I HAVE A PURPOSE

What is the greatest tragedy in life? It is not death. It is life without a purpose.  The greatest tragedy is waking up each day and having no clue as to why you exist.

I’m sure that you know of people who have preferred to commit suicide rather than go on living. For them at that point, life had lost all meaning and there was no point in going on. You and I know of people who turned to many other forms of self-abuse while searching for meaning in their lives.  

If I gave you a gadget like a computer, iPad or iPhone and you absolutely had no clue about what it was, what would you do with it? You would abuse it. You would experiment with it by poking it or pulling it apart to find out how it worked. In the process you would damage it.

It is the same thing with life. We all have it and it’s a great gift but many people don’t know why they have it. They have no idea about their lives’ purpose. And so they experiment with it and in the process they abuse it. They do this an’ that! They take this an’ that and then drink this an’ that or go binge drinking and their lives become a tragedy. If we don’t know and are not clear about what we should be doing with our life we abuse it.

You were not just born to occupy space, eat and drink. There is a reason why you are here. You have a purpose in this world. You have a mission that is unique to you. There is something that only you, and no one else, were meant to do and accomplish and make a positive difference in the world around you. 

If you decide to die without achieving your purpose, it will remain undone. You have a unique mission and purpose in this world that no one else will ever fill. You owe it to yourself to discover what your purpose in this world is and to go on and live it.  Only you can discover and connect with your own purpose and you owe it to yourself to do so.

I believe that my number one purpose is to be a teacher of love and wisdom motivating and inspiring myself and others to be the best that we can be. My life’s mission is to embrace the magnificence and beauty that my creator planted in me and then inspire other people to do the same. I fulfill this purpose by writing, speaking and coaching. See www.silsystems.com.au

I also exist to build amazing relationships with myself, my God, my wife, my children and grandchildren.

And finally I strongly believe that I am here to make a positive difference in the lives of those less fortunate than I am. For this reason I have been instrumental in establishing a charity organization – ZIMOLA (Zimbabwe Orphans Looking Ahead). See www.zimola.org

To get in touch with your unique purpose spend time thinking about those things that you value most. What lights up your heart and spirit whenever you are doing it?

Find time to be still, to listen to yourself and to reflect on what’s going on inside you. Ask yourself some critical questions and take time to come up with answers. There is power in questions. The quality of your life is determined by the quality of the questions you ask yourself.

I spent quite some time asking myself some simple but very powerful questions. Who am I? Where did I come from? What is the purpose of my existence?  What is my mission in this life? How best do I want to make a difference in the world? What do I enjoy doing so much that I don’t really care whether I’m paid or not to do it?   What am I supposed to accomplish before I die? What legacy do I want to leave behind? 

And when you come up with answers to these questions, your life will begin to change. You will become excited and start working towards changing your life. When you find your purpose, your life has greater meaning. You experience a sense of mission. Your vision of the future expands. You feel inspired, enthused and energized by your purpose.

Yes you will face challenges as you work to live your purpose but you will overcome these challenges because of your inspiration, enthusiasm and energy. You will also grow as a result of the challenges and these challenges will define who you are and who you can become. And you will feel very grateful to be alive.

For you to experience all this you have to believe in your purpose when you find it. You need to have a certainty and be able to say to yourself, “Yes!  This is what I was born to do.” You can only meaningfully live your purpose if you have conviction that you are doing what you love and loving what you do.

You owe it to yourself. Find your purpose in life and live it to the full. Go inside yourself and search for meaning in your life. Ken Hudgins says, “The meaning of life is to give life meaning.”

Ask yourself those critical questions and continue to ask yourself until you come up with some answers. Find your purpose, fill your life with meaning and live an inspired life.

 

 

Embrace Your Magnificence

There is a magnificence and beauty in each and every one of us. In spite of our human imperfections, each one of us has an inherent value that only we can most meaningfully connect with.

There are acres of diamonds in each and every one of us capable of empowering us to transform our own lives and the world around us. There is a genius in every one of us that can only be meaningfully expressed by us. It is found and can only be expressed through the unique gifts, talents and abilities that each person is endowed with.          

Until I got in touch with the magnificence and beauty that resides within me, I could not fully appreciate how awesome I am and the enormous power that I have to achieve much more than I have achieved so far. Connecting with my magnificence empowered and enabled me to fully grasp the potential and range of possibilities that lie in my path.

One of the very first steps you need to take to get closer to your magnificence is to recognize the gremlins that live inside you. These are the negative inner voices that each one of us has or has had over the years. The louder these voices are the deeper they have buried the priceless diamond inside.

As we grew up and experienced varying situations and events we took up certain critical inner voices that told us that we were not worth much and couldn’t do it.

Our parents, siblings, relatives, friends and teachers may have said or done something that shaped the way we now look at ourselves.  It could have simply been our own self-doubt. The point is that we developed a negative self-talk that influenced the way we thought of ourselves.
For more than 20 years I lived up to the label –Chinyerere (The Quite One) that my parents, siblings and relatives had given me from as young an age as 5.  The more they said it, the more I believed it and the quieter I became.  

For many years I could not even imagine myself standing up to speak in front of a group of people. I remember freezing twice when I was asked to speak in front of a small group of people.

Breaking out of the mental prison of Chinyerere and being able to embrace my own magnificence has been a long process. 

In 1974 I fell in love with this beautiful woman- my wife and that transformed almost instantly the way I looked at myself.

For the first time in my life I felt truly special. My life just opened up and I found myself engaged in endless conversations with this special woman. I discovered I could talk for hours! 

The time I met my wife was the time I became a teacher. In fact I met my wife because I had been appointed to teach at the same school she was teaching.

I had never wanted to be a teacher but circumstances dragged me kicking and screaming and placed me smack in front of a group of teenagers.

Within three years of becoming a teacher, I was appointed to two positions of leadership and in my sixth year I took the very top position and became the principal of a boarding high school of 800 students.

In that very short time I had discovered that I could talk, teach and lead. Since then I have learnt to embrace the teacher, the leader and the communicator in me.

I also discovered that I was a good writer, a speaker and coach. These attributes took time to take root and establish themselves in my thinking and actions. But now I fully embrace my magnificence in these areas.

I also learnt to start talking a lot more kindly and positively to myself. We all talk to ourselves. It is the quality of our self-talk that determines how we feel about ourselves and ultimately the quality of our lives.  

Here are just two of the many affirmations that I say to myself every day.

1.     I am a genius and I apply my wisdom, writing, speaking and coaching. (Inspired by Dr John F Demartini)

2.     I am a powerful writer and speaker. I always write and speak from my heart and I do so with passion, clarity, certainty and authority   

When I started saying affirmations I didn’t completely believe in them.  They were simply things I deeply desired in my heart and so I wrote them down and started saying them to myself every day.

And today most of them have become a reality.

Another development that has helped me to embrace my own magnificence is the decision to stop blaming other people and circumstances for the way my life is and take 100% responsibility over what happens to me now and in the future.

At the same time I adopted a new belief and attitude that says, “I have within me all the resources that I need to create the life that I want.”  The more I embrace this attitude the more opportunities and possibilities I begin to see around me and the more convinced I become that indeed I have a magnificence and beauty within me.

Embracing your magnificence also means deciding to believe that “What you focus on is what you get.” While recognizing that you are not perfect, you don’t focus on your faults. Instead you spend most of your time focused on your value, on the many gifts, talents and abilities that you have. Whenever I do this the best in me always shows up.   

When you embrace your magnificence you come face to face with the endless depth of your own value. You discover the sprawling “acres of diamonds” that lie within you. You begin to appreciate that you are complete just as you are.

You enter the stimulating world of possibility thinking and are able to maximize your potential. 

You become your own best friend, are much kinder and forgiving to yourself. You become your number one hero, leader, encourager, motivator and inspirer.

You experience a significant growth in your relationships – with your creator, with your family and other people that you closely interact with.

You connect with other people’s magnificence and beauty and enable them to see it too. And together you create a synergy that transforms the world around you.

You accept other people as they are and it becomes easier to forgive them as their magnificence and beauty overshadows their imperfect characters and behaviors.

You realize that your true worth is not determined by the score sheet of your performance but by an inherent underlying value which you do not earn but simply have. 

Above all you are able to connect with the bigger vision of your mission and purpose in life and you give yourself the power to be the best that you can be.

Whatever it takes, it is worth your while to decide to confront your own gremlins, abandon your victim mentality, unearth your beauty and embrace your magnificence.  You will then be in touch with the truth and reality of who you really are and also with the numerous blessings that abundantly fill your life.

 David Pasipanodya

 

 

 

Loving myself: I am Unique

When did you last look at yourself in the mirror? Was it this morning or just a short while ago in the bathroom? Next time you do remember that the person staring back at you is UNIQUE. Of the 7 billion people in the world, I am one of a kind. There is no one else with my set of fingerprints or my DNA.

I was born in a situation, place and circumstances that could not exactly be duplicated at that precise time anywhere else. On the day and time that I was born, the world was made that much richer by my grand entrance. My family, community and the world at large were all receiving a special package and blessing that they had never had before.

Being the last born, I am in many ways different from each of my six brothers and two sisters. I brought my own unique gifts into the family. I was a special gift to my parents and to each of my brothers and sisters. Each one of them was a special unique gift to me. As I look back now I am fascinated by the rainbow beauty of the blend of our unique individual differences and the richness that this brought into the family.

 I totally believe that on the day that I was born God was in the process of introducing into this world a very special person that he had never produced before and was not going to produce again. I acknowledge and embrace the unique inherent value that my God gave me.   I am absolutely convinced that I have a magnificence and beauty that no one else in the world has.

Your unique magnificence and beauty are only meaningful when you embrace and articulate them yourself. They can never mean anything to anyone else before they have meaning to you and are expressed by you. They cannot move anyone else before they move your own heart and you stand in awe and gratitude of the magnificent and beautiful you.     

I feel challenged to use my magnificence and beauty to make a positive difference in the lives around me.  And as I live out my purpose, I feel driven to inspire other people to look at themselves in the same way.

I have a mission in this world that is unique to me.  If I do not respond to the call of this mission it does not get done. This awareness has challenged me to seriously search for and find my purpose in this life.  

My number one purpose is to be a teacher of love and wisdom and to passionately inspire myself and others to be the best that we can be. And I have chosen to do this through writing, speaking and coaching. Visit www.silsystems.com.au

I have also dedicated my life to making a positive difference in the lives of as many AIDS orphans in Zimbabwe as I can reach out to. In this regard I have played a central role in the establishment of a charity organisation Zimbabwe Orphans Looking Ahead (ZIMOLA) - originally called the Education Fund For AIDS Orphans in Zimbabwe (EFFAOZ). Visit www.zimola.org   

I am fully aware that I can only fulfil my purpose as David Pasipanodya and no one else.

You also have a purpose only unique to you. Your dreams, vision and mission in this life have a power and meaning that only your unique mind can most meaningfully conceive, understand, visualize and translate into reality.

You are the only authentic author of the book that is your life. It is your unique input into the time you spend here that determines the quality of the life you live. Ultimately only you can most accurately tell from your unique experiences whether or not your life has been of value and fulfilling. Other people can make an attempt but they will be talking about a life that they never lived. And so their assessment can never be as meaningful as yours.    

Stop focusing too much on seeking approval and appreciation from others. Your first duty is to appreciate and give value to this unique identity that is you. When you seriously and sincerely do so consistently, you will create an atmosphere and spirit of love around you. Then other people will become attracted to you.

One of the greatest causes of failure in our lives is the fear that comes from comparing ourselves with others and feeling inadequate and less significant. We either forget or ignore how unique we are and we blindly model our lives on other people. We put these people on a pedestal and look up to them as the giants of the game of life.

For many years I tried to be like someone I admired who seemed to have everything that I wanted in life but couldn’t have – wealth, a good car, a big house, a great job. I was setting goals and doing things just to catch up with him.

At one point I took up studies to do a course that he had done so that I could acquire his qualification and live his lifestyle. At the time I was the Headmaster of a boarding high school of over 800 students. I failed to appreciate the gift of leadership and inspiration that was so clearly evident in my life. I was too busy trying to be someone else.

By all means admire what other people have done and respect them for what they have accomplished. Learn from them and see how their experiences can nourish your own unique purpose and mission in life. Feel free to even use some of their ideas. But don’t try to be like them because you can never be.

Your best comparison is with yourself. Whatever task or passion you pursue, make every effort to perform better today than you did yesterday.  Measure yourself against your own standards. Be the person you always want to surpass. That is excellence!  Og Mandino –Author and speaker expressed it so well when he said, “To surpass the deeds of others is unimportant; to surpass my own deeds is all.”

You are a one life time gift to the world and you pass through this planet only once. Make it a unique, fulfilling and successful experience. The impression and imprint that you stamp on this world and in other people’s lives are uniquely yours.

Let your unique gifts, talents and abilities make an impact that is greater than your lifespan. Leave a legacy, a memory imprint that is uniquely you and that will always be remembered as uniquely yours and that will continue to enrich the lives of the many generations that will walk this earth after you.As John Mason so powerfully put it, “You were born an original, don’t die a copy.”

 

The Most Amazing Relationship

Something is awfully wrong here. What on earth are we doing? We are giving away our birth right. We are surrendering responsibility in the most meaningful and important area of our precious lives – the area of Relationships.

 At the centre of every meaningful relationship is LOVE. We all value ourselves and want to be loved.  But most of the time we are depending on other people to love us. We are depending on other people to give and show us LOVE. We are giving them the first responsibility for loving us. We only feel loved because other people have decided to love us. This also means that if we don’t feel loved, we blame other people for not loving us.

We are depending on other people to give us value, to tell us that we are special, valuable and lovable. This means that we are building our sense of self-worth, our sense of value, meaning and well-being on the whims, moods, feelings and judgments of other people.

When we do this I strongly believe that we are setting ourselves up for a lot of disappointment, anger and frustration. Would you agree with me that people usually don’t do what we want or expect them to do for us most of the time?

 Would you also agree with me that people tend to do or say things that serve their own interests first before they think of serving other people’s needs, desires and interests?

And so what happens? These people that we depend on so much, fall short of our expectations and do not give us the love we want in the way that we want it.

The reason they behave in that way is not necessarily that they are bad people. They are just different from us and see things differently. They are not necessarily thinking of the same thing we are thinking at the same time that we are thinking about it. At the time that you expect them to be expressing and showing love to you, they will most likely be pre-occupied with their own issues and challenges. They are only human. So why stake your own happiness and fulfilment on them?

What I have come to realise is that when it comes to our strong desire to experience meaningful love, other people are unreliable.

Without encouraging vanity, self-centredness, selfishness and empty pride, I would like to suggest that after God, the first human being you can trust more than anyone else to give you meaningful and fulfilling love is YOU.

My own number one mission and purpose in life is to motivate and inspire myself and others to be the best that we can be. Please note that I have to motivate and inspire myself first. I strongly believe that I cannot give others what I don’t have myself. I have to walk my talk. Everything that I am sharing in this article and that I am going to be sharing on this blog, I live.  Meaningful life and leadership is all about working on yourself first before you can start demanding from other people and expecting them to do things for you.

Within my number one mission my first objective is to build an amazing relationship with myself –David Pasipanodya, my God, my wife, my five children and my two grandchildren. And once again I have to begin with myself. I cannot build meaningful relationships with my wife, children and grandchildren if I am all messed up. I cannot build fruitful work, business and other social relationships if I have not put my own act together.   

I am asking you to truly and unselfishly love yourself first before you can expect someone else to love you. I am asking you to build an amazing relationship with yourself first before you can expect to have an amazing relationship with someone else. I am also suggesting that it is when you give yourself genuine love, value, respect and appreciation that you will be able to attract genuine love, value, respect and appreciation from other people. It is the law of attraction.  What you create within you, you attract from other people.

Become aware of how valuable, important and special you are. Become aware of the fact that you spend 24 hours with yourself, a lot more time than even the closet person ever spends with you.

Also become aware of the fact that unless you appreciate who you are and give yourself the value that you deserve, no one else will. Focus on and become aware of your strengths more than anyone else ever will.

You are capable of and responsible for transforming your life more than anyone else can ever be. Nurture and nourish yourself in every way possible. You deserve it.  So why don’t you take 100% responsibility for the quality of your own life. After all relating with yourself is the only relationship where you have full control with no other human being involved.

Loving and building an amazing relationship with your self is not the same as feeding on your ego, vain pride and selfishness. It is not thinking that you are better than someone else. As a unique person you cannot be more important or less important than anyone else. All I am suggesting is that you embrace who you are and give yourself the value that you deserve  

Building an amazing relationship with your self means cheering yourself on even when everyone else has gone quiet. It means acknowledging, accepting and appreciating yourself unconditionally.  It is when you do all that needs to be done to encourage, motivate and inspire yourself that you show true love for the special person that you are.

This is building an amazing relationship with the one and only you. This is treating yourself as you truly deserve to be treated. This is focusing your thinking, your attitude and behaviour on the person who matters most in your life.

Do all these things and you will create an atmosphere of love, value and positivity around you. You will attract loving and amazing relationships around you. And that is where God lives. You will have empowered yourself to love unconditionally those people who matter in your life.

You will have followed one of Jesus’ most powerful instructions “Love your neighbour as yourself.”

So next time you are standing in front of the mirror, tell that person staring back at you, “Hey I really appreciate you. You are truly awesome, magnificent and special and I would love to build an amazing relationship with you!”