Protecting your life purpose and potential by Arnold Groenewald

Protecting your life purpose and potential by Arnold Groenewald So much focus has been placed in recent years on safety in the workplace. In almost every environment it is expected of people to wear the necessary PPE (Personal Protective Equipment) to protect themselves from injury to the eyes, ears, hands, feet, and every other body part including the organs. An accident can happen so quickly and it can injure a person and disable him/her and make it difficult if not impossible to continue doing the job he/she has been doing.rnThe proper PPE can help a lot in injury prevention and it can even safe a life, that is why it is compulsory in most working environments to help preserve human life. If something unforeseen happens it can protect the person and prevent serious injury. But there is another part of being human that deserves to be preserved. Inside every human being is a seed of greatness that was planted there by God. You as a human being were made with a purpose. You didn’t just happen, you’ve been designed with a specific purpose and all your gifts and talents have been put inside you to enable you to fulfil the reason why you’ve been created in the first place. Your life as a human being needs to be protected as well – your dreams, goals, potential and God given talents. So many times we get injured in the struggles of everyday life, and many times it is fatal. We stop dreaming, stop striving, we settle for far less than we once thought we would achieve. All because we got injured in the process of living. While reading an article I once again came across a statement that Zig Ziglar has made many times. And in it I discovered an acronym that best describes the PPE for the preservation of life purpose and potential. Mr. Ziglar is famous for saying that you were born to win, but to be the winner you were born to be you must plan to win and prepare to win. Then and only then can you legitimately expect to win. In order to preserve your God-given purpose and potential you have to put on your PPE. (Plan, Prepare and Expect). While PPE protects your body, this PPE protects your significance as a human being, your purpose and your destiny, which is at least just as important as your physical body, if not more. Plan: If you want to become everything you were made to be you will have to have a plan on how to get there. You have to a have target that you aim at. You have to know what it is that you want to accomplish, so that you can start planning to achieve it. As John Maxwell likes to say: “If you aim at nothing, you will hit it every time.” Steven Covey has taught us in the 7 Habits of Highly effective people that all things are created twice. Your first creation must be on paper because it will carry very little power if it is not written down. The six P’s of performance says Proper Prior Planning Prevents Poor Performance. You have to do some serious goal setting, short term and long term. Write it all down, and set deadlines for the completion of every goal. You then have to find out exactly what you will have to do, what resources you will need, what skills you will have to acquire, to make it happen. In other words you will have to find out exactly what it will cost to fulfil your dreams, and then you will have to start paying the price to get it. Unfortunately there will never be any guarantees that you will reach all of your goals, but it is infinitely better to aim for something and miss it than to aim for nothing and hit it! As Les Brown would say: “Reach for the moon, if you miss, you will still end up between the stars.” Prepare: All of us want to win in life, and only you can really say what will have had to happen in your life for you to be able to say: “I won!” Only you can decide that. But one thing is certain. The desire to win is not nearly as important as the desire to prepare to win. If you are not willing to develop the necessary skills and knowledge and character to win you are going to find it very difficult to win. As Randy Pausch says in The Last Lecture: The brick walls are there for a reason, they are there to keep those out who doesn’t want it bad enough.” Only those that are really willing to prepare themselves to the maximum will win. Steve Alford was one of the players in the US Olympic Basketball team with Michael Jordan. This is what he had to say about Michael: “When I played with Michael Jordan on the Olympic Team, there was a huge gap between his ability and the ability of the other great players on that team, but what impressed me was that he was always the first one on the floor and the last one to leave.” The willingness to prepare to win is much more important than the desire to win. If you develop an exceptional work ethic like Michael you will have a much bigger chance to win. Expect: If you have planned to win, and you have prepared to win, you have a legitimate right to expect to win. Winning doesn’t always mean being first, winning means being better that you were the previous time, at whatever you are doing. It is important that you expect to win, because if you don’t expect to win the chances are slim that you will. Joel Osteen taught me this very important life principal: You don’t always get what you deserve, but you always get what you expect. You have to believe in yourself and your own abilities and you have to believe that you have done enough. Penny Heyns is an Olympic Gold medallist in swimming and she held numerous world records. When Penny stood on the blocks before a race she knew she was ready. She knew that she had trained harder than any one of her opponents. Penny planned to win, she prepared herself better than anyone else, and therefore she expected and had the confidence to win. Life doesn’t give any guarantees. Accidents happen. That’s why you have to be prepared for them in the workplace by wearing your PPE. But you must also prepare yourself for setbacks in the journey of life by wearing your PPE – PLAN, PREPARE AND EXPECT! Good luckrnArnold Groenewald