Are you aware that you can learn so much from life when you closely observe the happenings around you in your everyday life? Hidden in plain sight are sundry nuggets of wisdom and erudition waiting for discovery. There’s so much knowledge to acquire when we are open to lore and mindful that life itself is a teacher. Life is like a game of chess. It takes us being intentional and strategic to make these life discoveries, ceteris paribus.

“When things do not go your way, remember that every challenge—every adversity—contains within it the seeds of opportunity and growth.” — Roy T Bennett.

How would you react to challenging situations that occur without notice in your everyday lives? Your perspective regarding issues in life is of great importance because it will, to a large extent, determine how you confront the vicissitudes of life. Strategic living as a lifestyle is about being intentional and having a positive attitude in every situation. Let me share a story with you to give you some insights.

It Pays to Be Strategic!

“But to my utter dismay, it did. It not only got stuck in the ignition but also got broken while trying to start the car.”

Once, on a sunny and hot tropical afternoon in the bustling city of Port Harcourt, Rivers State in Nigeria, I had an interesting experience with my car keys that taught me a life lesson on strategy. The event happened way back before the advent and prevalence of remote keyless system (RKS) fobs. I had driven to a business meeting with a client. After the meeting, I came out to notice that my car key had a slight bent to it.

“Strategy is about making choices, trade-offs; it’s about deliberately choosing to be different.” — Michael Porter.

Upon close examination, I felt the bent would not affect the keys’ usage. But to my utter dismay, it did. It not only got stuck in the ignition but also got broken while trying to start the car. This left me distraught with no other alternative than to look for a nearby locksmith where a new key could be cut for me from the original since I couldn’t go back home to get the spare key. Little did I know that this was the beginning of a learning experience for me.

“Whirling as it went, the key-cutting machine followed the patterned grooves on my old broken key to shape what would after now become my new car key.”

As I sat down to watch my attending locksmith choose from an array of assorted shapes of keys. I learned that the idea or strategy was to select a particular key with a form that would fit the broken key I came with. After careful selection, I watched as he slotted the chosen key into the cutting machine. Whirling as it went, the key-cutting machine followed the patterned grooves on my old broken key to shape what would after now become my new car key. Suddenly like a thunderbolt from the blues, it struck me! When keys are cut, they are shaped to open a lock. The cut is the definition of the key’s purpose to open the lock that it is meant for, all things being equal. It hit me that if my car was parked out there without the key, it could not start. My car key aims to help me crank my engine up and give it life and action. It will remain parked, stationed in a fixed place, useless, and occupying a space that ought to be used for some other thing. In a similar vein, many of us are like the broken or absent key that is not fulfilling the purpose of cranking up the engines of myriad pervading problems. Many of us have refused to embrace the divinely programmed challenges designed to shape or cut us into becoming the “keys” to various successes. Keys that should unlock the doors to these problems in our immediate societies, churches, communities, and the world at large. It pays to be strategic to make this self-discovery.

How Do You Handle Dicey Situations?

How are you reacting, embracing the problems and challenges that come your way? How do you handle the dicey situations that you face in life? Remember, the locksmith first had to choose the blank key that resembled my broken key before he could cut or shape it. In the same way, there are issues in life that you are patterned after to become a solution to it. There is a cause to the cutting and shaping of your life experiences. It will help you eventually serve a specific role.

“Sometimes we learn the lessons of life through pain, melancholy, and the vicissitude of life, and sometimes we learn the lessons of life through joy and comfort. Whatever the case may be, the most important thing is the great lesson we learn out of the lessons life teaches us. If you fail to learn the lessons greatly, life will teach you a great lesson.” — Ernest Agyemang Yeboah.

You are destiny’s choice to go through your present life challenges. You have been chosen to be fashioned, prepared for a specific reason. You are destiny’s choice to become a solution to that problem in your family, society, and country. But you must yield to the shaping, tampering, and conditioning process. Because through these processes, a better you will emerge. Leaving you better and well suited for the part that has been allotted to you by destiny. I studied Materials and Metallurgical Engineering in college. While still in school, part of our industrial training program was exposed to different methods of heat treatment that materials go through to toughen them. One such treatment is called annealing, a heat treatment process that alters the microstructure of a material to change its mechanical or electrical properties. It is used to reduce hardness, increase ductility, and help eliminate internal stresses. Suppose materials are subjected to such a complex process to attain a suitable strength that will enable them to go through the rigors associated with its eventual usage. In that case, the challenges that come with life are how we as humans are toughened to be fit to face and handle life’s dicey situations. For these materials to attain such strength, their microstructure which is a crucial determinant to their mechanical and electrical properties, is altered. That is the same way that our makeup, our default mode, is changed when we willingly submit to being trained by the vicissitudes of life.

You Can Do It!

Brace up; you are fit for it. You just have to be tenacious and stick with it. You can make it happen. Gold had to go through fire to become marketable. For diamonds to appreciate in value, they have to go through a cutting and polishing process. Crude oil must go through the laborious process of factional distillation to be turned into various petroleum products. Iron ore has to go through the high temperatures of the Bessemer converter to be turned into steel.

“I think you grow wherever God plants you. I hope I’m growing as a person of faith, as a Christian. That should be our number one objective in this journey of life. That all starts with a personal, intimate relationship with Christ and then being in prayer every single day about all of those things—being tenacious about it.” — J. C. Watts.

In the same way, you must go through cutting and shaping to become the key to many successes. No one says that it will be easy; however, the product of the process is effectiveness and efficiency in your role and purpose in life. In the words of Christian Louboutin, the French-Egyptian fashion designer, “You need to believe in yourself and what you do. Be tenacious and genuine.” You must believe in yourself. You must trust the process as you are shaped for a strategic life of purpose. How can I equip myself to face these challenges squarely and come out victorious? I want to share a critical factor: if we have a firm grip on it, we can do life effectively and efficiently, irrespective of whatever challenges will confront us. It is a word that has often been neglected and downplayed in the scheme of things. However, it determines how we approach life and the results we get out of life if given attention. What is the word? Mindset. As the word sounds, it is defined as the established set of attitudes held by someone. One word that stands out in this definition, which also gives meaning to this statement, is attitude. Attitude is primarily what makes up an individual’s mindset and plays a crucial role in determining how our mindsets are shaped. What is it, and how important is it? Attitude is the way you approach life. In a simpler term, it’s your angle of attack. It is the way we express our thoughts and feelings. Our attitude takes form or shape after series of repeated events that lead up to a set of beliefs that things will turn out in a particular way. This outcome forms what is called expectations. Our attitude is determined by our expectations. This is why we react either negatively or positively when confronted by a challenge in life. But it can all be changed by changing our core beliefs.

See the Challenge as a Learning Experience

Adopting strategic living as a lifestyle is all about being teachable. Teachability is the ability and willingness to learn. This attitude enables you to be open and receptive to whatever life throws at you while at the same time learning from it. Bear in mind that whatever lessons learned will become an added advantage for you in the future. It is often said that evaluated experience is the best teacher. This willingness on your part will position you in such a way that you critically evaluate the experience to learn from it.

“Believe in yourself, take on your challenges, dig deep within yourself to conquer fears. Never let anyone bring you down. You got to keep going.” — Chantal Sutherland.

The structure of a traditional educational system requires that you first learn a subject matter and then get tested on that body of knowledge. It takes a series of repetitive learning to sit and pass an examination or test. It is akin to what is obtainable in life. Life has been made so that you can only be promoted to another level of life when you have passed an examination it set for you. Life tests us intermittently, even in our ignorance, to see if we are ready for the next level of our situation. Most times, we fail these tests owing to wrong mindsets exhibited through bad attitudes. Are you ready for the next challenge? Are you prepared for the next learning experience? Are you prepared to duke it out with the next challenge in your process of becoming strategic and practical? Strategic living as a lifestyle begins at the junction where you start surmounting the challenges that life throws at you. You must tenaciously fight every challenge. You must adopt a winning mindset in other to become the champion of your own fate and destiny. You must see all challenges as a learning experience. That is the path of continuous improvement. That is the path of becoming strategic in your daily living.

You Can Become a Better Person

We are products of circumstances. Our present cases in life result from the things we encounter in life and the experiences we have had to go through to reach the point where we are now. The summation of these circumstances and phases of life is the personality that is seen today. Understanding this life process puts you in the right frame of mind to know that you are a work in progress that gets better with the exposure that life takes you through.

“Circumstances does not make a man they merely reveal him to himself.” — Epictetus.

Most times, I’ve also realized that we as human beings prefer to remain in our comfort zone. We wish not to be overstretched. Most times, we are oblivious that challenges stretch our experiences to new frontiers most times in life. By seeking to eschew challenges, we ignorantly miss grand opportunities that would have launched us out to a bigger and brighter future that we have prayed and desired for. With all certainty, if we approach life with these mindsets, we will become victors and not victims in this game called life. We can become champions in life by adopting strategic living as a lifestyle. Understanding this statement will make you submit to this experience. Gladly go through this furnace of fire called challenges. You will come out refined and empowered. Become tenacious through the experiences that you encounter. You will come out shining, radiating, and you’ll be glad you did.