Go Back

Have you ever felt this way? “I don’t want to be seen as a quitter but I don’t want to continue either.” This is for you.

If you have given someone N100,000 to carry out a business and he/she is asking for N20,000 Extra to be able to pay you your initial loan…Go Back

If you have dated him for 10 years and he has not yet popped the question…Go Back

If you have been working on a project for so long and you are about to give up…Go Back

Infact if you have been doing anything as a routine for a long time…Go Back

Hold on!, going back in this case does not mean going back to the beginning because no one can rewind time and go back to yesterday. It does not also mean giving up, neither does it mean holding on. I am asking you to ‘Go Back’ to the drawing board and the decision making stage.

About two years ago, a friend and colleague asked my opinion on a situation in which he found himself. He gave a loan to a business man. The person collected 100,000 Naira to buy some things for sale, with a promise to pay within a few weeks.

At the time of discussing with me the debt had grown to about 160,000 Naira and it was months overdue. I will paraphrase his words:

“This is a guy I kind of look up to, I don’t know him very well but he seems to be a respectable person. Every time the money is due he tells me his goods have been delayed and if he gets N20,000 or N30,000 then he will be able to fast track the delivery and pay me. He seems so helpless and says I am his only hope and he really feels bad about it but I am worried because he is asking for another N30,000 and I don’t know whether or not to give him.”

 In summary this was my advice to him:

If you want to give him more money, do not do it because you are considering how much you have already given him and you don’t want to lose it. He may or may not be honest but that does not guarantee anything. Maybe he is investing in a failing business or he too is considering how much he has spent and is refusing to let go of something that is obviously not working. 

Start fresh, take it like this is the first time he is asking you for money, get all the information about what he will do with the money and consider it objectively, try to gauge how honest the man is just like you did the first time he asked you for money, do it all afresh and ask yourself this:

“Knowing what I know, if this man was not with N160,000 of my money would I give him N30,000.” 

"If the only reason you want to continue doing something is because you have already invested so much in it, then it means the past is providing more motivation for going forward than the future holds."

This is always a dangerous situation so don’t do it. In the same way, here are my two words for the day: Go Back, Let Go, Fight It.

-          Don’t be carried away by the past – Let go

-          Don’t be discouraged by the difficulty of the present – Fight It

-          If going forward does not hold anything you want…

Go Back

Is there anything you need to re-evaluate? Let’s talk about it. Write me at uki@poisenigeria.org or post a comment here