A common question I have asked all my coaching clients since the year began is: what do you desire in 2019? From all the responses, I can see the desire to live a fulfilled life in most of the respondents. Some people want to get fulfillment from their job and career, some want a happy home and relationship with their partners while others wish the company they work for and the country they live in is better than it was in 2018.
I have always asked my clients and protégés to start the year with why. Why are you in 2019? What will you do to make you deserve what you have desired for the year? In most cases, life will give us what we deserved and not necessarily our desire. Desire is, however, the basis for the discipline to take action that will make you deserve your desire.
Looking for fulfillment is as old as the journey of life itself. People change career, partner, relationship, location and many more in finding fulfillment in life. Fulfillment is an inner desire supported by the sense of achievement or contentment for something. Fulfillment is key for you to consider this year one of the best years in all aspects of life. At old age, a memory devoid of fulfillment is an indicator of a life not lived to the fullest.
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Personal fulfillment is key to community, organisational and national fulfillment. A country with high per capita income (PCI) can be said to be more fulfilled in general terms than those whose PCI is among the lowest in the world. Individual fulfillment is so important that the World Happiness Report is now a source of policy idea for some countries where the fulfillment of people is seen as national productive asset. Nigeria ranked 91st out of 156 countries behind Libya, Algeria and Morocco in the 2015-2017 Ranking of Happiness.
The individual must be happy before the family, society and the country can be ranked as happy. Individual who want to be happy in 2019 and beyond must take the lead. To take the lead as noted in my book is do things that fulfill you aside from things that only give you income. I have used the lead as an acronym for live, energise, activate and develop the fulfillment centre in people. The fulfillment centre is simply in activities that fulfill an individual and gives him a sense of satisfaction. The foundation of the activities that will make life meaningful to you is your talent. Talent is not a big mountain no one can climb. It is simply any activity you love to do repeatedly with a sense of satisfaction at the end of it.
An employee that found his fondness for two out of six of his deliverable activities at work has found gold. All he needs is to do more of such activities voluntarily for the workplace or at any opportunity. If perhaps, the activities that fulfil you are outside your required job functions, the activities are latent talents to you and must you use them to avoid dissatisfaction. The best way to avoid turning your talents into toxic assets is to use them voluntarily. It is therefore in your best interest to volunteer your talents in the workplace whether you are being measured by them nor not. If you do this in 2019, you will be operating in your strength zone at work, enjoy your daily routines and merge your responsibility with your desire to be free and fulfilled.
The research work of the Gallup group advanced the need for individual fulfillment and its relevance to organisations and nations. Marcus Buckingham and Donald Clifton identified four traces of talents in the book, Now Discover Your Strength. These indicators are a spontaneous reaction, yearning, rapid learning and satisfaction. I explained how to use these four indicators to maximise your efforts this year in the book, Take the lead with a subtitle, how to live, energise, activate and develop your strength zone.
If the collective fulfillment of individuals makes great organisations and countries, there must be roles for business entities and sovereign nations in increasing people’s happiness and increasing the real wealth of societies.
Business organisations have people as their major assets for achieving the stakeholders’ objectives. Organisations are therefore encouraged to develop a culture where people are engaged in activities that play into their strength zones. If employees do what is within their strength zones, unnecessary costs of attrition, recruitment, illness and customer service failure will be avoided. It is obvious you cannot play every employee in their strength zone, otherwise, the majority will not be in sales or some of the difficult areas in an organisation. In as much as this is true, a forward-looking organisation will create a culture and an environment where the use of latent talents will is encouraged and rewarded as long as there is no conflict of interest with the stakeholders’ objectives. It is short-sightedness for companies to desire people happiness and limit the inner resources of its people to do other things. I was once castrated for daring to authored books by a C-level executive of an organisation even without conflict of interest and when the skills were also deployed to the advantage of the company. Allowing your employees to volunteer and express their innate skills is another form of job enrichment that brings more to your brand and customer service excellence.
Nigeria as a community and nation has a huge role to play in increasing the happiness of her citizen in 2019 and beyond. Our reward system needs to identify people who do things for the society without intended personal gains. Such people should be recognised more than the political office holders who have the electorates’ mandates to use the country resources on their behalf. We should encourage collectivism by doing things that will increase the happiness of others who have no capacity to reward us.
One of the ways the government can take the lead and support the citizens desire to be fulfilled this year is for the political class to ensure the elections are without the usual bloodbaths. A peaceful transition without the memory of the loss of loved ones due to election violence will encourage the citizens to be committed to their personal contributions to the country. Whether or not there is going to be a change of government at any of the tiers of administration, the happiness of the people is paramount.
I will conclude the way I started. Your fulfillment as individual member of the society is in your hands. There are reasons you made it to the new year and you must be guided by the reasons. Start with why! Starting with why is to make this year a defining year for you. The country is waiting for your best. Your best is your contribution that is not devoid of personal fulfillment and the support for others to find their path. To take the lead is, therefore, to invest in yourself with the aim of developing your talents to become strengths. You can live a happy and abundant life if you intentionally operate in your strength zone in 2019.
Babs Olugbemi
Olugbemi FCCA, the Chief Responsibility Officer at Mentoras Leadership Limited and Founder, the Positive Growth Africa. He can be reached on babs@babsolugbemi.org or 08025489396.
