It is December again! Christmas is here and New Year is just around the corner. As we begin the countdown to the beginning of another calendar year, it is quite usual for some organizations to conduct a review of their activities for the year with a view to assessing performance against the backdrop of strategic goals. It is also very usual for individuals to engage in some kind of self review and evaluate their achievement in relation to the goals set at the beginning of the year. Sometimes, we fare so well in a year we agree the New Year is really worth celebrating and sometimes things do not really go as planned.

Whatever may have been your experience in the year ending, this period presents the last opportunity for you to re-strategize ahead of the New Year. This is the time to ask the hard questions (if you have not done that already) and give honest answers. For those who would be true to themselves in this regard, it is not in doubt that there are certain things ( attitude, lifestyles, habits, activities, relationships) one may have to stop or change if one is truly desirous of making concrete and consistent progress in the incoming year. On the flipside, there are also certain things we need to start doing or ensure we do not give up as we go through the inevitable challenges, opportunities and unforeseen events that lie ahead in the New Year.

DO NOT STOP DREAMING - One of the freest gift nature has bestowed on humans is the gift of imagination. We are all freely imbued with the ability to create possibilities in our minds. To dream means to envision the existence of what is not yet in existence. It is to conceive ideas with the hope of making them a reality. Every man you see is a product of his dreams and the possibilities he has been able to create in his mind. Our drive in life is deeply rooted in our dreams for our life and our hope for the future.  Every single human invention is a product of someone’s imagination that was brought forth into existence through conscious, cautious and conscientious effort. Your limits in life are not determined by your color, your immigrant’s status, or your gender; it is determined by your dreams in life and your drive to realize them. Your limits in life are set by the boundary of the possibilities you have set in your mind.

Challenges are part of life, so it will be quite unrealistic to assume that there will be no internal and external forces that could create foreseeable and unforeseen circumstances capable of making one’s progress in life to not be as smooth as expected. Whatever these may be, do not allow them to stop you from dreaming. If you do not desire to spend the entire year in deep sleep, you have got to keep your mind constantly busy with dreams that can keep you awake and heighten your aspirations. If you perceive that you are getting complacent with life, it will be a good idea to start exposing yourself to experience that will stimulate your imagination and get you dreaming. There is comfort in knowing that you are having it better than some others but progress only lies in considering the fact that there are many others who are having it far better in life.

DO NOT GIVE UP ON YOUR DREAMS - Dreams are meant to keep you awake and running, we do not experience progress by fantasizing about what we wish to achieve, progress is only recorded when we get off the couch and start chasing our dreams. If your dreams do not get you running, it is doubtful if such dreams can take you far in life. The pains we experience, the hurdles we constantly have to jump and the highs and lows we pass through in pursuit of our dreams are meant to help us develop depth and build up our level of endurance so as to reinforce our ability to manage success when it ultimately comes. They are tests we must pass if we are determined to make our dreams come true.   

As you journey through the coming year, you will have to decide what to do with your dreams when the going gets tough and it seems you are about to reach your breaking point. You will have to decide what will become of your big dreams when life offers you alternatives that give you a sit under the tree in a rural park and old journals to keep you unproductively busy. Immigrants need to learn to refuse some of the convenient offers that stiffens the big dreams and makes one a perpetual underdog.

Whatever life may throw your way whether by way of challenges or easy-way-outs, keep your dreams in focus, do not give up on your dreams, keep pursuing your dreams within your present constraints. People who do that may tend to laugh last sometimes, but they surely get to laugh best. Think about someone you know that insisted on pursuing his dreams against all odds and anyone else that succumbed to the pressure from his circumstances to settle for what life offered him. You will note that the elements never cease to reward persistence with performance, particularly, at the long run. Make up your mind to never quit aspiring for the fulfilment of your dreams; do not be compelled to give up now.

DO NOT GIVE UP ON YOURSELF - The challenges we face in pursuit of our dreams can really make one doubt is capabilities and lose his self confidence. You will never be able to convince people to believe in you and buy into your vision in life if you find it hard to believe in yourself. You are the most essential raw material for your success, if your self confidence is allowed to fail, your dreams and aspirations are bound to fail. Stay positive and surround yourself with positively minded people who can boost your confidence and encourage you when you are down and out.

You are not defined by your failures; you are defined by what you make out of them. You are not defined by your many weaknesses but rather by what you are doing about them. Your dreams give insight into your being. Do not give up on you dreams.

DO NOT STOP TRYING TO GET BETTER - Every four years, the best of the world’s athletes come together to participate in the Olympics, at the end of each event, only very few of the best of them gets to go home with the medals. For sport enthusiasts, there is not much to watch out for until the next Olympics, but for the athletes, both the champions and those who didn’t get the medals, it is time to go back home and get better for the next Olympics. When you quit getting better, you start getting behind. It is a stiff competition going on out there and there is no other way to stay relevant except by getting better at whatever you do. Make up your mind to not dwell too much celebrating a success that cannot keep you among the most successful. For every height attained, there is an heightened expectation for greater attainment, you will not be regarded as so successful if you stop doing what made you successful in the first place,. You cannot keep your place at the top if you stop doing more that you have already done. Have you been failing? Keep trying to get better, have you been winning? push further and keep trying to stay winning. Are you among the best, keep trying to be the best. Read more, learn more, train more, exercise more, sacrifice more and you will definitely achieve more.

DO NOT BREAK THE LAW

It takes so much of resilience, diligence and commitment for splinters to stay winning that’s why the likes of Usain Bolt will always be regarded as legends. We live in a world, where there is so much pressure on the individual and even organizations to ‘perform’ and do the seemly impossible. Really, we are all capable of doing all that if we are willing to pay the price, but it is important that we do not allow this pressure wherever they may be coming from, push us to break the law. The fastest route to success is always the surest road to self destruction. Think of the number of promising athletes whose careers and indeed lives have been lost to doping. Think of the many champions in history who have lost their fame and fans to one single involvement in crime. The American system and indeed the American society is pretty much unforgiving, do not break the law in pursuit of your dreams, else they turn into one terrible nightmare that will haunt you for the rest of your life. It might seem very easy and save but do not be tempted to break the law. If the system catches you (and it usually does) it will hold you down while you watch your dreams disappear.

DO NOT STOP BEING HOPEFUL

As we draw the curtains on this platform until next year, need we warn you that this year is not yet over until the countdown ends at 23:59 December, 2014. Stay away from those who dampen your hope, do not keep companions with hopeless people, their spirit is highly contagious.  Do not give up on your hope for a better day; there is something terribly toxic about hopelessness, and there is some much strength to draw from hopefulness. The universe is full of miracles and endless possibilities, you are a part of the universe; it is never over until it is really over.

 From all of us on the editorial board of the US Immigration Newspaper, this is to wish you a Merry Xmas in advance. One more thing, the seventh thing you should not stop doing next year, DO NOT STOP READING US. Love y’all!

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