Chapter One
A GOAL
Every player who plays on the chess table sets his mind focused on one goal, to win. That is the primary goal. He comes prepared with a mind that is set towards winning. All those who have become chess masters had to defeat chains of players who were sometimes as good as they were.
As a player in life’s game, you have to carry behind you the indispensable fact that someone has to win on that table for two. Your mind has to be focused towards the desired endpoint, winning.
The only people who win are those who come with a goal in mind. They come to win and will never accept defeat. The masters carry behind them the goal that they have to beat every player to become. They will even have to challenge other masters.
Apostle Paul was a master. He said of himself, I have fought a good fight and have finished my course and now there is laid for me a crown. Paul understood that there was a crown but the crown wouldn’t come easy. He had to fight a good fight, give a good picture of his ability, challenge the odds, ensure he won and then get the winning prize.
No true success ever occurs without the goal. The chess master understands that his focus is the prize and he keeps his eyes determined and fixed towards it.
Because of the goal, the players develop
TACTICS: tactics refer to a sequence of moves that limits the opponent’s options to his own gain. They are often short termed. The fact is there are often short term goals that have to be achieved while in the game of life in pursuit of the big goal.
Goals vary in type and style. As you play in life’s games, there are everyday challenges and encumbrances that require short term tactical offences. You have to learn to develop short term everyday goals while working towards your big goal.
Tactics produces results for immediate short term goals which gives us strategic advantage for the attainment of the future goal. It requires good vision and prolific foresight to creat them. There are situations in life that demands your tactical ability In the game of chess, the fundamental building blocks of tactics are moves sequences in which the opponent is unable to respond to all the threats, thus creating an opportunity for the attacker’s advantage.
As matter of fact, while playing the game of life, we must develop tactics that is capable of helping us get through our everyday challenges. Each step we take on our way up presents one enormous mountain that has to be brought down. Our ability to take each mountain as they come defines our tactical prowess for our everyday goals.
STRATEGIES: For strategies, the goal is long termed requiring longer time to be realized creating a scenario where the opponent is less constrained to respond. We do set long term futuristic goals. They’re often giant goals not immediately envisioned but characterized by a longer time frame based on the survival of immediate short term goals like In the game of chess where the goal is a checkmate on the king or a winning move. You do have long term goals. Your strategies are aimed towards ensuring that that future goal is an achieved in the longer run.
While evaluating a position strategically, a player on a chess board takes into account such factors as the relative value of the pieces on the boards, pawn structure, king safety and position of pieces. There are many considerations you have to consider in making your goals and reaching them. Sometimes, we are too audacious in setting long-term goals that we do not consider or evaluate the options and opportunities available towards those goals. We often drive our minds towards setting grandiose goals that are unimaginable and beyond conception. Your goals must have a possibility index even if it is long-term. You must define strategic constraints and work out modalities through which the future goals could be achieved within the constraints and possibility index
Goals are a necessity. However small or short term, big or long term, they still require a depth of discipline to maneuver through to them. The chess gamer realizes that whether they make small changes or big ones, the overall small goals achieved in the form of applying tactics leads to the achievement of the future enormous goal of winning the match. You do realize that the little achievement of now leads to the attainment of your big future goal. You must therefore strive earnestly to pursue with all the ability that you have to achieve, with all the zest in you.
Paul declares; I can do all things through Christ that strengthens me. The ability to do all things and achieve your set goals is in acknowledging the tactical and strategic impact that having Christ could do in your life. The enormous influence of Christ opens the new air of dynamic capability.
Jesus Christ knew the effect of having a goal. He came down to earth with a heavenly goal to win the world from Satan’s dominion. The world was the prize. He had to develop a strategy for achieving such enormous goal by tactically starting with his twelve disciples each of which he tactically won through different methods. Christ though never played the game of chess; he realized however the strategic differences in attributes of his twelve pieces, his disciples.
Just like the dynamic pieces of the chess game, the disciples each with their dynamic style and position sought to pursue earnestly the goal that Christ had set before them to protect the interest of the King God.
Take counsel in the words of Solomon in the final verses of his book the Ecclesiastes where he writes “let us hear the conclusion of the whole matter, fear God and keep his commandment for this is the whole duty of man. Solomon was invariably saying that all the wise counsels he had made from the first chapter to the end were in a bid to solve the major issues of life in order to achieve the entire goal of fearing God and keeping his commandments.
Begin to set your goals now.