Move To Find Answers.

How do you find honest answers to your most pressing questions? I’ll suggest three ways.

(1) Do a Self-Evaluation. Examine your past challenges, trends and events. Wise men improve and overcome challenges faster than most other people because they learn through self-mastery. Identify your weaknesses, improve on them and become a better person.

(2) Listen to Critics. Criticism in itself is not evil. It only becomes destructive and counterproductive when it is unjustifiable and based on prejudice. What has relatives, friends, colleagues and associates been saying about your situation? There are those who love you and knowledgeable enough to offer sound advice and judgments. Listen to them. Always check for signals that identify areas you need to adjust. Maybe a particular attitude in your character needs to be improved upon, or a skill that needs to be further developed, but you can only identify them by listening to those who are saying something ‘serious’ about ‘you’ to you.

(3) Consult Experts in Person or Through Books. Indeed, God is the ultimate solution provider, but one of His ways is to use individuals who have identified solutions and systems that can help troubled people overcome their problems. People who have gained insights through personal experiences in the past are in a position to help you. Also some others through research and accumulation of practical knowledge and skills in a field related to your challenge could also be of immense help. A few on the list of such persons are counselors, psychologists, doctors, life coaches, pastors and other religious leaders. Find genuine ones and talk to them. And if you can’t reach them in person, find answers from their books.

Step 4: Make Value-based Decisions
Your Decisions must be in line with sound values. Your values are the most important concepts and virtues upon which your entire destiny is based. It’s easy to opt for quick fixes and short cuts to solutions. It’s easy to want to get results ‘by all means’. But if your proposed solution and answers seem to be in conflict with enduring life values, you may just be mining a big hole in your field just to get a small piece of gold. Now, let me ask you; would you risk an earthquake for a piece of gold? I wouldn’t, if I were you.

Therefore choose to overcome your challenges by making value-based decisions. For instance, two of my greatest life values are integrity and contribution. That is why no intensity of financial problems would lead me into the smuggling of contraband goods. I wouldn’t pirate someone else’s work for quick money. That’s because we all have the ability to create valuable products that others would gladly pay for. In a nutshell, if you believe in your future you will aspire to get rich without hurting your values, personality, health or relationships. As a sphincter (whether at 25 or 45), you will not opt for a married man for a husband. You don’t have to hurt someone else to be happy.

Whatever you may be going through right now is only temporary. Some of these experiences are meant to make you tough and resilient. This is a quality you need to sustain achievements when they eventually come. Others are there to make your story big enough to inspire the younger generation. The question is this: Are you willing to pay the price?

All you need is to hang on through tough times, don’t give up, learn all you can about how to surmount challenges, follow the above suggestions and you will soon be singing a new song. I will bring you the concluding part of this seven-step series next month. Stay high and keep hope alive.

Success!