“All you can do, is all you can do. And all you can do is enough, but make sure you do all you can do.” Arthur L. Williams
A dream is a creative vision for your life in the future. This is the exciting picture of yourself, being a certain person, having and attracting certain things in your life. It’s this exciting vision that becomes your guiding star that guides and pulls you into this exciting future. This picture creates a deep hunger, thirst and will that refuses to be denied. I love Benjamin Disraeli when he says, “Nothing can resist a human will that will stake its very existence on its purpose.” This is someone who has said “Yes!” to their dream and are willing to do whatever it takes to realize it.
Living a meaningful life means to make your heartbeat match the beat of the Universe, this is matching nature with nature! The one thing you don’t want to do is to work against your nature because doing this is like working against the storm. Do you know what is your nature? This is a fundamental question you should seriously be asking yourself and seeking to honestly answer it. Working against your nature is like being a square peg in a round hole.
Let’s be honest, there are many people who are hiding behind their academic qualifications – doctors, engineers, accountants, psychologists, human resources practitioners, etc. As a life coach and speaker, I meet these people daily. I was one of those for many years, I was qualified to be a mechanical engineer on paper but my true nature was not that. If I truly was, I would have had some patent or design of some sort under my name, some solution to a pressing problem in the field of engineering. The real test to see if you are doing what you should be doing is to look at your afterhours and weekends activities. Are you mostly looking forward to knock off times and Fridays and are hating your Sundays for they hand you over to Mondays? Are you really obsessed with your craft? Does one hour becomes five minutes when you are engaged with your craft, if not, then it’s just a job for you to earn a living. Until you are obsessed with something, especially your craft, you’ll never master it. When you are connected with your nature, you find your element also called the zone or flow and this leads to obsession. When you are in your element, you ooze with childlike curiosity and creativity. When you are in your rightful place, you make time for your craft and become patient for the best results. In my case, I had to leave engineering and find my real ‘home’ which is speaking to teach and motivate, writing and coaching. Mark Sullivan puts it succinctly in his powerful quote, “To find a career to which you are adapted by nature, and then to work hard at it, is about as near to a formula for success and happiness as the world provides.” Now, this is matching your heartbeat with the Universe’s because hard work doesn’t become hard work at all. Now that I found my happy home, speaking and writing comes easily and naturally hence you read my posts and articles almost daily because I’m in my element! What is your element?
Many people’s careers, aspirations, hopes, dreams and positive spirits are being crushed to death daily by people who are in positions they are not supposed to be in and careers they are supposed to be in. When your nature is not matching that of the Universe, you become shallow minded, meaning you lack creativity and drive leading to a deep seated frustration. When you lack creativity and drive, you automatically suffocate those that have it. Being in a foreign place makes you fight for survival while hurting the natives of that place. It is what it is!
St Iraneous said, “Man fully alive is the glory of God.” When I first stumbled across this quote, something began to stir in me. Once again here, to be fully alive, you have to be in your element, that place that sets your soul on fire! To be fully alive is to live a meaningful life. A meaningful life is doing what you are meant to be doing. An apple seed was planted in order for an apple to become an apple, nothing else. A banana seed was planted for a banana to become a banana, nothing else. What seed was planted in you in a form of gifts and talents when you were conceived? Your purpose is to discover that seed, water and cultivate it to its fruition.
When you find your element, the maybes and what-ifs disappear into thin air. When you find your element, you become the voice, not an echo. In chapter 51 – In search of self – of my newly published book – Set Your Soul On Fire! I’ve used a quote by Joel Salatin, “The worst thing in life is waking up old and realizing you became so good at the wrong thing.”
Your life is meant to be the light that drives out the darkness, find your element and be what you are meant to be and the world will be a much better place because you came this way!
Veli Ndaba is a Professional and Motivational Speaker, Life-Coach and Neuro Linguistic Programming Practitioner, Author of four books (You Are Born to Win, Your Dream is Calling You and SWITCH ON! And Set Your Soul On Fire!), Newspaper Columnist and Entrepreneur. To book him to speak at your next event or to help you and your team unleash your greatness, contact him on veli@velindaba.com, www.velindaba.com or +27 83 304 9773