Perhaps you were born great!

Perhaps you were born to be great. To achieve great exploits. It's all embedded in you and you know it because you feel it. You are determined to do something, and it is something you know will bring some sort of benefit to your life; even elevate it.

Being excited about it, you involuntarily announce this intention with much enthusiasm, to perhaps family members or close friends. It is obvious you need their support and even some good words of encouragement.

"Go for it!" This is what you want to hear the most because these words, have the power to motivate you the more. And besides you are in familiar environment, among family members.

Your success is also their success. So why not get the most out of their support and encouragement, you think. However, the looks on their faces when you announce your intentions, changes.

It's not the type of look that you'd expect should be followed by a warm hug or a big pat on the back followed by, "well done, I knew you were destined for great things."

The look you see tells you that perhaps you've done something wrong. It's a look of disapproval, discontent, and sometimes one of utter disbelief! It is a look that tells you that you are going into uncharted territories, far beyond your capabilities.

These are looks that tells you that you don’t have what it takes to achieve something. Achieving something in life is for another class of people. And so in most cases, their responses to your new found ideas or intentions are cruel.

For trying to do what you want to do is like you being locked up for committing a crime and now they’ve come to bail you out.

In simple terms, all they are telling you is,

“Don’t do it.”

“That is not the stuff for people like you.”

“I can think of someone like Johnny or Freddy doing that. But you? You don’t have the stuff to do that.”

It always starts like this and it keeps on going until it reaches a point where you begin to resign yourself to a life in which you believe that no matter what you set out to do, you will never get far, no matter how hard you try.

And of course it follows that if you do eventually carry out your plans to achieve your desired goals, you won’t get the much needed support.

This is your life now. A life you never wanted or created but is being pushed down on you by the people around you or closest to you. To them you don’t need to try; it won’t work for you like it did for Johnny.

To them you making an attempt is the equivalent of failure. Because you don’t need to try, you will automatically fail. This is the standards that reflects your reality now.

This is their standard of you-standards that you pretty well know doesn’t resonate with you. But you are buying into it without realizing. And now you keep telling yourself,

“Well if people are telling me I'm not capable of achieving this or that, then surely they must be right.”

And so you live with the fear of being condemned as you know that whatever you do or try to do, will not meet the approval of others or might just be wrong.

Because most certainly when you tell people, “ here’s what I have achieved,” they will be asking questions like,

“How did you of all people do you it?”

“Na, I don’t believe you could do that.”

Understand now that everything anyone has ever told you about yourself, and what you cannot do, is because this is how they see you. They think they know what you are capable of doing and not doing.

This in turn, has only conditioned you to see yourself that way, and to eventually make you behave that way. You’ve bought into their words and conditioned yourself to the dictates of those words.

If you buy into it, you will only live the mediocre life that was never meant for you.

Life has more to offer you

Life has more to offer you far beyond the lower expectations others have of you. But it won’t treat you well if you continue to listen and adapt your life towards believing how others imagine you to be.

This reminds me of a friend who was seeking admission into a higher institution. His father had called a friend to help him. But with the help of his father's friend he was unable to gain admission.

And so my friend said he decided to go out by himself. He was going to study mechanical engineering and was determined to start. Finally with his own effort he was able to get the admission that he couldn't get with the help of his father's friend.

This was good news and he was extremely happy about it.

He had achieved something on his own and decided to celebrate this achievement. And so he invited me over to his house because he was about to share the good news with his parents.

I went over to see him and we sat down and started talking. The TV was on but we were not paying much attention to it. Then his parents came in and as we greeted them and they sat down, he decided to open up to them.

“Dad, mum? I’ve got good news. I’ve just gained admission to study mechanical engineering.” It was supposed to be a source of joy for both parents but they only stared at him blankly. I was expecting to hear words like,

“Congratulations; well done, my son.” But I was utterly surprised when his father got up and went to call someone on the phone. From the look of things he was upset and it was showing on his face.

He called his friend a when the friend responded, we overheard him asking him why he couldn't tell him that he had helped his son finally gain admission.

I and my friend looked at each other unable to believe what we had just heard. His parents didn’t believe he was capable of such feats on his own and this made him feel very bad.

There are so many ways these things reveal themselves. And it is not just in the family setting. But even in the workplace, among co-workers; in relationships and also in the social sphere, these things exist.

It sounds like prejudice. And to say the truth, I’d say it really is. Because we all have potentials. We all have something we are good at doing. And so somebody, be it family members or close friends, or even a co-worker or your partner, telling you that they don’t think you can get something done, is like saying you were not born with potentials.

But we all have potentials we can harness to improve our life and that of others around us. We have it buried deep within us. And so everything we want to achieve in life, will only need our best approval to get it started.

Believe in yourself

Your best approval is when you don’t need someone to believe in you. Believe in yourself and in what you are capable of doing.

If you listen to other people’s words, don’t allow those words to stop you from daring. And if you feel you are not worthy of achieving anything because people think you are the most unlikely person to achieve anything, don’t take it to heart and feel bad.

Raise your head up and keep moving. Move on and don’t listen to them. Because only you can design and construct your greatness. And if you don’t do it yourself, no one will do it for you. Do not look for praises, but at worst praise yourself.

And so never mind if your family does not read the stories that you write, get them published. Never mind if your ideas of success, of what you want to do in life to succeed is not in line with their ideas of success. Just move on, do it and don’t look back.

Give yourself the personal satisfaction of achieving something not for your family, friends or anyone else. Do it for yourself and be happy that you did it.