize our ten years later today and in each passing day, our aim is to ensure that we live by that obligation of attaining that goal. Goals can change from time to time depending on life’s circumstances, but even as they do, may those changes still be aligned with what you desired for yourself at the beginning.
** A good example is being a player in a football game, your main goal is to score as many goals as you can for your team. And hence every opportunity you get to be with the ball, your mission is to kick the ball towards the goal to score and not in any other way that may make you not score**
Assignment:
Write your own goals, group them into both short-term and long-term, give yourself accurate timelines on when you would like to achieve them and how, also try and create a vision board for yourself/business, write your goals down in a book or a piece of paper that you can constantly be reviewing, speaking life upon them and once this is done we can work on how we can achieve them and if possible get an accountability partner to walk with you through the process.
3. ESTABLISHING A ROUTINE
You have now clearly defined your goals, your journey is now clear of where you are going. A routine mostly guides you into knowing how exactly do you get to your destination. What are the activities that you can do to help you reach your goals within the set timelines, what steps are you going to take to enable you to get to the end.
A routine is the habit of doing things consistently. If you do them diligently and faithfully you are certain of getting to your goal. Some goals are far fetched, like years to come, but there could be things that we could do on a daily basis, weekly basis, monthly basis or yearly to enable us achieve our goals within our stated time horizons. A routine is like marking your road, its like identifying which route to take and also the activities to do while on that route that will make your journey still feasible. If your goal is to become a public speaker, what activities are you doing today to help you achieve that goal, are you working on your speech? your confidence? your elevator introductions? or your story telling? Or if you want to be a renowned writer/author, what are you doing today to enable you to be that writer in those years ahead, are you writing enough articles? are your articles being reviewed? how well are you taking criticisms from your published pieces? How often do you write? how often do you practice your speech? Etc.
Why do we create ROUTINES?
Routines help us stabilize our lives like bring some levels of focus and order. Like when you wake up in the morning what do you do right from the beginning to the end of the day. And in each activity that you do, how exactly is it helping you achieve your goal? If your goal is to loose weight, everyday what activities do you undertake to drive that goal, are you walking, are you eating healthy are you doing your exercises?..
Routines also help us see the end goal. They keep our minds alert at all times to avoid being derailed or having your thoughts of accomplishing something deviated. , The END goal is what makes us want to work backwards to calculate the steps we need to take to achieve our goals. These backward steps are what we now call routines.
Routines require self discipline in order to achieve the best of them. They become habits, they become a part of you and when you now do them consistently, they will no longer feel like burdens but rather ways of living. They will become normal and if at any point you don’t do any of those activities you may feel incomplete. Its like say on your personal routine where you wake up, maybe pray, brush your teeth, take a shower, this is normal right, imagine waking up and starting your day without doing any of these activities what will your day be like, crappy..
In designing your routine, always ensure that they also have room for change or improvement. However even before you think of changing them, try them once, twice, thrice for them to work or not work, then now make necessary improvements on them if you have to. Do you have a routine for accomplishing your goals, If not try this..
Assignment:
Look at the goals you wrote before, pick out the short term ones, are you able to create a routine that you can do on a daily basis to enable you achieve them. Take a look at your long term goals, what are the activities that you can do consistently in a routine that can help you achieve them. Try this on the first week of creating your goals follow them diligently and faithfully. For the routines to work ensure that you are also intentional.
When you successfully create a routine of how you would wish to achieve your goals, try and see if you can emulate someone who does, someone who is more disciplined than you perhaps that you can copy good traits from. Do you have people who you look upto?..
4 CHOOSING ROLE MODELS
How you choose a role model for yourself is mostly dependent on a number of factors. These factors will trickle down to, how well do you know yourself because even before you choose a role model, an understanding of your own self is important to enable you know what characteristics to look out for in the person you would wish to emulate.
Role models can be a mini version of us. Whereby in a way there could be something with them that we admire that we may not actually have but would wish to borrow a few attributes about their life and their doings which can become impactful into our own lives. Having a role model is like having to watch yourself in a mirror. A role model could be that person who mirrors us, that person whose image we see on the other side of the mirror. And it’s in our best interest that we not only just like that image we see, but love it too.
How you choose a role model may vary from person to person including the value you would wish to emulate from them. We could have role models whom we may not like all their values a hundred percent but maybe eighty percent because that eighty percent is what resonates with us. There’s also nothing like a perfect role model, because then it would only mean that they don’t have flaws, if anything it’s even best to admire someone who has had flaws, how they managed to fight those flaws, how they came back up after dealing with their flaws.
I got a few insights online on factors to consider when getting to choose a role model for yourself. “Role models provide a vision or visual proof of who we aspire to be” So it’s in everyone’s best interest to make sure that they get that person right. When identifying a role model for yourself you can use the below considerations:
1. Choose a role model that you know- This makes it easier for you because someone you know is someone you can see, someone you can relate with, someone you can easily monitor, someone you can even talk to whenever you want.
2.Make a list of Key Characteristics that you want to achieve for yourself that the role models have. You need to know exactly from this role model you intend to pick, what is it that you would like to emulate from them, do you need to know how to keep time, do you need to learn how to be calm, do you need to know how be honest.. So your set of characteristics that you would wish to have will guide you into choosing the best role model to emulate.
3. Identify people who have the same qualities that you wish to achieve.
4. Choose someone who is different from you. This way instead of replicating your own habits you can replicate another type of habit that you didn’t have. An example would be say if your life is so fast like you are always living on the fast lane being on the edge most of the times. You can pick a role model who is abit laid back from whom you can learn how to take it easy or how to be calm.
When choosing a role model its important to ensure that you don’t copy blindly what they do, but rather learn from them by developing your own unique style of doing things. Role models can be anyone from peers, parents, teachers, colleagues, friends, people who you interact with on a daily basis, people who have ordinary lives because, even as we choose our role models they need to be people who are real, people who are relatable, reachable, people who you encounter on your day to day.
Equally some role models could be unreachable because they could be people we admire from afar, buy for certain we need to have an idea of who they are, what they believe in that makes you drawn to them to want to emulate. This information may be available on their various sites, their social media sites which you can follow to keep up with constant knowledge about them and if and when you can, also talk to them and ask them a few questions about themselves, you would be surprised that they may respond and give you the answers you just need to make that significant change in your life.
Do you have role models? How did you end up identifying them, what attributes of their lives attracted you to them, do you follow them? Does your role model know you and should they?Pick out a role model one or two or three, highlight the characteristics that they have that you would like to emulate, each day ensure that you revisit your list see if you still like what you see in them and whether you are actually practicing what you are observing from them.
5. ANALYZING YOUR SKILL SET
As you take on this mentorship journey, understanding who you are, identifying your role models, writing down your goals and establishing your routine, somewhere along the way you might have encountered a need to establish or figure out your skills set. What exactly is it that you possess as a skill that is uniquely gifted unto you to enable you even perform your chores better.
Skills are aspects of us and our lives which make us stand out, which make us unique, skills are what we are good at. Most of the times we may be aware of our skills and at times we may not and they may pass as normal to you yet they aren’t. If someone is skilled at something then they need to show it off, do it more often, even be the best at it. If you are good at taking notes then why not offer to be taking down your team’s minutes every time and that way you can perfect on your writing skills, allowing your work to be criticised provides room for improvement. Because skills get perfected with time and that perfection can only happen if you show them often.
Identifying your own skills will also call for a soul searching session, or a one on one meeting with yourself, to help you identify what is it that is within you that is so rich and only gifted to you. Skills are what set you apart from the crowd. They magnify your originality and make you conspicuous. And this is what you can use to ride on even on the days you don’t feel like showing up to do anything. The beauty about skills is that they can be enhanced, they can be perfected, they can be grown into something greater. Even though many of us may not be aware of the skills set we have, we can try and establish this by writing down a few aspects of you and your life that make you stand out, what unique abilities do you have, and these are features about you holistically from personal life to career.
Skills can be in form of:
1. Talents
2 Passion
3 Hobbies
4 Soft skills- you could be a good communicator, a good listener,
5 Leadership skills
6 Organizational skills
They can come in many forms, the most important thing is try and have a review of your whole self and identify these abilities that you have and use them to your advantage for your own growth and the growth of others. Your skills can also transform into something entrepreneurial. Out of your leadership skills you can start your own business of providing leadership counseling to people or out of your organizational skills you can start a firm training people on how to be organized, out of your attention to detail skills, you could even become an expert in proof reading people’s work get paid for it or even become an accountant.
Skills are unique abilities hidden in us, and happy is he who finds them..
6.FUTURE/FORECASTS
As we are now approaching the end of our mentorship journey, its also important to establish within your desires, what do you wish for your future self?
What do you see yourself do in five years or ten years to come?
This is very easy to do as most of the information is already available on your vision board the one we constructed earlier when discussing about our goals . Having to do a forecast of your life makes you visually envision how brilliant and wonderful your years ahead would be and that will even keep you more focused today to ensure that you live to see that vision of that perfect future come true. Having a futuristic mind calls for;
>Being goal oriented
>Being future ready
>Being consistent
>Adapting to change/Flexibility
>Being self aware
These are just but the enablers you can use today to work towards your ideal future. You future may not just happen unless you are lucky, but can be the best it can ever be if you put all your efforts today in creating consistent habits that can make your future ideal. Make your mistakes today and learn from them so that you don’t repeat the same mistakes tomorrow because tomorrow you may not have the luxury of time to unlearn.
Even though nobody can predict the future, we all believe that all the efforts we are putting in today will amount to something greater tomorrow.
If you can close your eyes and just envision your future see all the good things in it and if it’s as a result of the things and habits that you are doing today, open your eyes and keep working on that consistency of those little habits.
By the end of this read, i would wish to know what aspect of this journey Impacted you to make a change in your life i would be happy to know and even walk the journey with you.
Do you have a mentor? have you ever thought of being mentored? are you a mentor yourself? let me hear your thoughts of how your journey has been and also your thoughts on this article.
Be blessed
Material fully compiled by Sidi F. Mwangudza (narrator at sensesnhumor.wordpress.com), Friends of Sidi and of course the internet.
copyright..@sensesandhumour
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