Have you ever asked yourself what would you have to believe in order to be the person of your dreams and to live the life you desire? I recently asked myself that question and I came up with this long list.

I believe I am worthy of success and wealth

I believe I a can do all things through Christ who strengthens me

I believe I can achieve all my dreams

I believe I am a great husband and father

I believe I that in every adversity or challenge is an equal or greater opportunity

I believe that in utmost Integrity

I believe I am made for greatness

I believe I am loved and appreciated

I believe I have incredible potential that I can never exhaust

I believe I am 100% responsible for my life

I believe I am a winner

I believe I am blessed and highly favored

I believe I can lead with greatness

I believe in serving others lies the key to lasting success

I believe in giving great value delivered with excellence

I believe the more I give of my self, time and resources, the more I get in return

I believe that there is greatness inside of everyone and I merely have to draw it out

I believe what I leave inside my children is more important than what I leave for them

I believe true love is more something I do than something I feel

I believe that the quality of my thoughts dictates the quality of my life

I believe my attitude is more important than my circumstance

I believe I am where I am today because of choices I made in the past.

I believe in doing what I do best and finding others to do what I do worst.

I believe in constant never ending improvement

I believe in reading and learning from others is vital to my growth

I believe I have all the intelligence I need to succeed beyond my wildest dreams

I believe I was created to house the Glory of God

I believe when I believe, anything is possible

I believe the words I speak have great power

I believe that living my dreams inspires others around me to do the same

I believe that I am blessed to be a blessing to others

I believe I can choose my response to any event or circumstance

I believe my thoughts affect my emotions which inturn affect my actions

I believe the people I most spend time with directly affect the quality of thinking and life I have

What would you have to believe?

Hey everyone, Happy new year to you all and welcome back. It’s great to be alive and back again for a new year. You could be sick, in jail, or dead or dying but nope, here you are reading this blog. So lets thank the Master for life and another chance to do things better.

The beginning of the year is a particularly intriguing time. It’s perhaps the only time in the year (except for our birthdays) that we really take time to reflect on the past and future seriously. Thats why resolutions are generally made at the start of the year.

For the last three years I’ve been in the habit of not making resolutions. I find that new year resolutions generally set me up for failure. They are usually not made with the right convictions and then followed up with really weak efforts. By end of March, I’m caught up in the waves of daily life and nearly forgotten most of my resolutions . Then the end of the year comes and I beat up myself because I didn’t even make a scratch in my resolutions. Does that sound familiar?

My solution to this crap cycle is to have a constant set of personal goals that I work on regardless of whether its a new year or not. I find this to be much a more progressive and fulfilling approach. Have your 3months, 1year, 5year and 10year goals at all times. They give direction, focus and hope.

An interesting alternative for new year resolutions is having an overall Yearly Theme. I found this on Steve Pavlina’s blog, an individual whose material i find to be exceptionally deep and insightful. His approach is to have a general theme for each year. For example 2008 his theme was Health, 2009 Relationships. This gives you a nice framework that helps you focus on a particular area of your life for one whole year whilst still working on your regular life goals.

Whatever you choose to do for 2010, what I can say is any resolution, goal or theme is better than just floating through the year and seeing what happens. As the saying goes “if you don’t know where your going, any road will take you there”.

I read somewhere that we tend to overestimate what we can accomplish in a single year and underestimate what we can do in ten years. It hit me so hard to realise that we’ve just completed the first decade of the century! Think about that for a moment. 10 years. I think of all that i could have achieved by now if i’d only made serious commitments and goals ten years ago!

Heck, i simply decided to have flimsy resolutions and see where the year takes me. Now I’m still as far away from achieving my dreams as i was 10years ago! That is disturbing. I’m certainly not going to make that mistake with the next ten. I encourage you not to make it either.

So I bid you health, wealth and love in every aspect of your life in 2010. May be prosperous, may you become a greater person than you ever dreamed, may you conquer giants and love and be loved deeply. And may the Master be your guide, your strength, your refuge and your hope in this year and beyond. Amen

Let’s make 2010 a spectacular year.

Shalom

“I hope you live more, love more, laugh more, dare more, take mind blowing risks and achieve more in the new year.” New years SMS from a friend

Today in my mail, I discovered a pleasant bonus in one of my weekly inspirational newsletters. The 13 absolutely unbreakable laws of success by Brian Tracy, one of my favorite motivational speakers. Here it is in simple and no nonsense breakdown of things you must learn to do to achieve great and lasting success in your life. I give you, the 13 Absolutely Unbreakable Laws of Success.

1. The Law of Control:

You feel good about yourself to the degree at which you feel you are in control of your own life.

2. The Law of Responsibility:

You are completely responsible for everything you are and for everything you become and achieve.

3. The Law of Direction:

Successful people have a clear sense of purpose and direction in every area of their lives.

4. The Law of Compensation:

You are always fully compensated for whatever you do, positive or negative.

5. The Law of Service:

Your rewards in life will always be in direct proportion to the value of your service to others.

6. The Law of Applied Effort:

All things are amenable to hard work.

7. The Law of Overcompensation:

If you always do more than you are paid for, you will always be paid more than you are getting now.

8. The Law of Preparation:

Effective performance is preceded by painstaking preparation.

9. The Law of Forced Efficiency:

The more things you have to do in a limited period of time, the more you will be forced to work on your most important tasks.

10. The Law of Decision:

Every great leap forward in life is preceded by a clear decision and a commitment to action.

11. The Law of Creativity:

Every advance in human life begins with an idea in the mind of a single person.

12. The Law of Flexibility:

Success is best achieved when you are clear about the goal but flexible about the process of getting there.

13. The Law of Persistence:

Your ability to persist in the face of setbacks and disappointments is your measure of your belief in yourself and your ability to succeed.

Shalom

It has come to my attention through a lot of my reading lately, that it’s impossible to live a rich life without having a set of goals and dreams to work towards and achieve. Letting life just happen to you and push you around isn’t my idea of fun. That has been the description of my last 30 years.How many times have you asked yourself that proverbial question “I wonder where I’ll be/ who I’ll be in 10years?” Well I now understand that unless you decide where or who you want to be in the future, you’re very likely to be disappointed where you end up. So in that light, I’ve been working on my goals and dreams lately and I thought I’d share what is popularly known as “the bucket list”; a list of things I want to do or experience before I die but in my case, I want to do this before I’m 40.

An Apprentice’s Bucket List before I’m 40

1. To ride a camel and climb the steps of the great pyramids of Giza in Egypt. I also need a cool picture with the sphinx with a broken nose.
2. Go snorkeling on a coral reef especially the Great Barrier Reef in Australia.
3. Take a Safari game drive with my family in the Masai Mara or Serengeti. I’d love for a lion or leopard to jump on the roof of the landrover!
4. To climb a mountain, Rwenzori will do.
5. Learn how to ski/ snowboard and then do so on the Swiss Alps.
6. Take a professional defensive driving or racing course
7. Drive a Porsche, Lamborghini or any other super car
8. Serenade my wife as we ride a Gondola in Venice.
9. Give away 100,000,000 UGX or more to church, charity and aid of humanity.
10. Take a 3week Caribbean cruise.
11. Gain 15 kilos of abs, biceps and Pecs!
12. See the entire solar system via giant telescope.
13. Listen to a philharmonic symphony orchestra live.
14. Go to a Broadway show.
15. Go for T.D Jakes Manpower conference.
16. Take my wife and daughter for horse riding on a real horse ranch!
17. Go to the E3 Electronic Entertainment Expo in Vegas!  Yes, i’m a geek!
18. Go Sky diving
19. Visit an walk through Aquarium with my daughter
20. Tour Asia via the Orient Express.
21. Visit the Himeji white castle in Japan
22. Go sand dune riding in Dubai
23. Visit the Eiffel tower and sip coffee and croissants at a traditional street café in Paris
24. Set up a ministry to mentor, encourage and equip men to be Men!
25. Learn how to Fly a helicopter!

This is just a short list as I continue exercising my faith to open up new possibilities. I’d love to hear some of your own bucket lists. I might be dreaming too small. Let get each other pumped up and encourage one another.

Shalom

JOHN DEWEY: Without some goals and some efforts to reach it, no man can live.

ROBERT H. SCHULLER: Goals are not only absolutely necessary to motivate us. They are essential to really keep us alive.

Hey people, I just thought I’d share this excerpt from the blog of John C. Maxwell–whose only like God’s gift to all things leadership. It makes you think about your lifes dreams abit more clearly. Enjoy.

The Right and Wrong Picture of a Dream

I’ve studied successful people for almost forty years. I’ve known hundreds of high-profile people who achieved big dreams. And I’ve achieved a few dreams of my own. What I’ve discovered is that a lot of people have misconceptions about dreams. Take a look at many of the things that people pursue and call dreams in their lives:

• Day Dreams — Distractions from Current Work
• Pie-in-the-Sky Dreams — Wild Ideas with No Strategy or Basis in Reality
• Bad Dreams — Worries that Breed Fear and Paralysis
• Idealistic Dreams — The Way the World Would Be If You Were in Charge
• Vicarious Dreams — Dreams Lived Through Others
• Romantic Dreams — Belief that Some Person Will Make You Happy
• Career Dreams — Belief that Career Success Will Make You Happy
• Destination Dreams — Belief that a Position, Title, or Award Will Make You Happy
• Material Dreams — Belief that Wealth or Possessions Will Make You Happy
• Seasonal Dreams — A Short Term Target You Try to Reach

If these aren’t good dreams-valid ones worthy of a person’s life-then what are? Here is my definition of a dream that can be put to the test and pass: a dream is an inspiring picture of the future that energizes your mind, will, and emotions, empowering you to do everything you can to achieve it.

A genuine dream is a picture and blueprint of a person’s purpose and potential. Or as my friend Sharon Hull says, “A dream is the seed of possibility planted in the soul of a human being, which calls him to pursue a unique path to the realization of his purpose.”

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