Comfort zone is beautiful but nothing grows there

Sir: I want the Nigerian youths who are waiting for a miracle to happen that the people who are living their dreams are people who know that if anything is going to happen, it’s up to them.

Most people these days are not willing to push themselves from their comfort zone. If you are stuck in a particular phase of life, and you want to move forward, if you are waiting for the right time, the right time may never come. If you are waiting to get motivated, motivation will not suddenly strike you like lighting. It is when we get up and start acting before that motivation comes to help us achieve more. 

The only way to grow, build your capacity and reach your full potential is by stepping outside your comfort zone. The state of Nigeria’s economy is not new to us, we all know how scarce jobs can be right now.

If you are a young person reading this, I want you to get restless, take your life in your hands and step out of your comfort zone to create for yourself the future you desire. 

There are several businesses and activities you can venture in to become financially empowered while waiting for the white-collar jobs instead of being a liability. 
   
I remember discussing some ideas with some young people who are still searching for jobs during one of my training sessions, I was discussing with them ideas they can leverage on while waiting for their “white collar” and stiletto jobs. I mentioned taking up driving jobs with some of these cab companies, offering dry cleaning services which is even meeting an important need of their immediate environment and even has the potential to grow into a mega business which can in turn serve as a main business or even a side business. I mentioned offering catering services to people who are busy and would not mind paying for some liters of a variety of soup they could store up in their freezer for the week, which has the capacity to grow beyond their imagination.

Some of these people were looking at me strangely; I could read from their expression that they weren’t cut out for such. Some of these people prefer to keep being a dependant rather than engaging in some legitimate hustle.
 
What many do not know is that those Keke Maruwa drivers and some of the people who do the seemingly “dirty” jobs earn more than some “suits and stiletto” office folks. Do you know that a Keke rider earn an average of N5, 000.00 daily?  I boarded an Uber cab recently and I got chatting with the driver. He told me that his daily target was N20, 000.00.

As a business woman, I quickly did the maths 20,000 × 6 days a week is N120, 000.00 weekly that is a whooping N480, 000.00 monthly. How many jobs in our present economy will pay that high? I got very interested and asked him if he does meet his daily target and he gave me his book, I discovered he earn and even exceeds his daily target.  

What I am driving at is this, if you are a young man, a young woman, a wife or a fresh graduate, look for a need around you and solve it, and make money whilst solving it. If your hands need to get legitimately dirty so you can stop depending on your parents, guardian or even your husband please by all means do get them dirty doing something legit. 

Get uncomfortable and restless at the level you are right now and dare for more. Whatever your mind can conceive, you can achieve.

• Patricia Famoriyo is a serial entrepreneur and business coach. She wrote from Lagos