TIMOTHY KAMBILIMA reminds us of the importance of setting goals in life and single-minded focus to achieve success. Read on…

IN LIFE, we need to take on challenges in order to achieve something. The challenges are many and varied but they include education. The challenges we take on in education are not easy and call for hard work, which entails concentration on our studies in order for us to be successful and contribute to national development.
Growing up, there were two people-my father Zedi Kambilima and mum Eness Kamuchacha-whom I had to make proud of having me as their child. Mum encouraged me to work hard and aim high for a better future.
My parents wanted to see me prosper, to have a bright future and, ultimately, to be someone in life. I might have faced difficulties in some of the subjects with poor school results sometimes, but I knew that I would make it despite the difficulties because one who wants to be successful must have a positive mind and should always have a competitive attitude in class because education isn’t an easy thing.
Without much effort and attention and few or no clear goals in life makes the attainment of success hard if not impossible. Looking back, the things I needed to be successful in life and having good results when it came to school were discipline and clearly set goals.
I set school as my main priority and I really tried to work hard. Sometimes I failed to live up to the expectations of my parents because of laziness and not studying often. Inability to learn was not always the reason for shoddy performance.
Back then when I was in grade nine in 1989 at Chililabombwe Secondary School which is well known for having produced noble men like area Member of Parliament Richard Musukwa, former mayor Paul Kabuswe and the current Mayor Christabel Mulala who taught me Civics, I used to think that my parents were putting a lot of undue pressure on me and it used to make me feel bad. But one day I realized that they meant well, all they wanted was for me to do my utmost and, thereby, achieve superb results.
So against this parental responsibility of constantly reminding me of the imperative of hard work, I must say my class performance was not bad, although at one time laziness set in and I could not study often which led to my waning performance.
This poor performance naturally displeased and disappointed my parents and they began comparing my grades with those of my friend Marion Makesa who is now a nurse at Baoba International School.
They used to wonder and tell me that Makesa was doing better than me and when my parents said this, I felt bad and pressured and I realized it was high time I came back to my senses and started taking my studies more seriously.
The first step I took was to find the motivation necessary to turn things around. I realised that without motivation, I was headed nowhere. And so after deep reflection, it dawned on me that there is a purpose in what I was doing and that purpose was to achieve success.
And so with dogged determination, I convinced myself that by applying and committing myself to my studies, there was no way I could fail. I realized that no one was created to become a failure.
And the second step I took was having a positive mind. This helped me a lot because in a way I began to expect good results whenever I was given a task. Not only was I expecting better grades, I was working hard to make my parents happy and proud of me.
Time came to write the exams. I had confidence in myself, I knew that I was going to make it to grade ten in 1990. Later the results were announced and I went to collect them, like many others, though I was scared at first.
I was afraid because most of my friends failed. My parents advised me to go and collect my results along with one of my friends but, contrary to my fears, the results turned out to be the way I expected them. It was the best thing that ever happened to me, especially since now I had honoured my parents and no doubt revived their pride and confidence in me.
I was highly elated and thanked God for granting me that opportunity to advance to the next stage of my education. In retrospect, I repeat, this was the best thing that ever happened in my life because I didn’t believe it would happen until it happened. Today God has blessed me with a good job and I would encourage readers out there to have a positive mind in life.
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