By Olufemi Orunsola
Reminiscences on how the out gone year 2020 crept in and unleashed its unexpected tsunami of corona virus pandemic on the globe leaves me in no doubt that the very first few days, weeks and months in the first quarter of a year and how we spend them could be critically salient and determinant of one’s overall output at the end of the year.
In idiomatic parlance that mentality of squaring up to the task is called hitting the ground running! It simply means, “to start something and proceed at a fast pace with great enthusiasm.”
I recall vividly how making a fast and strategic move in the very first month being January 2020, helped me to secure one of my core aspirations and life’s goals just in the eve of the disruptive pandemic that certainly might have made the achievement of that particular aspiration far more difficult if not impossible to attain at any latter time during the year that was greeted with unprecedented unfavourable conditions obviously inimical to the achievement of that aspiration of mine which to the glory of God was achieved with very little efforts on my part.
Back in my days as an undergraduate student, I recall how the first semester of every programme I had run had always been my “hit the ground running point”! As fresh “Jambites” on campus, most first year students got caught up in the new lease of freedom from parents’ and guardians’ tutelage upon resumption to the campus.
Fresh students’ parties, come in handy here and there. A flood gate of attractions and alluring activities that appeal to our youthful exuberance were opened to us. Most students flow freely with that tide, finding it difficult to really settle down to studies which is the core essence of their presence on campus. Pronto! The first semester exams come knocking while yet many are not really prepared for it! Those who had hit the ground running by doing the right things academically tend to gain the upper edge over others who have just been playing along with the enchantments of campus life. The results often speak volumes!
Subsequently, all students struggle along in frantic attempts to hit their dream marks but the early starters who have built quite a solid start or foundation were obviously already in a good stead needing only to sustain and consolidate it.
That was my typical experience throughout my undergraduate student days. A top secret of my outstanding academic performance of a sort.
By virtue of my engagement in the academia for well over a decade today, I stand on very good authority to state that the same pattern exist among our students on campuses today where very few hit the ground running while majority of students strive to make up for their academic losses and downturn mostly in the tail end of their academic session!
On a larger life scale, it is the same pattern that obtains among many of us who are students of this life in our society on this side of planet earth today.
Most folks basks for too long in the euphoria of a new year. They take just too long to launch out their efforts targeted at achieving their goals. Some hide under the guise of forever still planning what to do till the day is far spent!
Procrastination finds a great company with folks encapsulated with failure to hit the ground running in a strategic manner.
Failure to hit the ground running early on in the year puts a lot of people under undue, avoidable pressures in the last quarter of the year, notoriously dubbed the “ember months” in this clime.
Like one of my respected mentors Brian Tracy do say; “Talk is cheap but it does not cook rice!”. If you want to cook rice, you have to square up to the task of putting it right on fire! But that will not be done without first buying your rice, washing it properly and then setting your pot of rice on the cooking gas or stove!
Therefore, hitting the ground running as recommended here does not mean making unnecessarily swift but haphazard and uncoordinated moves in no particular target direction, all in the name of what one of my reverred media lecturers, Dr. SinaAina once described as “Motion without progress!”
Let me draw the curtains on this motivational piece with one of my favourite numismatic rhymes which states: “Tick, tick, says the clock.
What you have to do, do quick!”
While the philosophical exposition of the wise King Solomon that in this life, “The race is not to the swift, neither bread to men of intelligence; time and chance happens to them all”, is indeed very true, the phenomenon does not rule out the need for all mortals to be intentional, strategic and timely in our pursuits in life as fortune indeed favours the prepared and diligent ones who observe the natural laws governing our existence in this plane.
The wise King Solomon himself is credited with the saying that “he who observes the wind will not sow”. Therefore, the uncertainties that becloud the new year 2021 in the wake of the second wave of the global pandemic notwithstanding, be intentional, confident, strategic yet swift in the pursuit of your aspirations in all areas of your life in this new year.I admit it is natural and human to be afraid of the unknown but we should not let fear drive our inner operating system! -The mindset.
If fear drives your operating system it beclouds your reasoning, sense of good judgement as well as positive imagination, thereby orchestrating either inaction or set of wrong actions. Choose to stay safe against the new wave of the pandemic by observing the preventive protocols but see through the opportunities the prevailing circumstances portend and key into same to optimize your aspirations in the new year.
OlufemiOrunsola is a Social Commentator and the Current Coordinator, Training, Extension Services & Consultancy (TEC), Moshood Abiola Polytechnic’s Centre for Entrepreneurship Development (MAPCED), Abeokuta, Ogun State, Nigeria.
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