Vision 2020.

Happy twedi twedi good people (as we say it in my village). Oh, and happy new decade too. I am now back to what I call normal life. I have a few thoughts to share on that next week. The break was well deserved, and I feel like my fuel tank now has enough gas to take me far. Last year I started telling myself that it will be a good year. I decided to speak the goodness of the year into being way before much goodness appeared. In hindsight speaking that line repeatedly did lead to some positive moments. But there are times when anxiety and worry pushed off that good vibe and I started accumulating negativity and stress. That said I’m glad I gave it a shot. That mindset improved my overall scorecard of the year 2019.

I do not do new year’s resolutions. I have an internal resistance to them, so I prefer to just work on my stuff as best as possible without allocating time frames to achieve my goals. Since turning 40 I have tried to forecast what I desire the New Year to be. A lot of that has been by faith because at this stage of my life all you know is that you don’t know. As I look back at 2019, it was a year of lessons both happy and bitter. I successfully finished my seven-year term at Kenya Golf Union that culminated in being elected chairman 2018 / 2019. This was an experience that broadened my world view and led to greater self-awareness. The bitter learnings (which is where most growth occurs) was finding out that public service is not for the faint-hearted. Backstabbing is the order of the day. I’ve come to learn that it’s so frequent and normal that maybe we should call it front stabbing because with a little experience you can see the daggers coming at you.

It seems we always must have clarity of vision to identify and achieve our life’s purpose. And what better time to start than this year. It’s literally asking us to have 20 / 20 vison. This is a term used to express normal visual acuity (the clarity or sharpness of vision) measured at a distance of twenty feet. That means you can see clearly at twenty feet what should normally be seen at that distance.

One of the areas I hope to have 20 /20 vison this year is in my golf. I have been blessed to enjoy 20 / 20 vision so far in life (thanks to the mob carrots mum fed us growing up) but in my golf it’s almost always in reverse. I finish playing a round of golf and see all the things that I did wrong and how I would have scored much better had I avoided many silly mistakes and wrong judgment calls. Therefore, this year my clear vison needs to move from hindsight to foresight in golf and my life.

Maybe our government should try and adopt this as their year of 20 / 20 vision too because at the tail end of this decade will be 2030, the year we were promised many good things will have been achieved in Kenya. I’m not sure if we are still on track with Vision 2030. I hope we are and in the right view not in hindsight like my golf.

Having a long view is good for success generally but 20 /20 vision defines good eyesight as seeing clearly within only twenty feet. Technically that’s not a very long view. In that case, then we could conclude that a combination of a long view and shorter view is a winning combination. Tom Butler sums it up well when he says, “The key to long-term success is to focus fully on the present.” I like that enough to adopt it as my version of vision 20/20 this year.

Folks, among other things, maybe reducing the busyness we have in life is one way of improving our clarity of vision. Mummy shark achieved that by exiting some social media platforms. Her life is noticeably quieter. I guess we achieve more when we take on less. The information overload of our world today can certainly impair our vision.

It, therefore, may be a good idea to drop stuff that adds little or no value to our lives this year. That way what is left in sight is only what matters. As a country we would be well advised too to reduce the over talk and sideshows and just get on with the program of building our great nation.

May what you desire to achieve this year be as clear as day. May you have the courage to execute some necessary endings that cloud your visibility. May you fill your niche and accomplish your tasks. That’s my prayer for you this year folks.

Happy New vision 2020 year.