May 21, 2020
Why Do Extra-ordinary People Live An Ordinary Life?
I woke up one day thinking about this, “why do extra-ordinary people live an ordinary live?” This question really bothered me. Why do we live below our true potentials? Why do we settle for good enough when we are capable of inspirational living? Why?
These questions descended through the recess of my mind like the Niagara fall. I wanted answer to this major issue. I want to help as many as I can. I believe we are all created by God to live life at its best. We are created to be extra-ordinary. I am convinced of this.
Nobody should live a colourless, purposeless and powerless life. If we know God’s original plans for our lives we will literarily astound ourselves.
I have been a student of personal greatness for more than 17years. I have studied and analyzed several lives. When I see people who have made great differences with their lives, I ask why? When I see people whom seem to be victim in life, I equally ask why? I believe that both success and failure leave clues.
Related : TEN PRINCIPLES OF HIGH FLYING ACHIEVERS
A story is told of a young man who dreamed of playing professional football. In high School he was a star player and won several awards. In his small town, all the children looked up to him, and wanted to be like him.
But most coaches thought he was too small to play in college. All the major Universities turned him down. He was discouraged. He quit playing football, and took a job at a Pizza restaurant.
One night he was delivering pizzas and a ten-year-old boy answered the door. The boy couldn’t believe what he saw. He was star struck. This was the man he was dreaming he would one day become. The boy’s father walked up and the young man gave the father the pizza. The little boy was confused. He looked up at his father and looked at the young man and said, “What are you doing delivering pizzas?”
Those words from the boy lit a fresh fire on the inside of this young man. ‘What am I doing delivering pizzas?’ He asked himself. That summer he trained harder and became bigger, stronger, quicker, and faster.
That fall, he tried another major University and was accepted. He made the team and worked hard until he became a star player. This young man eventually became a star in the NFL living out his dream.
But he said, “It would have never happened if the ten-year-old boy hadn’t asked me, ‘What are you doing selling pizzas?’
It’s my interest in this article to light the fire in you to go for extra-ordinary life you were born to live. Here are my few suggestions:
1.Find Your Purpose.
A fish is programmed to swim.
A bird is programmed to fly.
You are programmed for a purpose.
You may not be good at everything but you are good at something. God created you for something specific. You are customized and wired with peculiarity to solve a particular problem in life. You are SPECIAL. You are UNIQUE. You are DIFFERENT. You are not supposed to go everywhere, you are not supposed to do everything, you are supposed to do SOMETHING you are really really, really designed for.
Find out your calling. Locate your assignment in life and give the world a piece of your good news (to learn more about this, please order for my great book titled “Wake Up Your Destiny: embracing your personal greatness”)
2.Don’t Allow Fear To Rule your life.
This man laments at the end of his life. This is how he summed up the journey of his life.
Hear him:
“I could have won, if not that I was afraid to try” is a common story.
God knows fear does no good, and in 365 places for 365 days He tells you, “fear not”
“I could have done it at 20, fear told me I was too young, and people wouldn’t take me serious because of my age”
“I waited till I was 30, fear told me I didn’t have enough experience to start”
So I waited.
” At 40 I thought I have had enough experience, fear told me, I shouldn’t try it because I might fail and showed me a lot of people who have tried it and “It didn’t work”
” I brace up at 60, fear told me I am nearing the retirement age, I should wait” So I waited.
“I became determined at 70, fear told me now you are too old, the work is meant for younger people”
“Now at 90, I realize I could DO IT, but the doctor had warned me not to go out”
“How silly I was to listen to fear all along.”
Fear magnifies problem.
It overestimates cost.
It predicts failures.
It visualizes troubles.
It envisions obstacles.
Never allow it to rule your life!
You may also be interested in this: TAKE OFF THE LIMITS
3.Get Rid of Excuses.
Are you familiar with the following?
·It will never work in your country.
·You are too young.
·You are too old.
·You are too tall.
·You are too short.
·You are not educated enough.
·You are too educated.
·The time is not right.
·It’s too early.
·It’s too late.
·You don’t have the skills.
·It might fail.
Leave these excuses follow your dreams.
Look around you, how many roads, how many houses have excuses built?
How many awards have excuses won?
How many lives have excuses touched?
How many books have excuses written?
How many songs have excuses sung?
How many jobs have excuses created?
No monuments have been erected for excuses.
Excuses only have the reputation of being the maintenance of paralysis.
People who fail find excuses; people who succeed find reason to.
There are always thousands of excuses not to do what you need to do, none of them is good.
Good excuses are bad habits. Quit them.
Take charge of your future, get rid of excuses.
4.Stand Up And Show Up!
You have amazing potential in you. Stop observing life, start impacting lives. There is something you can do. Do it. Stop analyzing your dream, start actualizing it. Simply believe it. Tell the world, I have something to offer! Stop being a consumer, start being a producer. Today, I have written and published five great books. When people asked me “How did you become a published author” I simply responded “I just stood up and showed up!” I knew I wasn’t meant to read books by other authors all my life. I knew I too have something that is worth reading. I have a message to pass across to my world. So in 2007, without much knowledge about publishing, I published my first book “Your Importance to Your Generation” Today, many lives around the world have been tremendously blessed by my books. You too have got something in you, just wake up, the world is waiting!
Years ago Appleton penned this immortal statement:
“I knew his face the moment that he passed
Triumphant in the thoughtless, cruel throng—
I gently touched his arm—he smiled at me—
He was the Man that Once I Meant to Be!
“Where I had failed, he’d won from life, Success;
Where I had stumbled, with sure feet he stood;
Alike—yet unalike—we faced the world,
And through the stress he found that life was good.
And I? The bitter wormwood in the glass,
The shadowed way along which failures pass!
Yet as I saw him thus, joy came to me—
He was the Man that Once I Meant to Be!
“We did not speak. But in his sapient eyes
I saw the spirit that had urged him on,
The courage that had held him through the fight
Had once been mine. I thought, ‘Can it be gone?’
He felt that unasked question—felt it so
His pale lips formed the one-word answer, ‘No!’
“Too late to win? No! Not too late for me—
YOU WERE CREATED FOR AN EXTRA-ORDINARY LIFE NEVER SETTLES FOR A SUBSTITUTE!
Related : You can GET ANYTHING IN LIFE JUST THE WAY YOU WANT IT
About the Author
Dr. Duyilemi Akindele Felix is a renowned writer and International Inspirational Speaker. He is a popularly sought after Speaker in Corporate Organizations, Schools, Seminars and Churches. He has written a number of inspirational books including “It’s In You” “Pick Up Your Broken dreams” “Wake Up Your Destiny” and others. He spends his time reading, writing and speaking. Reach him on [email protected]
