Author: Conquestlane

Author of many inspirational books, among them are - 'Conquest in Adversity: the mystery of another spirit', 'Success unplugged, powered by conquest' and 'The Threshold of Life'. He is a techpreneur, Success enthusiast, and a senior partner at Conquestlane Global Services. A freelance web-developer, and a Google certified Associate Cloud Engineer (ACE). He is also doubles as programme Coordinator and @ bringbackourglory.org. He holds a bachelor of science degree from the University of Nigeria Nsukka. He is of the view that we can dare the impossible if we can imagine, and believe it is possible. This view informs his philosophy of life "imagine, believe, dare the impossible". He is happily married with children.
Posted on

Tragedy of Success

tragedy of success

Complacency is the greatest tragedy of success. It is a threat that if we fail to manage well can lead to the tragedy of success.

The tragedy of life is not found in failure but in complacency. Not in you doing too much, but doing little. Not in you living above your means, but below your capacity. It’s not failure but aiming too low; that is life’s greatest tragedy – Benjamin E. Mays.  

With my head drooped down and my face on the floor. I couldn’t look him in the face. And all I could only do was wish the ground would just open up and swallow me. The scolding was becoming unbearable as he ferociously lambasted me, each time yelling at me, ‘’you disappointed me’’, ‘’I thought you would do better, now see where your complacency has landed you’’, he fumed. That day I felt very guilty like never before.

It Almost Ended Tragically

At this point let me let you in. After my primary education, there was an offer for a scholarship through secondary school. And as a prerequisite, we were expected to pass the written test. The test was in two parts. As expected I was outstanding in the first test, coming first ahead of every other candidate, and this pleased my mentor, my former headmaster. He was so impressed with my performance, and so he encouraged me to do better in the second lap of the test. And to prepare me for the test he gave me some reading material that he believed would be beneficial to me in passing the final test.

Actually, I goofed; I was so complacent about the test. Instead of studying the material given to me, I wasted time playing around with kids in my neighborhood, not minding the danger ahead that I might fail the test and thereby lose the scholarship. What really happened was that I was satisfied with my performance in the first test, so I relaxed thinking that the second would be a walkover. However, after the final test, I performed woefully and my mentor was so furious at me. Even though I got the scholarship yet I felt very bad and guilty because I performed abysmally when I was supposed to fly high. That is the danger of complacency. My complacent attitude could have led to the tragedy of success in that exams.

Stud in the Wheel of Success

Indeed, complacency is a tragedy of success. It is often said that success comes with the danger of complacency, and this statement of fact to a large extent is correct. So complacency is a threat every success-minded person must squarely deal with. Succinctly put complacency is the feeling of smug or calm satisfaction with your own abilities, achievement, or situation that prevents you from trying harder. It comes with the ‘I have arrived’ feeling, a situation where one feels lackadaisical about improving his or her situation. It entails hibernating or retreating to the comfort zones because one feels a sense of security. Technically, complacency means to rest on one’s laurels or oars.

A complacent person is very pleased with his or her current achievements and feels that he or she does not need to do anything about a situation even though the situation may be uncertain or dangerous. Thus, complacency is a very wrong attitude to success. In my post on ‘success and the attitude question’, I did say that success is an attitude and that when it comes to success attitude is everything. So, the wrong attitude amounts to a wrong footing on the threshold of success. Complacency pushes you off the threshold of success. It is the architecture of your downfall.

From Top to Bottom

Climbing the tree of success requires a lot of effort, but falling is an effortless experience. It is an easy and free fall from top to bottom. Understand that a little complacency results in a massive fall, or a slip from the summit of mount success. Moreover, if it is left unchecked could lead to distortion of the systemic order of success. Eventually, it will snowball into an unpleasant situation where one begins to live in his or her past glory. This is a tragedy of success. 

Overrating Leads to Complacency

Complacency is a dangerous threat to success. The danger of it is that it limits progress. Success is progressive. It is often said that the largest room in this life is room for improvement. By your inaction, you cannot improve on your situation and progress to the next level on the success ladder. There is no limit to success. The more effort you put in with the right attitude the higher your ranking on the success log, and vice versa. The problem of complacency is often not unconnected to overrating, especially when one is overrated in relation to others if it is not well handled, it may lead to self-satisfaction.

Understand that the race to success is a competitive one so while you are resting on your laurels others are working assiduously to surpass your achievements. For instance, in the game of football, the overrated teams are often punished by the underdogs because of complacency. Whether you are an individual or a corporate entity if you want to succeed or to remain within the threshold of success you must shun complacency. It is the tragedy of success.

Aim Higher

Don’t settle for less. It is a tragedy of success to settle for less when you can do more. Always do more to improve your situation. Don’t lose the steam rather let off more steam as this will keep your success train in motion. Remember no matter how successful you think you are there are more grounds to break, more coasts to explore, more empires to build, and more horizons to reach. And only you by your complacency can stop you.

What is your own experience with complacency? Share it in the comment thread.

Imagine it, believe it, and dare to succeed.

Posted on

The Thief of Time #2: Dangers of Procrastination

Dangers of Procrastination

Procrastination comes with its own grave dangers. The dangers of procrastination are enormous. One common truth about procrastination is that it is an enemy of success. It is a thief of time, and time is of great essence in life. It is very harmful to success in so many ways. In areas of self-development, career development, and otherwise, it is a threat to success. Like I did say in my last post Procrastination is a chain we all must endeavor to break away from. Now, without much ado let us examine the dangers of procrastination.

Becoming a ‘Trailer’

Among the dangers of procrastination is the problem of becoming a ‘trailer’. While growing up one important piece of advice parents always give their children is that they should grow up with their peers. Children were told always to progress and succeed with their mates and never to be left behind. This advice kept us going as it helped us to take seriously every challenge and responsibility that will enable us to succeed in life. So as much as we could we avoided procrastination so that we will not be left behind.

Procrastination has a way of playing pranks on people, especially the youths. Young people will always think that they are full of energy and they have the whole time on earth. So instead of taking responsibility for success they will always defer or delay them.

My advice is to never do tomorrow what you can do today. Procrastination is the thief of time – Charles Dickens.

One problem with procrastination is that any time stolen or wasted can never be recovered in life. And that once you are left behind by your peers you will trail while they become trailblazers. Moreover, you will play the second fiddle as long as success is concerned.

Procrastination hinders Productivity

In the world of success, productivity is measured by our ability to achieve set goals and objectives. Hence, one of the dangers of procrastination is that our inability to achieve set goals hurts our productivity and renders us redundant while negatively affecting our success.

The logic is that each time we take responsibility we ascertain our productivity and also take a bold step towards success. But on the contrary, if we hesitate to take responsibility we are delaying achieving our set goals as well as prolonging our success.

Sense of Unfulfillment

Procrastination results in unfulfillment. It sparks the feeling of unfulfillment when one compares self with those that are setting the pace. Doing so might expose your inadequacies and deficiencies and eventually leads to an inferiority complex a situation where you conclude that others are better off than you. You will then see yourself as not good enough compared to other people. The inability to achieve set goals will make such people see themselves as inadequate and live with a sense of guilt. This might affect performance negatively.

Procrastination if left unchecked can degenerate into a grasshopper mentality. Grasshopper mentality no doubt comes with unmitigated disasters. It inhibits you from making attempts at success Hence, you are unable to put your ability and talents to test. It also leads to retrogression, and stagnation, and makes you accept defeat without making effort to redeem your situation. Above all, it keeps you in perpetual fear of the unknown.

Lose of Interest

Procrastination might also cause one to lose interest in life. This may lead to the abandonment of set goals and objectives, and the person might also want to opt-out of his or her dreams and visions. Procrastination hurts our emotions and poses a grave risk to our health. Struggling to meet up with dateline for delayed or postponed tasks might be too much for us to bear. It may lead to stress, depression, psychological or emotional trauma, nervous breakdown, etc

Eventually, regret will set in, and you will begin to ask yourself probing questions like; how did it happen? How did I find myself in this precarious situation? I have seen someone lose interest in pursuing his life’s dream of becoming a software programmer just because he couldn’t meet up with the dateline for the completion of the course. He blatantly told us that he is not good and will not make it as a programmer. How did it begin – procrastination? It is possible he was procrastinating about his studies delaying responsibilities. Be wise, shun procrastination today and avoid its dangers.

HOW TO DEAL WITH PROCRASTINATION

Set Realistic Goals

You must set goals that you can achieve within a given time frame if you must deal with procrastination. Such a goal must be unambiguous, realistic, and achievable. Sometimes, procrastination is not a result of bad time management but more a result of the nature of goals and objectives you set for yourself – whether such a goal is achievable within the time frame allotted to it or not.

For your information when a goal is unrealistic a situation arises where one keeps on delaying and postponing to a later date. A good goal encourages you to take prompt action, and achieve your set goals at a good turnaround time. Ask yourself, can I achieve these goals within a given time frame? If the answer is no, the goals are unrealistic and must be revisited. Revisit and re-evaluate your goals. Make them as realistic as possible. It is better to succeed gradually than to slip into the danger of procrastination.

Set your Priorities Right

Setting your priorities right is all about planning well. Good planning will help to curb the problem of procrastination. Ask yourself, what are those tasks that are very important to me? List them down; let them come first in the order of preference. You need to allot more time to very important ones. For instance, if your study is important to you don’t use the time for your studies to watch movies. Or if you have an appointment to keep don’t postpone it because you want to entertain visitors. You will always have enough time to entertain your visitors. Many have lost opportunities of becoming successful because they did not set their priorities right.

This action will enable you to be focused and deal with the problem of distraction, which is a major cause of procrastination. Setting your priorities right will help you to take responsibility one at a time. When you are focused you will not try to do everything at the same time. You will only focus on the most important tasks that matter to you.

Self Discipline

In order to deal with the problem of procrastination, you must exhibit a high level of self-discipline. By self-discipline I mean a high level of self restrain or self-control over habits that lead to procrastination. You must summon the will to say no to such habits. Let’s say someone’s health is at risk because of addiction, it will take a high level of self-discipline or restraint to suppress the strong urge for such substance when it comes. Not until such a person shows some restraint to the abuse of such substance, he or she will keep on procrastinating about stopping it. Such a person will eventually live in danger of a life-threatening ailment. 

Let’s look at another illustration. Suffice it to say you are preparing for exams and your friends come up with the idea of going to the club. You must dare to resist the urge to oblige their request. At first, this might seem very challenging for you but with a few more times of self restrain and discipline it becomes a habit. And with time you will learn how to counter procrastination by not deferring your goals again.

Be Adventurous

When I say adventurous I mean being curious in your approach to achieving your goals. In fairy tales, they say curiosity kills the cat but in the realm of success curiosity opens up a whole new world of possibilities. Curiosity is a quality related to inquisitive thinking such as exploration, investigation, and deep learning.

Curious people always ask questions and search for answers in their minds. Through curiosity, you are able to explore new grounds on problem-solving techniques. Curiosity helps you to deal squarely with the problem of procrastination as it increases the zeal and eagerness to find a solution for the task at hand instead of delaying and postponing it to a later date

In conclusion, take note of this, if you must keep a date with success, then deal with every form of procrastination.

Imagine it, believe it, and dare to succeed.

Posted on

The Thief of Time

Dangers of Procrastination

In the words of Charles Dickens, “My advice is to never do tomorrow what you can do today. Procrastination is the thief of time”. The habit of deferring responsibilities is called procrastination, and it is the thief of time. It is a bane of good time management habits. Procrastination poses a very big threat to success. Many potentially great people have been imperiled, and have missed the opportunity of becoming successful because of this chronic, dangerous, and harmful habit.

What is procrastination?

The word procrastination originates from the Latin word ‘procrastinaire’ which translates ‘to forward till the next day. The prefix ‘pro’ means ‘forward’ and the suffix ‘cratinus’ means ‘till next day’, which came from the Latin word ‘cras’ which means tomorrow. So from all indications, it is the avoidance of doing a task that needs to be accomplished. In other words, procrastination is the deferment of responsibilities for no tangible reason. One universal attribute of procrastination is that it can take place in any area of an individual’s life. The truth is that at a particular moment in life we have fallen victim to this chronic habit. We have at one time or the other procrastinated about keeping appointments, making decisions, taking action, doing house chores, attending lectures, getting up from bed very early in the morning, going on visitation on a rainy day, or quitting a harmful habit like smoking or alcohol, etc.

My experience with procrastination

Procrastination in relation to success is the deferment or postponing of some important tasks that seem difficult at the expense of your success. For instance, I have three tasks that seriously demand my attention. I have official tasks at the office to carry out. I am also a content writer and I must update my blog regularly. Finally, I am into web development, and thanks to Google. So I must dedicate enough time to programming, writing, and debugging codes.

Just lately, I found out that I have been procrastinating when it comes to content writing and updating my blog. In as much as I tried to meet up with my job responsibilities and my course content, I was deferring the responsibility of updating my blog. I started procrastinating thinking I have enough time to write and update my blog. Then before I know it two, or three weeks have gone by without any writing or updating.

This single act of procrastination had a very serious negative impact on my blog. Consequently, the bounce rate of the website increased, the Google ranking dropped, and the web traffic reduced tremendously. And finally, when I managed to write content it would be haphazard and lacked the in-depth analysis that my blog is known for. So when it comes to procrastination, no matter the perspective you are viewing it, it does more harm than good. It is the thief of time. Now let us examine the causes of procrastination.

Indecision



It is common to hear people say ‘let me think over it or let me sleep over it, even in matters that require immediate and urgent action. This is a clear case of indecision. Indecision is a hotbed for procrastination. It makes you defer or postpone actions. Quick decision making to a large extent determines how fast you will take action.

When an individual is undecided about an issue he or she will be unable to take action. Hence quick decision elicits prompt action, whereas the inability to make decisions leads to procrastination.

Fear of failure

Refer to my post on the infidelity of fear. Procrastination is one of the consequences of fear of failure. Let’s say your mind is a treasure box, and inside it is great potential, (treasures) that you must freely express or trade with for you to be successful in life. Now what fear does is that it closes this treasure box and buries these wonderful potentials and makes sure you don’t express them. This is one major reason why many are unsuccessful today. Not that they don’t have what it takes but because they delay or postpone taking action for fear of failure.

Chronic habit

Procrastination is more habitual than seldom. One of the causes of procrastination is the strong inclination toward a chronic habit like an addiction. The struggle to break away from the indulgence of such a habit is always fraught with procrastination when the urge becomes unbearable. For instance, an alcoholic or tobacco addict will always procrastinate about stopping the indulgence even when such a person knows the danger of such a practice. Then it has become a chronic habit that is very difficult to do away with. It is indeed a thief of time.

Overconfidence

Let me just chip this in here, overconfidence or obsession with excellence can cause procrastination. In a situation where you see yourself as being capable of accomplishing a task, you might keep on postponing such task until you perform the task to your own satisfaction.

This obsession with excellence or overconfidence makes you procrastinate or defer a task till the time you feel you can accomplish it perfectly. It makes you want to buy time until the time you feel you are capable. Procrastination is the thief of time. This stems from the fact that you cannot meet your own standard because of your obsession with excellence.

Distraction

Refer to my post on distraction. Distraction is also a major cause of procrastination. Distraction is anything that is not your intention. Whatever is not part of your vision is a distraction. I did say also that anything that does not contribute to your success in life is a distraction. It is also a distraction to do everything or to be everywhere at the same time. Therefore, it becomes procrastination when you are so much engrossed with trivialities or unimportant tasks as to postpone the difficult albeit important ones and allow the opportunity for success to slip out of your hands.

Complacency

Complacency is yet another cause of procrastination. Refer to my post on complacency. I did say that it is the feeling of smugness or calm satisfaction with your own abilities, achievement, or situation that prevents you from taking action. Complacency comes with the ‘I have arrived feeling’ a situation where one feels lackadaisical about improving his or her situation. It entails retreating to the comfort zone because one feels a sense of security. Procrastination is a thief of time as it can lead to putting off or postponing tasks that can improve one’s situation to a later date.

Stay tuned as we bring you the concluding part of the dangers of Procrastination. Till then;

Imagine it, believe it, and dare to succeed.