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Hello fam! How has it been?

So this is a continuation of my previous post on lessons I learnt from the World Cup 2018. I’m going to try my best to make this the concluding part of the series, so help me God?. Shall we?

Lesson 3: Have a personal definition of success and set high targets for yourself. Set a success goal and make it higher than the ones usually accepted. I learnt this from the last match France played with Croatia. I dunno, maybe because those guys have seen Croatia’s performance up until then, I have a strong feeling those France guys came for a kill. From the way they played the match right up to the very end, still hungry for goals, it seemed to me that they had decided to give Croatia 3 to nil, however that comes. Means that it doesn’t matter how many goals Croatia scores, they will be three goals ahead and it would have been so if not for that gift of a goal (according to the commentator) they gave Croatia.
So to us, they were winning and rightfully so, with 2 to nil but in thier mind, they still had one more goal or even more, to score. Success for them meant something higher than 2 to nil and the fact that they haven’t achieved it kept them playing with determined passion to the very end. At a time when most teams will up their defence to secure their winning, after all they were 2 goals ahead and that was okay, France was busy still chasing goals in addition to putting up defence. The criteria for success here is to ensure you stay ahead. The criteria for THEIR own success was stay very well ahead by scoring more goals and that standard kept them going.

So I ask you my dear reader, what standard have you set your success to? In your marriage, what does success mean to you? You know, because the world is full of divorces now, seeing a marriage clock 5, 10 years or more is a great success story and people who stay together this long are celebrated and rightfully so. But beyond that standard of success, how is your marriage within? Are you working to sustain the spark or are you just patching things up to keep it going? In that area of your life, what is your definition of success?

This leads us to the next lesson, still on same match played between France and Croatia and the lesson is, if you do well, you’ll forget your mistakes. See, mistakes are inevitable. And sometimes that mistake can be grave, the kind that can affect and haunt you; some major kind of goofing, but if you can double up and do very well, your mistakes might just be forgotten and erased by your current results.

You know, France scored an own goal. I still remember the goal keeper’s face. He was really downcast and in that instant, I could see all sorts of questions cross his face. Don’t mind me, I have an uncanny way of reading people’s faces. I could imagine him dreading the closure of the match if they don’t win and him desperately praying to God that they win. Well they did. With 2 to nil (old story now. lol) And after they won, the goof was forgotten. No one remembered that France scored an own goal. I was looking at their faces to see if I would see any trace of ‘I wish it didn’t happen’ but you know what, no one thought of it. Maybe they remembered it but it didn’t show on their faces because it wasn’t important. They were greater things in front of them, things like the golden cup they were getting ready to kiss and the grand home-applaud waiting for them from behind stage all the way home! Even the goalkeeper was acting like he didn’t know what he had caused initially. And I don’t fault him. That’s what happens when you do well. You might not be able to avoid some goofing, but always make sure you do well. Whatever is committed into your hand, take care of it. Do well at it. Excel at it. Most times mistakes are remembered, not because they are huge or grave in themselves but because you have done nothing outstanding enough to negate or erase the effects of the mistakes.

Now imagine what would have happened if France had lost. Haa!! I don’t want to go there, for the sake of the player who hit that goal and the goalkeeper that didn’t catch it. After all he’s supposed to stop the ball from ever entering the net regardless of whose feet scored the goal. If they had lost, France would have counted that own goal as part of their undoing but because they didn’t, it didn’t matter anymore.

Mistakes will happen. But let your response to that mistake be a concrete resolve to do better and when you make that resolve, ensure you follow through on it. Carry God along and let Him bless your efforts and soon, your mistakes will be counted as part of your testimony too.

The third lesson is more like a resolve. Because I am not an expert on international politics, at least not yet, I can’t say just how true this is but most people have this strong opinion that African teams were deliberately set up to be failed out of The World Cup because no African team made it beyond the first set of matches. While some others say that the African teams cannot be compared to other teams in terms of skill and exposure. Well, I can’t say which is the actual reason and even though we all saw what happened with the cancelled penalty kick that Nigeria should have been awarded during the Nigeria-Argentina match, I wouldn’t want to use that to judge an entire set of football games. More like I don’t want to have a defeatist or victim’s mindset. But seeing as truthfully, Africans, especially Nigerians seem to be sidelined on the international scene, I made up my mind to give my best to whatever I do. I’m an African and proudly Nigerian and so anything I do especially on the international scene will first be filtered through my Nationality. Rather than seeing that as a disadvantage, I seize that as an opportunity to bring my country to light. People perceive Nigeria wrongly because of what some people have done. Newsflash! People will perceive Nigeria rightly still because of what some new-minded people will decide to do to make Nigeria shine. The ball is in our court. We can play it well or we can play victim. We choose. But for me, I have chosen to give my best in whatever I do. If I shoot for the sun, the least I will get to, is the moon or the stars, so I’ll shoot. With my words, my actions, my skills, my delivery and everything, I will shoot very far and I will shoot very high. What will you do with yours?

Ok. I was hoping I would conclude this series with this post but I still have a couple of lessons to talk about so we would need to do series 3 and that will be the final, I promise. Lol.

I hope you’re enjoying this as much as I’m enjoying it.

Looking forward to part 3

Do Stay Encouraged!!

Loving you and praying for you as always (and I mean it).

Have a great weekend ahead!!

All the very best and do live a God-Defined life

AijayUfomadu

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