DREAMS

I’m seated here, somewhere in a remote area in Nigeria, for my personal retreat and also pondering on what to write about but sincerely my mind is blank. I intend to flow with the wind knowing for sure that my subconscious would come up with something.
First things first, I’m now a graduate and phew after 5yrs+ (don’t be mistaken I had no extra years) of drilling, grilling and tutoring in Africa’s most beautiful campus and currently first in Nigeria & 25th in Africa, Obafemi Awolowo University, I can confidently say I’m proud to be an alumnus of GREAT IFE and I enjoyed every bit of it, from the ALUTA to the EWA AWO(AWO’s BEANS), to the ARO, to the games I shared with my pals and a whole lot more. I couldn’t be more fulfilled. I’m glad I chose OAU over UNILAG, I don’t really think I would have learnt and developed as much as I did in IFE if I were in LAG but that’s not say that LAG ain’t a wonderful school, of course it is. My adventures in OAU are another story for another day.
I’m here for a personal retreat, trying to map out strategies for the next 2-5 years. I go on personal retreats whenever the inner voice within me tells me to and this gives me the opportunity to evaluate (where I am now), strategise for the future, celebrate myself if need be, chastise/ critise myself…………………………………the list is endless. I suggest you do same maybe for 3 days, maybe 4 or maybe a week.
While on the retreat, I’m with a number of books but the “Power of Focus” by Jack Canfield caught my attention, so , that’s the book I’m reading (you can e-mail me at ilorygold@gmail.com for a soft copy if you so desire). I suggest you read it too.
Okay, on getting to the second chapter, something caught my attention there and I was stunned at my response to that singular question/exercise at the end of the chapter. Here it is……”LIST 101 GOALS THAT YOU WISH TO ACHIEVE IN 10 YEARS????”……….why not pick a piece of paper or notebook and see how many of these goals you can come up with. At first, I thought it was a piece of cake but on setting out for the assignment was stunned at how many I could put down.
On the first day, I could only write down about 20 goals, the next day, I added another 10 goals to it and since then my brain hasn’t been able to come up with something. Then questions started pouring in, what happened????, why wasn’t I able to list 101 goals effortlessly??? I sought answers to my numerous questions, I carried out series of research before I finally came up with a solution for the problem. If you have actually tried writing down these goals and couldn’t get up to the 101 target, be not dismayed, read on and by the time you’re through with this piece, I bet you’d be able to list more than 150 goals.
Okay, here’s the missing link. The human mind is a database. It stores all sorts of thoughts, images, events and so much more. It has an unlimited storage capability but the limit of your mind is the limit of your dream and most times you can only dream about what you see, what you read or what you heard.
Now what you see, read or hear is determined by your exposure. How far have you seen??, how wide have you read or heard?? How deep have you imagined?? There is a correlation between exposure and dreams and you cannot go beyond the limits of your exposure. Imagine, you watch a documentary and you see the Burj Arab towers and you say to yourself…..how I wish I own that tower and then someone else watches another documentary where he sees a 15 storey building. They both dream of owning gigantic structures but the difference in the kind of structures they’re dreaming about is in their exposure. Maybe the second person never knew of the existence of a much more exquisite structure than that 15 storey building he had seen.
The whole point of this write-up is this, try to read wide, watch the lifestyle of the rich and famous in the world. Be interested in what makes them thick, what assets and luxuries do these people own????? Let your mind feast on these things in your spare time and you’d be amazed at your own dreaming capability……….there would be no limit to what you dream of achieving in life.
Three steps forward and one step back equals TWO steps FORWARD. I hope to see you at the top……

GOLDENBOI.