Potentiality Digest: Do Little Things to Improve Yourself

By Sulyman Sodeeq Abdulakeem

In one of the past few days, as I was reading through one of the articles that I had interest in, I stumbled into a principle known as Pareto principle. The principle was propounded by Vilfredo Pareto, an Italian economist, who in that principle says that “80 percent of the effects are 20 percent of the causes.” In a simple term, the principle is usually being represented with the formula 20/80.

This write-up is neither an attempt to appraise nor to critique the principle. No. (Let’s subject the validity aspect of the principle to those in the academics). But why I am referring to the principle as the basis for my today’s message, is because the principle has some attributes whose validity have been proven overtime, in every aspects of life.

Let us travel through this analysis together: When a family gives birth to a child, would the child start talking, crawling, walking, reading and running on the same day birth was given to him/her? No. For that to happen takes miracle. And miracles now a days, are seldom. So, for every promises in a child to manifest, for every seed of greatness in a child to sprout, it takes a conscious, gradual and consistent actions.

No one can dispute it that he/she becomes the personality he/she is today by constant efforts, but gradual improvements. For you to shift from the spot you currently occupies, you must always endeavour to do what can lift and leap you to the status you desires. Someone once said, “Whatever got you to where you are today is not enough to get you any further.”

One of the false hopes most of us have been relying on, which is making some people to be complacent and end up living miserably is the belief that there is a future somewhere. We all have a future, but the different between those who find and access their future – and those who don’t – lies in doing little things that will make them activate their future. Those who activate their future devote an actual portion of their time to what adds strength, confidence and energy to themselves.

Those masteries we are praising today are products of gradual, but constant and continuous improvements. Most masters of today were rejected and doubted in their quest to unraveling what their future holds. But because they believed that the only way to have a future is to have a frame for it in their mind and be doing little things to create it, they birth a future they can be proud of. That is why someone once submitted that “Your future is not a miracle, mystery or something that you enter into. It is a harvest of choices that you make today.”

You cannot see yourself standing and addressing dignitaries in the future, if you don’t make a choice today to be gradually pursuing your priorities. You cannot be reverred in the field of academics, if you don’t turn today to your starting point in writing intellectual articles, applying research outputs and add meaning to humanity. You cannot change your life, if the old norms are still the same principles dictating the direction of your life.

You cannot be efficient and respected in your trade, crafts and skills, if you don’t allocate a few hours to groom yourself, empower your abilities and position yourself to always be exceptional among your contemporaries. If you cannot build the foundation of your future on activities that shapes it, you are not guaranteed a future you will want your name to be described with.

Do you want to be known as a writer? Start reading books to hone your language and writing skills; start taking it chapter by chapter. Before you know it, you becomes an author. Do you want to be described as one of the best leaders that has ever graced the planet earth? Start studying biographies of great leaders around the globe; identify their strengths and weaknesses and mould your characters by inculcating their strengths. You will be amazed by how your personality will be described.

Life is a phenomenon with multiple meanings. How people defines it is based on the side life turns to them. Those who champions their life by growing gradually, tend to ascribed positive meanings to life, while those who waste their time on activities that robs their future tend to grumble about life and become frustrated with it. Ginni Rometty submitted that “I learned to always take on things I’d never done before. Growth and comfort do not coexist.”