I am a type of person that gets bored easily. It may be that I dislike routine, and rules mean I should break them and trust me, I break them most of the time. And as for routine, I realized that I dislike it because of the normal straight, bending, down and uphill, with zero-challenge and sticking to the same pace – boriiiiiing. In fact, there is no energy to invest to the journey – It’s just auto-piloting.

A new project landed on my lap while I was in an auto-pilot mode and immediately procrastination overwhelmed me like a dark cloud  over my face. The questions like – Why me? Why can’t they do it themselves? Do they think I have capacity to do this? Credit be granted, these questions were provocative. I started thinking of the great days of achievements and the days of purpose, I had, when courage pumped in my blood stream. The drive and excitement I had when presented with such opportunity. My response to all the thoughts and questions was simple right. “It is because I am the best at what I do.” echoed my heart. I had a spark in my eyes and I knew that I could do it, no matter what. I was ready as ready ever be.

It was the latest of technology that I had never dealt with before but I’m known of taking over new tech and turn it to the best it can do. Starting something new means that I have to switch to learning mode, kill the know it all attitude, which is the hardest phase when starting something new. Majority of what I was learning was greek to me but perseverance and repetition kept me going. Then days started to be better than the previous ones, I could feel my drive and courage growing inside me. The spark was initiated and the more time I put on this project, the better I became and the better errors I got, the better solutions I found. I was unstoppable. I realized how fundamental this piece of work was to the business. The meaning of being the best at what I do was brought to life. Before everybody knew it, the new solution was put to production and all of it was working better than what people thought. It blew mind! I felt like an athlete getting a Gold medal in the Olympics, singing my national anthem with a tear in my eye. This was an achievement to me and nobody else could tell me otherwise, I was totally convinced.

When last did you have that fulfilling moment in your life. Life is a gift and should be cherished and lived to the best possible. But what do we do? We settle! We settle in our lives, in our homes, in our relationships, we become comfortable with stagnation and become non-productive and lose interest. We say life is boring. We say wife is nagging and husband is ignorant. We look at other relationships and wish they were ours. It seems easier to change things in our profession or career to make systems work better or documentation look better or change jobs if we feel like it, but we fail when it comes to our real lives.  Why does that happen? Is it because the salary is so seductive that we turn a blind eye to our reality? Is staying employed really a security? The responses to these question may be a number of excuses convincing the mirror or not. We all know how vital life, family, and spouses are and we must treat them as such.

Think of these elements as parts of the body that if you hurt one of the limbs your whole body will feel the pain or if you indulge in your favourite dessert your whole body melts in the pleasure of what goes in. We dream of a balanced and prosperous life which is promised to us and we can achieve it – we just need to put a little more effort and focus. One of the wise men once said, “A man who chases two rabbits, catches none.” By putting all the focus on ourselves and working hard on one important element at a time, that is when we get results in achieving something fundamentally solid that the profound beauty within us glows for everyone to see.

Remember that how you live your life influences how you handle yourself professionally and that is the brand you are selling out there. Like it or not we are always selling whether we are aware of it or not. As we live life to the fullest in doing one good thing at a time, we get blessed by more days in life. Authenticity is important for a work/life balance which may seem impossible. The brand that you are represents who you are and what you are becoming – what comes out of your mouth must be followed by actions. There’s power behind congruency!

Written by Mduduzi Mthanti