How to Achieve success Irrespective of your background or challenges by Folarin Oluwasayo

January 25, 2017

Enough of deceit! Success is no one's my birth right. There are rich people who became poor and poor people who became rich. The better side of the table is where everyone prays to be sitted when the table turns. There is a long existing adage which is a common say among religious faithful, 'that success is the right of everyone' ̶ and that is the ideal - so let us face the reality.
Although, I am still pretty young but my existence in life has been shaped by personal experiences, biography, autobiography and recorded interview of highly successful individuals, which made me realize that success is to be earned through consistent, deliberate and rigorous hard work. The decision to pay the price is solemnly your responsibility and intelligent property. Success itself is a prize; needful to say, I believe in the existence of luck but I don’t wait for it to present itself. Success is hinged on the ability to perceive the future, and to work towards it in the most efficient situation.
There is no reason why a man who is willing to work should not be able to work and to receive the full value of his work. There is equally no reason why a man who can but will not work should not receive the full value of his services to the community. He should most certainly be permitted to take away from the community an equivalent of what he contributes to it. If he contributes nothing he should take away nothing. He should have the freedom of starvation. We are not getting anywhere when we insist that every man ought to have more than he deserves to have—just because some do get more than they deserve to have. -- Henry Ford (My Life and Work).
The most important component of success is to give one’s continuous zest and value hard work. Most people give up because they do not realized the cost of success. For every dream you pursue, there is a prize for it. My Structural Design lecturer has a saying “do your best always”. I never understood that simple sentence until I couldn’t meet my targeted marks in my exams due to my negligence to 5-marks assignments. I was taught the value of continuous zest and hard work by the ugly hands of experience.
Moving forward, I began to set achievable goals - small wins add up to large success. I got to realize what it really means to have a to-do list to tailor my activities towards my goals. The to-do list solved the problem of unwilling procrastination, and I started meeting my goals for the day, month and year. I realized that I am progressing pico-pico. I would advise that before you leave for work or set out for your classes tomorrow, pen down your achievable plans and with this, you would be able to track your activities and measure your progress and in turn see areas you should improve on.
Success is available to the man who reaches out for it, it is innate. When the needful is not done to reach out for it, it would be a sleeping potential. If you don’t get off your ass and work, failure will walk you through its hell. Get this straight into your head, success is not your birth right; rather it is a title you are entitled after completing the required task and doing things right. There is no free lunch! Everything has its price. Prize is for people who has paid the price.

About the author: Folarin Oluwasayo is a Civil Engineering student at the University of Ibadan (UI). He is a strong advocate of 'you need more than what you are taught in school to succeed in the real world'. He is currently on his IT program.