HOW WE CAN FACE CHALLENGES IN LIFE.

BEING PAPER PRESENTED BY CHARLES IKEDIKWA SOEZE, B.A. (HONS.), M.A, Ph.D. (In view), fhnr, fcida, fcai, cpae, son, emba. CHIEF OFFICER (ADMINISTRATION), PETROLEUM TRAINING INSTITUTE (PTI), EFFURUN.ON THE OCCASION OF YOUTH WEEK CONFERENCE AT THE APOSTOLIC CHURCH, OKOLOBA CENTRAL ZONE EFFURUN IN UVWIE LOCAL GOVERNMENT AREA OF DELTA STATE AS GUEST SPEAKER ON SUNDAY, 5TH DECEMBER 2010 AT THE CHURCH PREMISES.

ALL PROTOCOLS DULY AND RESPECTFULLY OBSERVED.

I wish to begin with utmost gratitude to God by expressing my deep appreciation to the Apostolic Church, Okoloba Central Zone, Effurun in Uvwie Local Government Area of Delta State for inviting me to give a talk on how we can face challenges in life.

I would like to register my special thanks to the authorities of the church and to the entire congregation for their kindness and generosity. It is on record that the church from its humble beginnings, had grown by leaps and bounds, to become a formidable worshipping centre of excellence, attracting thousands of worshippers from all over Nigeria as well as from other parts of the world. The Apostolic Church must be strongly commended for this sterling achievement. A round of applause for this, please.

It is most appropriate to say that a positive attitude is essential if you want to enjoy life. People strive for happiness, yet how many start the day by looking forward to what is ahead? Do you feel positive and optimistic about the opportunities that will present themselves, or do you view each day as ‘‘just another day’’? However, life is full of ups and downs, and it is your attitude that determines how you will deal with each situation as it arises.

The ability and agility to confront and productively overcome life’s challenges can be considered the number one most important quality shared by all successful people. If you lack the ability to bravely and confidently stand eyeball to eyeball with adversity, then anything else you do in your journey towards success will have very little meaning. Life does not catapult anybody to greatness without first testing their worthiness. Do you think those who achieve great things in life give up in the face of a challenge or do you think they find a way to rise above? It is important to say here that this world is filled with victims and life does not reward victims. Victims on the other hand waste a lot of time brooding about the adversities they face. They do not see life’s challenges as opportunities for mediocrity. When victims are challenged by life, they will gladly take the path of least resistance. In other words, a victim will remain resistant to change and will therefore accept a challenge as a signal to quit.

It is a truism to say that life will never stop challenging you. Regardless of where you live or how much success you may have already achieved, you will have to confront challenges on an almost daily basis. In fact, the more successful you become, the more challenges you can count on facing. From this day forward, understand that any ‘‘woe is me’’ attitude will absolutely hold you back from great accomplishment. Learn to see the opportunities which exist in every challenge you face and I can guarantee you will achieve the greatness which is your destiny.
For us to face challenges in life, we need to develop personal mission statement (PMS) or philosophy or creed. It focuses on what you want to be (character) and to do (contributions and achievements) and on the values or principles upon which being and doing are based.

In view of the fact that each individual is unique, a PMS will reflect that uniqueness both in content and form. Rolfe Kerr cited by Covey (1989:106) in his book, The 7 Habits of highly Effective People, expressed his personal mission statement thus- which I think and believe will assist us. These are some of them:
• Succeed at home first
• Seek and merit divine help
• Never compromise with honesty
• Remember the people involved hear both sides before judging (Audi alteram partem)
• Obtain counsel of others
• Defend those who are absent
• Be sincere yet decisive
• Develop one new proficiency a year
• Plan tomorrow’s work today i.e Action Today Not Tomorrow (ACTION TNT)
• Hustle while you wait
• Maintain a positive attitude
• Keep a sense of humour
• Be orderly in person and in your academic pursuit
• Do not fear mistakes-fear only the absence of creative, constructive, and corrective responses to those mistakes
• Facilitate the success of subordinates
• Listen twice as much as you speak
• Concentrate all abilities and efforts on the task at hand
As a result of the above therefore, I wish to emphatically state that you can call a personal mission statement a personal constitution. Like the United States Constitution. It is fundamentally changeless. In over two hundred years, there have been only twenty-six amendments, ten of which were in the original Bill of Rights.
The United States Constitution is the standard by which every law in the U.S is evaluated. It is the document the president agrees to defend and support when he takes the oath of Allegiance. It is the criterion by which people are admitted into citizenship. It is the foundation and the centre that enables people to ride through major traumas as the Civil War, Vietnam, or Watergate. It is the written standard, the key criterion by which everything else is evaluated and directed.
In other words, a personal mission statement based on correct principles becomes the same kind of standard for an individual. It becomes a personal constitution, the basis for making major life-directing decisions, the basis for making daily decisions in the midst of the circumstances and emotions that affect our lives. It empowers individuals with the same timeless strength in the midst of change. People can’t live with change if there is not a changeless core inside them. The key to the ability to change is a changeless sense of who you are, what you are about and what you value.
Once you have the sense of mission, you have the essence of your own proactivity. You have the vision and the values which direct your life. You have the basic direction from which you set your long and short term goals. Some people say that failure should be avoided at all costs. The only way to avoid failure at all costs and by all means is to do nothing. The only trouble with doing nothing is that while you avoid failure and defeat, you also avoid victory and success.
We have to face challenges in life seriously because failure is like toxic waste (recall toxic waste dumped in koko near Sapele some years ago) and to think about it pollutes and destroys the attitudes you need for success. For me, I see failure not as toxic waste but as fertilizer. Farmers use manure, decomposed plants, and other substances to fertilize their crops. In much the same way, our failures and disappointments can be used to enrich the soil of our mind for the planting of seeds of success.
The way to turn failure into fertilizer is to use our errors and mistakes from our mind. Forget the failure, and focus on future success. Use failure and disappointments only as a corrective feedback to get you on target again. Keep your eye on your goal and have faith in your ability to reach it.
Dennis Waitley puts into ‘‘concrete’’ a philosophy in which I have always believed-and that is to be the best that you can become. God did not have time to make a nobody-just as somebody. The seeds of greatness are planted in every human being and it is up to you-and to me –to bring them into fruition.
For us to face challenges in life, there are six (6) procedures that would work for us:
• Action cures fear. Isolate your fear and then take constructive action. Inaction, doing nothing about a situation or idling away strengthens fear and destroys confidence
• Make a supreme effort to put only positive thoughts in your memory bank or your storehouse of wisdom and knowledge. Don’t let negative self deprecatory, diseased thoughts grow into mental monsters
• Simply refuse to recall unpleasant events or situations. Do away with them immediately once and for all
• Put people in proper perspective. Remember people are different. Get a balanced view of the other fellow. Here is just another human being know it that human beings are the real and greatest assets in possession. Don’t treat human beings with triviality. Develop an understanding attitude. Many people will bark, but its rare ones that bite. Believe it that no one bites.
• Practice doing what your conscience tells you is right. This prevents a poisonous guilty complex from developing. Doing what is right is a very practical rule for success. Be conscience-conscious, feel right and do right always.
• Let everything about you say, ‘‘I am ever ready and equal to the challenges in life’’. ‘‘I am confident, really confident’’. Practice these little techniques in your day-to-day activities.
In summary,
- Be a front seater
- Walk 25 percent faster
- Speak up in all occasions
- Smile big and be jovial
To understand life, you have to study life. Life and human existence are two beautiful phenomena. They ate the call on earth of man. To really make it colossus-wise, all beings have to equip themselves with the sciences and knowledge necessary for the great challenge of man’s existence. Existence itself is a challenge.
We cannot afford to come and fail. No human being on earth ever wishes to fail in his or her lifetime. Wrap on your entire being fine, act fine and above all build fine faith and you will definitely face challenges in life and succeed. Success is golden and success is also a gift meant for all and sundry. Success is plenty not a free gift item. He, who must have it, must work for it.
However, one must ask for it before it gets to one. It does not get to a loafer, an idler, the faithless, the disgruntled, the disenchanted, the negatively possessed and the likes. Rather, success is meant for the man who is living both in mind, soul and body- the man who possesses and practices all the virtues of success-hard work, faithfulness, hope, confidence, sincerity, good attitude, trust, honesty and the like.
If we face the challenges of life, we must succeed. One has to know what success is and entails, and work on the path of success and greatness. We must not settle for less. Success is sweet, success is golden and success is a rare gift of lifetime. To succeed through challenges of life, we should think success, dream success and work for success. Gear up yourself properly for success and then you will succeed. We should discard all negative thoughts in our life.
My position in this lecture is that people should face challenges in life with a much determined vigour and stop henceforth from deceiving themselves and others by thinking, believing and preaching that what people become are already predetermined and predestined by God. No: people should desist from bringing confusion into their ways. Face challenges in life, you will think success. Eat success, Drink success, sleep with success and then you will succeed if only you combine them with hard work.
Furthermore, Charles Babbage, Von Neuman and few others are outstanding and finely distinguished in the computer technology, because they had a dream about computer evolution and development and they followed the path of their dream. Robert Owen and Dr. William King among other pioneers of their day are remembered today for the role they played in the evolution of cooperative business enterprise as another system countering the individualistic and exploitative capitalistic economy. Frederick Taylor, Henri Fayol, etc are remembered today because of their inroad into the growth and development of scientific management. Pele of Brazil, in soccer mastery, Great Zik of Nigeria, Nkurumah of Ghana and some are also remembered for their profitable use of mankind. All these giants were not the only human beings in their own time but as they knew what they wanted and how to get at it, so many others too numerous to mention have no aim, vision, direction let alone to go about attaining it.
May God bless all of us for listening attentively.



REFRENCES
Bob-Igwe. C.C. (2002) How To Make It In Life Time. Enugu: BOB Billian Publishers.
Covey, S.R (1989) The 7 Habits of Highly Effective People. New York: Simon and Schuster.
Ejimadu, F. (2003) ‘‘Leadership Tragedy In Nigeria’’. An article in THISDAY newspaper of August 8, 2003
Ihewuokwu, Kennedy(2004) ‘‘ Give Youths a Chance’’. An article in PUNCH newspaper of December 4, 2004 p.A15
Soeze, C.I. (2004) ‘‘How to go about your future academic career as youths after graduation at the senior Secondary School Level’’. Paper presented on the occasion of prize giving and graduation day of Unique International Schools, Effurun.
Waitley, D. (1987) Being The Best. Nashville: Oliver Nelson, A Division of Thomas Nelson Publishers.