Pick up a Nigerian newspaper today, and you will find it a quick, if depressing, read. Front pages of the main dailies in recent days carry stories about NBS poverty report on 133 million Nigerians living below the line, insecurity, soaring food prices, slump in employment and naira exchange rates, among others. However, a few self-improvement routines can help one to surmount the meltdowns. Just as well, lack of it can derail one.
Therefore, while we may be looking to May 29, 2023, for the new administration to start turning things around, we can also celebrate the coming year with a few routines for your self-improvement. So, we do not lose our dreams.
Set your goals daily
If you reflect right now, you will find, either you are working today to accomplish your goals, or you are still labouring to accomplish the goals of others. In the end, guess what you get: not much! Without goals, you are liable to end up some place else. Then again, a goal that is not in writing is a fantasy; it has no energy behind it! That is why one of the self-improvement routines is: set your goals daily, in writing. This helps to accomplish your goals.
Break down your goals into daily tasks
If we are obsessed by what is going on today in the news, on the campaign trail, and the social media, we might be distracted from achieving our goals.
Therefore, we need to break our goals into small daily tasks, and write them down on a list, step by step. This will focus our minds on the daily actions towards achieving your goals. So, we are kept from being distracted by irrelevant pursuits.
Study the major and minor tasks in your list
Next is to study the major and minor tasks in our daily to-do list. This ensures, you use your time well. So that you do not end up spending your major time on minor things.
The rule is spend major time on majors, and minor times on minors! This means, before you do a task, ask yourself, “is this the important thing I should be doing right now?”
Plan a better use of your time
In Lagos, people spend up to four hours daily commuting to and from work. This equals 20 hours in a week, and 500 hours in six months – which is the equivalent of a University semester. You can make a better use of this time, just by using this time to listen to educational CDs in your car. And you can become one of the best-educated people in your profession!
Other times you can use well include: launch times, meeting times, and while waiting to see an official.
Learn constantly
Today, knowledge is doubling almost every year. With the internet, this is set to increase. This means, if you are not doubling what you know every year, you are actually falling behind. That is why, a good routine will be to set aside some time to read, take an online course or to learn something new every day.
Set aside a quiet time each day
If you are like most people these days, everything seems urgent. Between the house, children, career, business, and other things, there is never enough time in the day.
However, you can regain control by setting aside a time for quiet contemplation each day. Then again, this will allow you to reflect on what has happened during the day. So, cause the required daily adjustments you need to accomplish your goals.
In the end, we shall all arrive – the question is where? If we ignore self-improvement routines – our life would remain the same! At that point, we can guess what the next five years will look like for us, by looking at the last five! Therefore, it is up to us.