Every living being needs success in life, but the question is what does success mean to you? To some, it means financial security, to another it means fame, to others it means mean having great children, family, good health, or even aligning with your creator spiritually. I personally think the greatest form of success is being able to understand oneself because it helps to measure growth and maturity. You can lie to others, but you can never lie to yourself.  Success is truly relative. One mistake people make about success is putting a limit or end goal to success.

True success has to be built and nurtured like a plant in order for you to reap its fruits. Just like a student has to take entrance examination or apply to a school, then read, do assignment and engage in order to graduate in record time. In the same way, an employee or entrepreneur has to learn the skills and theoretical and practical information in his trade before he or she will succeed. Even in marriage, nothing works unless both parties are deliberate and intentional in putting in the work by discovering who there are, their personalities, communicating to each other, and working towards to the success of their marriage before their marriage can work.

In a way, for you to attain genuine success, you must put in the desired work. There’s nothing like overnight success because process is required in life. A new baby can’t begin to crawl, walk and talk in day. Even in the spiritual realm, a new convert has to learn the ropes of being a born again Christian. There’s a reason process is required in life. It helps to bring in maturity and understanding.  When you fail to plan, you are planning to fail. In our society, many people tend to relegate the process of learning. They fail to understand you have to learn before they earn.

It’s quite unfortunate to know that many people think they can rush success. True success will come to you when you are ready. Sometimes, we have to prepare before we receive rewards and awards for our work. When you have a vision, you need to be strategic in your approach. You also need patience.

Sometimes, when you have challenges, it’s just for you to learn some lessons which will help to elevate you to the next level. The problem can even be a disappointment.  This challenge may help you to build and strengthen your character. It can even serve as litmus test to who you are. This is because circumstances don’t say who you are, they reveal who you are.

As human beings, one major flaw we have is that we fail to learn, relearn and unlearn in contemporary ways to develop ourselves in order to fit into what is expected of us in the real world.

When you rush through success, you’ll have problems in making decisions as supposed to the informed decision you would have made if you have given it deep thought in addition to reaching out to cerebral minds for their kind thoughts and opinions.

There are certain things you can’t rush in life, you need to grow in them, example, love, friendship/relationship, forgiveness, faith and trust.

Love

True love takes time, in fact you grow in love. One mistake people make in life is that they think love is enough to make life and marriage work; they fail to understand a lot of work is required. For instance, for a car to work, the engine must be in good condition, you must have a whipper if it rains, you need mirrors and gas/fuel amongst other requirements. That’s how marriage works. You need patience, understanding, money, communication, support etc.

Friendship/Relationship

A great relationship takes time to grow. Just like Rome wasn’t build in a day, a great relationship must be cultivated like a fruit. When you rush into it without growing through the process, you may lose some insights you would have seen if you took time to study your partner.

Forgiveness

True forgiveness takes time. As Christians, the bible book of life encourages us to forgive, but as human beings, sometimes, we find it hard to forget even if we manage to forgive. For true forgiveness to take place, we must heal from the wound.

Faith

Faith is another part of our being that takes time to grow. Life works with principles. The law of gravity states That whatever goes up must come down. Just like you can believe that your car will start when you switch on the ignition button, in the same way, your mindset ought to be fired up when you have done the needful in your academic, professional and spiritual life. That’s simply how faith works.

Trust

One of the greatest asset of friendship and relationship is trust. Trust is normally use to test loyalty. To earn trust, you must test it and build it. True test is earned and not bought. Our greatest prayer should be, may our loyalty never be tested. Trust doesn’t just occur, it takes time.

In conclusion, it is pertinent to note that that just like you can’t rush God and destiny, you cannot rush success. No matter how far you may try to get any position, even if you are connected to the resourceful mind in the organization, if the position is not for you and if the company is not in need of your skills at that particular time, you won’t get it. I will leave you with this word, don’t rush the process, good things take time.

 Henry Ukazu writes from New York. He’s a mindset coach and self-discovery expert. He works with the New York City Department of Correction as the Legal Coordinator. He’s the author of the acclaimed book Design Your Destiny – Actualizing Your Birthright To Success and President of gloemi.com. He can be reached via info@gloemi.com