WHY A SINGLE LEAP IS NOT THE BEST PATH INTO YOUR FORTUNE
Fortune
is your birthright. You are entitled to it just like any other person or
persons you admire. But what do you think is the best path to it: a sprint or a
marathon?
A sprint is a “short shift race.” Sprints are the shortest running
events that require a burst of energy and speed to get to the finishing line.
Outdoor sprints include the
100-meter, 200-meter, and 400-meter events. World record holders here
include Jesse Owens, the American sprinter who ran the 100 metres in 10.3
seconds and the 200 metres in 20.7 seconds, and Usain Bolt, the Jamaican sprinter who broke the world record for
the 100 metres with a time of 9.5 seconds and the 200 metres with a time of
19.19 seconds in Berlin.
On the other hand, a marathon is a long-distance race. Some distances
covered in a marathon are up to 5,000 meters, 10,000 meters and more. World
record holders include: Dennis Kimetto (Kenya) - 2014, and Kenenisa Bekele (Ethiopia)
– 2016. Some of the female world record holders include: Mary Keitany (Kenya) –
2017 and Tirunesh Dibaba (Ethiopia) – 2017. They didn’t become overnight successes
in just one day, the day they created the world records, but it took many weeks, months, and even years of preparation,
strategizing, practice, building up mental, emotional and physical stamina to attain
stardom. They ran step by step, over a long distance, to get
to the finishing line.
Fortune or success in any field of human endeavour is
a night work that has day results. Even sprinters do some
good practice over a period of time to be able to break new records. So winning
in any area of life is not a quick dash or one-shot affair. It is a daily
routine of adding input after input after input, and so on. Earl Nightingale,
defines success as “the progressive realization of a worthy
goal or ideal.”
That you don’t see the business, investment or career result
today, after you have been putting in efforts, doesn’t mean the efforts are
wasted. In the words of Jim Rohn, “Success is not so
much what we have as it is what we are.”
The discipline you are going through in engaging your mind, sharpening your thoughts,
controlling your emotions, maximizing your time, and taking consistent actions,
are all building you into a better
edition of yourself. That is what athletes do. That process upgrades them
into the persons that qualify for their new records. This is the best path to
fortune or any other success.
Some athletes hold world records for a very
short time, others for a very long time. Here is a list of some longest world
record holders in some athletic events: Florence Griffith Joyner – 100m – 29 years; Stefka Kostadinova – High Jump
– 30 years; Jürgen Schult – Discuss –
31 years; Yuriy Sedykh – Hammer – 31 years; Jarmila KratochvÃlová – 800m –
34 years. It took other athletes very
many years to break the records of the afore-mentioned persons because they first
built themselves into persons that were not easily duplicatable. One-leap or quick-fix
approaches have their many limitations.
Therefore,
if you follow the marathon path of consistently building up your self-discipline,
abilities, stamina, attitude, skills, strategies, actions and maintaining focus,
you’ll stay long in success or fortune.
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