Pick up your shovel, hand-trowel, e.t.c...and let's build TOMORROW!!!

• The future is what you must build.
You must come to terms with the fact that the making of a successful future is not what you can take with levity and flippancy. Your future is what you must build because a structure would not just appear where it is not built, except by magic and talking about your future, there’s absolutely nothing magical about it.

Seeing the future only as a time you are going to meet would not make you enthusiastic about it but if you also see it as what you must build, it energizes you and sets you at work, keeps you in motion even when the going gets tough and rough because you want the best for yourself.

You might ask, ‘How then do I build my future’. The building of a successful future is briefly discussed under the following theories with straight-to-the-point illustrations.

The theory of planning and preparation
To build a house, it’s not a day’s job. A house is not something that can be erected in one day. It has procedures and for every of the procedures, proper planning is required.

The following processes are involved in erecting an edifice:
1. The plan of the house is drawn by the architect.
2. The foundation is laid.
3. The blocks are arranged on each other by a bricklayer with the aid of cement to help strengthen the house and when it gets to the desired height it is decked if it is a storey building and roofed if not.
4. The ceilings are installed.
5. The windows and doors are fixed.
6. The house gets plastered and painted.
7. Boreholes and soak away is made.
8. Interior decorations, furniture and whatsoever is needed in the house are fixed.
And after all these processes, the house is ready for the occupants to move in. So is the future. It doesn’t just start one day. For every of the above listed stages there is a need for proper preparation and planning. Planning involves the thinking through of an idea and drawing strategies to make the idea come alive into reality. For instance, someone has an idea to make his house more beautiful than other houses in the neighborhood so he starts thinking of the things that makes a house beautiful; he also considers the quality and quantity of these beautifying materials he would need. This is the beginning of the preparation stage.

A saying goes thus, “Success comes when opportunity meets with preparations.” If you don’t prepare, when opportunities come, you can’t be ready to explore them because you don’t know yet what it takes to make good use of opportunities. You might not even be able to recognize these opportunities because you have not gotten yourself prepared for them. Preparation teaches you what it takes to make good use of opportunities.

Proper planning and preparation takes advantage of opportunities whenever they come. So it is a necessity that you plan for that desired future of yours.

Sometimes ago, I had a short but impactful discussion with a guy I met at school and during our discussion on how to achieve a good success, he pointed out to me what he termed:

“THE SEVEN ‘P’S OF A SUCCESSFUL LIFE”
Proper
Planning &
Preparation
Prevents
Poor
Piss
Performances

When I took a closer look at these ‘P’ alliterate, I realized that it is pointing out to the fact that if I plan well, I can avoid poor performances and succeed in practically everything I do. It’s a food for thought. I thought about it and then came to the lifestyle of the ants.

The ants have a lot to teach us about the importance of preparation. Take a close look at them, they go out in groups and gather their food in the summer when there is no rain, preparing for the winter when rain would not give them the opportunity to go outside. So in the summer they go out and get enough food for their store so that when then rain comes they would not have to be killed in the rain searching for food. (Proverbs 6:6-11)

Preparation is a vital and basic tool for a successful future. Spend today preparing for tomorrow because there certainly is a tomorrow. He who fails to prepare before appearing would definitely disappear in the future.

Successful athletes make a great deal of preparations before appearing on the race track to beat down their opponents. Champions are not made in the ring; they are made in their daily preparations. The ring is just the place to show what they are made of, the best that their daily preparations have brought out in them.

Preparation is the necessary hard currency that you pay for success. Spend today preparing for your desired future because success certainly has a price and preparation is its cost.

Take a deep breath and a very short break before we continue on our trip and simply ask yourself if in any way you have been preparing for that great future that you so much desire.

Have you? Then let’s continue the trip.