a beautiful gift

I have always known that the road to greatness is in having clear, specific goals that at first seem impossible and scary, but are realistic. My experience has shown me that unmet goals can really frustrate and lead to stress and quitting. I have been guilt of this all my life.

I had stopped making ambitious goals last year, 2007, as a result of a bagful of unmet goals because reflecting on them made me realise i was going nowhere and only served to stress me more. So i stopped setting goals. However when i went back to my roots i.e. Zimbabwe, last week, i reflected on my experiences with goals and i realised i had met most of my goals albeit not in the planned time frame.

This reflection revealed to me the real nature of goals and set me up to come up with goal-setting theory i would like to share with you. I will use a scenario based on one of my many encounters with goal setting:financial goals.

Lets suppose my goal is to make or earn total of $16 after four weeks through doubling my income at the end of every week as in

week 1:$2,

week 2:$4,

week 3:$8,

week 4:$16.

Whenever i have set such goals in my life, my experiences have mostly been akin to the following scenario:

week 1: -$4(am in debt, had to borrow to start),

week 2: -$2(managed to make $2 and paid off part of the debt),

week 3: -$2(didnt sell/earn anything),

week 4: -$3(didnt sell anything had to borrow $1 to survive).

In most instances after week 4 i would then face reality and do the inevitable:quit. Stress and lose of self-confidence followed. After 4 weeks i was supposed to have $16 in pockets but i had, -$3, a deficit.

However in a FEW occasions where i was stubborn(coz i can be stubborn) here is a probable scenario. After the 4th week as above with a deficit of -$3 i refused to quit but soldiered on and this is what happened:  

week 5:  -$1(i sold $2 to a relative who pitied my seemingly useless business),

week 6: $2(sold $3, am now out of the red!),

week 7: $10(eureka, i got a big order from a real company),

week 8: $90(got three really big orders). I will stop here.

Do you get the picture? I planned for 4 weeks, didnt meet my goal, but i soldiered on and after 8 weeks i was making what i never planned to get. Thats life you dont get what you want, at times, when you really need it, but with faith and persistence you could get more than you never dreamed of. Be blessed.

I will take this very first post to introduce myself and the purpose of this blog, i hope this is inline with blogging standards if ever they exist.

My name is Solomon-Hopewell Kembo and i am 28 years old. I am a Zimbabwean webpreneur based in Mozambique. Not exactly a nerd though at times i suspect am becoming one slowly.

I believe that “iron sharpens iron” thats why i hope this blog creates a platform for discussions and debates on this beautiful gift called life, if you have the passion for life. My passions include music, entrepreneurship, soccer, cricket, film, literature, programming etc.

I decided to call the blog the beautiful gift because i believe life is a precious and beautiful gift whose beauty we all ought to expose, preserve and improve all the time. Of late serious challenges have faced our universe from wars, famine, natural diseases, political violence etc. On the other hand some truly amazing positive events continue to show the true beauty of the universe in fields such as sport, research & science, business, charity, family & love, music and even politics. I believe the preservation lies solely in our collective efforts and we still can fight the ills together if only we do heed the words of Edmund Burke that ”The only thing necessary for evil to triumph is for good men to do nothing.” It is my hope that we will discuss pertinent issues on this platform. Be blessed.