Awopetu Jesupelumi,
Deputy Director, The Oyemaja Institute of Law.
It is that time of the year again (sighs). The time where new plans are made, various resolutions are written down, different goals are drafted and our minds immediately ready to get to work.
We feel the thrill and excitement of the New Year. We feel we can take on the whole world without batting an eyelid. We want to achieve our goals for the first ten, fifteen and thirty days; then the struggle begins. The struggle to keep the same fire that was burning inside of us at the start of the New Year; the struggle to be the best version of ourselves that we had projected; to be at the junction of our lives that we have envisioned. When that begins to happen, we slowly give up. We navigate back to the same old style and routines that we were so desperate to change. The same cycle of the previous year becomes that of the present.
I once saw a clip of a little girl telling her grandfather that she did not want to be a loser because she had recently tried something and had failed. The old man assured her that she was not a loser. He said that a real loser is someone who is afraid of not winning or even afraid of failing that she doesn't even try. That statement stuck with me.
It made me understand that it’s okay to feel tired, it’s okay to fail at something, and it’s okay to be discouraged. It’s okay to have goals for the year, to start them on high spirits and then get tired shortly. It is also okay to get discouraged and it is okay not to have lost the ‘vibes’.
Understand that as humans, we usually perform based on how we feel at a point in time. When we are feeling excited, we want to do every single task at superhuman speed; when we’re feeling sad, we just want to curl up in a bowl or hide under a rock. This does not mean we should stop trying. Our emotions, regardless of what they are at that point in time, should spur us to achieve something on our list. It should inspire us to carry out a particular resolution; to get to where we envisioned ourselves to be at the end of the year.
Take a nap, go to the movies, go for a drive, go out with friends or do whatever makes you feel refreshed. Then come back and start again. Go back to the drawing board. Take one definitive step that would drive you closer to that resolution or goal. One at a time. One per day, or per week. One step further to who you want to become.
Do not let fear stop you from trying.
