Rule 4: Accept Yourself

Messer Olufemi Awoyemi of Proshare & Bolaji Okusaga of Quadrant

If you
accept that what’s done is done, you are left with yourself exactly as you are.
You can’t go back and change anything, so you have got to work with what you
have got. I am not suggesting anything New
Age
here such as love yourself—that is far too ambitious. No, let’s begin
with simple accepting. Accepting is easy because it is exactly what it
says—accepting. You don’t have to improve or change or strive for perfection.
Quite the opposite; just accept.
That means
accepting all the warts and the emotional lumps and bumps, the bad bits, the
weaknesses and the rest of it. This doesn’t mean we are happy with everything
about ourselves, or that we are going to be lazy and lead a bad life. We are
going to accept the way we are, initially, and then build on that. What we are
not going to do is beat ourselves up because we don’t like some bits. Yes, we
can change lots but that will come later. We are only up to Rule 4 here.

Alhaji Aliko Dangote….Nigeria’s Billionaire Rules Player

This has to
be a Rule because there can be no
choice here. We have to accept that we are the way we are—the result of
everything that has happened. It all just is. You, like me, like all of us, are
human. That means you are pretty complex. You come fully loaded with desires,
anguish, sins, pettiness at times, mistakes, ill temper, rudeness, deviation,
hesitation and repetition. That’s what makes a human being so wonderful, the
complexity. None of us can ever be perfect. We start with what we have got and
who we are and then, we can only make a choice, each day, to strive for some
kind of better. And that’s all they can ask of us—to make that choice. To be
awake and aware, to be ready and to do the right thing; and accept that some
days, you aren’t going to make it. Some days, you will, like all of us, fall
for short. That’s Ok, don’t beat yourself up. Pick yourself up and start again.
Accept that you will fail from time to time and that you are human.
I know it
can be heard at times, but once you have picked up the gauntlet of becoming a Rules player, you are well on the path
to improvement. Stop picking faults with yourself, or giving yourself a hard
time. Instead, accept that you are what you are. You are doing the best you can
at this point in time; so, give yourself a pat on the back and press on.
(Excerpts from the Book: The Rules
of Life
by Richard Templar. Read
Rule 5 in our next post on Asabeafrika)