The year is only as new as you make it

Today, I want to share what some of my friends have called “The Wale Rules”. They are a collection of decisions that have worked for me over time.

Avoid Procrastination.

Putting things off for the future is the manifestation of a mind that has been deceived to think it is in control of time.

You can actually save time by stepping out, making mistakes and learning, than by procrastinating and waiting for the perfect condition.

Ordinary minds wait for ‘perfect’ conditions. Great minds create the conditions they want. Your greatest opportunities are the ones that don’t exist yet. Create them.

Don’t be revenge minded. Don’t waste time answering negative critics. It will sap your energy and relegate you to their level.

Instead, focus on ensuring that you are so good at what you do to the point of being called an expert or a guru.

When you do this, you will discover that success is the sweetest form of revenge.

The best thing you can do to all who have treated you badly and who have despised you is to be successful.

They will live with the guilt for the rest of their lives and they will do their best to avoid you.

Guilt produces fear and they will be so scared of coming to you because they wouldn’t know how you would react.

Don’t grumble.

Grumbling is the language of shallow minds. Deeper minds are too busy getting solutions that they forget to grumble about conditions.

They see dead ends where they should be seeing opportunities to change direction. They never see solutions to problems.

They live a life with the philosophy that what will be, will be. People who think like this always get the wrong end of life and invariably get to the end of their lives bitter and full of regrets.

Be proactive. 

Dreams are never delivered. They are grabbed. Your life will reflect what you have been able to grab.

Success is the reward for right thinking, acting and grabbing, and certainly not for hoping.

The grabbing I’m talking about is not that of taking away what belongs to others. I am talking of grabbing opportunities.

No opportunity has an owner. Opportunities are free for all situations, waiting for those smart enough to see and grab them.

Opportunities are meant to be grabbed and not to be discussed or stared at.

Streamline your relationships.

Any of your friends who did not allow you to add to their lives and did not add to your life last year should be put on your probation list.

You might need to relegate them from friends to acquaintances. If still nothing changes, move them to the list of ‘others’.

I live by a rule, which I adopted from the title of a book that simply reads, Lead, follow or get out of the way.

Accept responsibility for failure.

Never blame people for your failures. Even if others were responsible, blame yourself for allowing them to do so.

This way, you will never get lethargic and you will never hand over the driver’s seat of your life to others.

Have a rightly calibrated table of expectation.

Too many people get frustrated because when planning their lives, they ascribe a large chunk of what will make them successful to others.

Their success is hinged on what others will do for them. Never peg your destiny to factors that are not totally within your control.

The rule is: Expectation from self is 100 per cent, while expectation from others is zero per cent. With this rule, I am in control and I don’t get stressed.

The impact of others on my destiny is that which I allow and not that to which I am sentenced.

Change your default settings.

Move from the fear of failure to the joys of success, from threat avoidance to maximising opportunities.

From thinking all people are bad to thinking that everyone has some good in them. Give people the opportunity to prove that they cannot be trusted.

Be motivated by and focus on things that will give you a better tomorrow, and not things that make your memories of the past better.

Every New Year is as new as your thinking, your dreaming and your actions.

No one but you can make the year new and happy.

Do have a truly happy and progressive New Year.