Inspiration Stream: Focusing On The Journey

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"Concentrate all your thoughts upon the work at hand. The sun's rays do not burn until brought to a focus." - Alexander Graham Bell

Whether or not we admit it to ourselves, life is a journey. And not everybody is designed to be able to go on journeys without planning for it. That is the easiest way for things to go wrong, and life is too short and beautiful to be making such mistakes.

In life, it is easy to get sidetracked and distracted from the path we ought to be on(our personal growth journey) by flimsy things that may not matter in a couple of hours. Unless you have a solid vision that is backed by your conscious action and positive attitude, it is very easy to give up on the things that matter.

This post flows from the last post about creating your goals around your life. Figuring out what you want for your life and writing it down is easy, but what happens next? It is easy to say "Oh! I have my goals written down, let me reward myself with a much needed break!" Honey, you have only just begun your personal growth journey, that's the easiest way to lose focus and get derailed from it.

Yes, you have written your goals down.(High fives for that by the way!) But it is not yet time to be rewarding yourself with breaks. Far from it. It is time to LIVE those goals. To see your personal growth journey through. If you want to take a break to catch your breath, by all means do. Look around, meet people, whatever works for you, but get right back and do the work you need to be doing.

One of the 'projects' I worked on this week reminded me of how important it is to stay motivated, do the work you need to do, and be accountable, first to yourself before others. Find the things that get you excited about your growth and your future. But don't stop there. Remind yourself of those things daily so that you don't lose focus of what is important. And if you need someone to help you with this, ask the person.

Tap into that 'inspiration stream' daily. Always remind yourself of the reasons why you need to work towards your goal(s) and stay focused on your personal growth and development. And at some point, it will be second nature to you. You will be a bundle of inspiration and success stories for others to tap from. Haa...don't we all just love happy endings?😍

P/s: What do you do to stay passionate and motivated about your goals? How do you hold yourself  accountable for the success of those goals? Please drop your comments below, I would love to hear from you.
Love...


- The Lady

“Because he hath inclined his ear unto me, therefore will I call upon him as long as I live.”

Psalms 116:2

Big Picture To Smaller Pictures: Create Your Goals Around Your Life

Photo Credit: Moshoodat 

"Creativity is like breathing. When you make stuff, you're exhaling. But you can't exhale forever. Eventually, you'll have to breathe in. Or, you'll be dead." - Matthew Inman(The Oatmeal)

We are finally done with the 3-part series on personal growth! If you missed any of them, please click on any, or all 3, of the last posts. (Phew! *wipes brow* Lol!) Now we can get on with the fun stuff which really is what we are here for right? But first, what have to put all we have learnt about renewing our minds and personal growth into perspective and start living them.

So, now you know who you really are, the way you think, the things you love and hate, and the people that ought to remain in your life because of their positive influence in your life. Now, it's time to be definite about the way you want to live and the direction you want your life to go. This is not hard I promise. You may have even done this before.

It all boils down to setting achievable goals that you will be excited to wake up to execute. Voila! I told you it won't be hard. In my past post on goals, I talked about how it became easier for me to work on my personal goals last year and execute them all. Now, I'm back to help you with yours so we can all have fun with setting and executing those goals without it feeling like a chore. You ready?!

• First, don't think about it as a chore. Simple as it sounds, it's easy for us to get too serious about it and start handling it like a task. It's your life, take it easy, baby steps will be just fine for now until you get the hang of it. Then you can switch to autopilot or overdrive. Whichever rocks your boat.

• Get a day planner. A note book set aside for this purpose will be fine if you don't have a day planner. Also, ready your smartphones and tech devices. Not sure why you need technology in this? Patience darling, we are getting there.

• Now, think of what you want to be in 5 years(you can do 10 years if you want a bigger picture). No matter how crazy whatever you want to be sounds, as long as it's what you want for yourself, don't let anyone tell you it's not achievable. This will be your big picture. Write it down exactly how you want it to be - story style or bulletpoint style.

• Break that big picture into smaller pictures. To ace this, ask yourself, based on your big picture, what would you want to achieve in 6 months, or 1 year. That way, everything you do during the time leading to your set time at point 3 above will be easier to achieve. Mind you, this time breaks, 6 months or 1year, will be your review period. Time to see how far you have come with your plans.

• After all these have been done on your day planner or note book, duplicate them in the 'notes' application of your phones or devices. For this, it's best to use the device(s) that you always have with you so that you can easily remind yourself and add anything. But don't remove anything on the list except you don't want to go in that direction anymore. This is to help you review your progress.

See, that was fun I hope? Now, you have your 'big picture' in your head, your heart, your day planner/note book, and on all your devices. All the 'heavy lifting' has been done. It's now time to live your life freely, in the direction of your big picture. If you have any ideas that I did not add here, feel free to drop it in the comments section below, or in the 'Quick Message' section(if you're viewing this on the web version) on the right👉🏾.
Love...


- The Lady

“Finally, my brethren, be strong in the Lord, and in the power of his might.”

Ephesians 6:10

Personal Growth Through Perseverance

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Photo Credit: Max The Body

"Challenges are what makes life interesting and overcoming them is what makes life meaningful." - Joshua Marine

In the words of Steve Harvey, "In all adversity, there is always a lesson and a blessing. You can not get to the blessing without first learning the lesson(s)." There is so much truth in those words! No matter what you go through in life, there is always a lesson to learn that leads to your eventual success.

But you have got to be ready to persevere. Have the will to keep going not minding how you feel nor whatever the circumstances around are. Things may not be going as planned, or it's becoming increasingly difficult to continue being positive and working on your personal growth journey/plan, but persist anyway. Push yourself because no one else is going to do it for you. Knowing that the end of it all will be all kinds of awesome. 

Are you used to the concept of positive personal affirmations yet? I hope you are because those affirmations will help you get through this phase of your journey.

Here is one of mine to help you make yours:

"I am great. I have great powers within me. I can be all I want to be with work and determination. I am strong, beautiful, successful, and smart. But best of all, I am more than enough for myself."

Hope you got some pointers to help you write yours? Now, go on and write yours. And whenever you feel low on motivation,  remind yourself of your goal and your personal affirmation(s), and you will start to see things take shape for good in your life.

Have a great day and weekend.

Love...


-The Lady

“And let us not be weary in well doing: for in due season we shall reap, if we faint not.”

Galatians 6:9

Personal Growth Through Self-Love

Photo Credit: Awed By Monica

"If your compassion does not include yourself, it is incomplete." - VIO

As I say to all who ask, I am passionate about people. Seeing them grow and achieve their desired results gives me joy and I have decided to do all I can to inspire positive change in people, help people make better decisions and live better lives. But that end can only be achieved through commitment to some processes. The first of those processes being the knowing(more like understanding) of one's self, as there cannot be personal growth without in-depth knowledge and understanding  of one's self.

But can anyone really know himself/herself? That is not a question that can receive a simple yes or no answer. In truth, all we can do is to understand the way we think about, feel about, and perceive things. We really can't fully and completely know ourselves, but we can understand ourselves and that is a good enough start for me. Some might oppose this reasoning but be free to share your opinion in the comments section below.

Now, to really begin to understand yourself with the desired result of becoming a better person so as to enable you live a better life, you first have to understand the concept of self-love. "Ummm, I love myself already!" you may say. But take a break and think, do you really practice it? Do you show yourself that you love yourself? Do you make decisions that reflects this love in your life?

Don't be so quick to reply 'YES!' to all those questions. Consider all your thoughts, actions, and decisions you have made concerning yourself and your life in the past one month(Let's not go to far into the past.) While considering all those thoughts, actions, decisions, and all, consider if you would be happy about them if someone who 'claims' to love you had done them for/to you. Would your answers to those questions still be the same?

Would you have loved it if someone had had those thoughts about you? Would you have loved it if someone had done all those acts towards you? Would you have loved it if someone had made all those decisions that affected you in those ways? Honestly consider everything you have done that affects, and probably still affects, you personally. Do they reflect any atom of love for yourself?

If you can really begin to understand the concept of self-love as it affects everything you do for yourself, then you can begin to understand who you are and how to love yourself. Remember, your words, thoughts and actions towards yourself serves as a pointer for other people to emulate when it comes to their relationship with you.

Ergo, if people see/perceive that you love and respect yourself, they will relate with you with that same level, if not more, love and respect. But if they don't perceive any measure of self-love and self-respect, they will not bother being respectful or loving towards you. So, understand what you want for yourself, work towards getting what you want, and never stop letting people know that you understand and love yourself.

Personal growth begins with true understanding of one's self. Working on your conducts without focusing on understanding who you are is a form of hypocrisy that would eventually shine through in your actions, thereby causing avoidable problems. Work on understanding yourself and you will be able to grow as a person, with focus and direction.
Good luck with this step and have a great weekend! And for my Nigerians, have a happy Independence celebration.


- The Lady

“Be ye therefore followers of God, as dear children; And walk in love, as Christ also hath loved us, and hath given himself for us an offering and a sacrifice to God for a sweetsmelling savour.”

Ephesians 5:1-2

Personal Growth Through Meditation

Photo Credit: Nnenna Stella

"What you do has far greater impact than what you say." - Stephen Covey

In the past, the word "meditate" brought up pictures of people doing yoga in my head(lol). I don't know why. But thanks to reading and personal practice, I know better.

An important step to a successful personal growth journey through mediation is to identity your 'failure triggers'. What are the underlying triggers that impede or impact your desire to grow and/or succeed? While understanding these triggers is key, personal growth can not be achieved by that alone. It still requires some action on your part.

A key strategy for a successful personal growth journey and plan is to be aware of your past decisions, what influenced them, why you made them, and what strategies you can put in place to prevent you from falling back to those ways.

During my own time, my 'failure triggers' were fear of change, my pride, and anger.

Now, it's your turn. Time for you to take action and control over those triggers. Process them. Consider your actions and decisions in the past 1 - 2 months and the factors surrounding them. Do find yourself succumbing to those triggers I listed out? Are there more triggers of your own? Write down all your 'failure triggers', what influenced them, why you made them, and what strategies you can put in place to prevent falling back to them.

If you believe in affirmations(which you should), write down an affirmation for each trigger. Here's an example of mine to guide you:
"I know that I made ______ mistake because I was scared of people knowing that I was vulnerable. I am vulnerable because I am human. And I am strong because I know my weaknesses, and I will work through my weaknesses to become a stronger person."

Now, you can write all of yours down. You can write them differently than I did mine if you like, but the target is for you to be aware of the root of your choices and decisions so as to help you make better decisions in the future. So no pressure. Have fun while doing it. I look forward to seeing the changes in our future.
Have a great weekend!


- The Lady

“This book of the law shall not depart out of thy mouth; but thou shalt meditate therein day and night, that thou mayest observe to do according to all that is written therein: for then thou shalt make thy way prosperous, and then thou shalt have good success.”

Joshua 1:8

NYSC: My Experience And Lessons Learnt

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"Your future depends on many things...but mostly, it depends on you." - Zig Ziglar

My one year service period to Nigeria(NYSC) ended yesterday! 💃🏾💃🏾
Has it really been one year?! Wow! The journey that began on the 28th of October, 2015 is finally over. As I write this, I have all kinds of emotions running through my entire body so I can't really say if it's excitement, fear, or just pure joy I feel right now. Please permit me. I know that I should be more 'professional' about this but I can't help being emotional right now. I can go home!!!

My NYSC journey began like everyone else's I guess. I was happy to be finally serving my country, but curious about what lay ahead. Unlike some, I was posted to the state of my choice, Akwa Ibom State. One of the most beautiful and peaceful states in Nigeria. And unlike some, I did not have fun in the orientation camp at Nsit Atai, Akwa Ibom State. I hate confinement and I couldn't wait to leave that place.

But after the 3-week orientation period ended, it became easier for me to adjust and cope with my new 'home'. I was posted to serve at the Alternative Dispute Resolution department of the Akwa Ibom State's Ministry of Justice where I met the most amazing people. Now, my entire experience in Akwa Ibom State was as fun as I let it get(which is not so much I admit), but the lessons I learnt through the year are worth sharing and I hope you gain from them. So, here we go.

• A lot can be achieved in one year. Despite my work at the Ministry and the classes I took for a course I was interested in, I found time to write on the blog, while juggling 2 executive positions at my Community Development Service(CDS) group and my church's Corp members' group. I never knew I could be a good leader nor that I could multitask but I did well if I do say so myself.
• Everything changes, even people. I learnt this the hard way. I let my belief in the good in people and 'first impression' fool me into making friends with some people. Those 'friendships' turned toxic and I got burnt. Although I will keep believing in the good in people, I have learnt to take my time when bringing people close as friends.
• Life is meant to be lived. That includes enjoying, exploring and making the best use of the time and life you have got. Knowing that I had just one year to be in Akwa Ibom made me eager to see and enjoy the state as much as I could. I enjoyed the food, the peaceful atmosphere and the people. I would be going home soon, why not enjoy the time I have?
• No matter how little a budget is, it is better than nothing. I was fortunate to serve Nigeria during a period of economic crisis. I was forced to be creative with my budget while creating other sources of income for myself. It wasn't as colourful as it sounds now, but the experience revealed the inner entrepreneur in me. I learnt to appreciate what I had and make it work for me, and that tough times are useful in bringing out the best in a person.
• Never give up on your faith. Never do that. Human that I am, I stopped believing in myself, in my abilities, and it nearly cost me something important. Whatever(and/or whoever) you believe in, don't stop believing just because things seem tougher than you expected. Keep your head up and your faith strong, you will get through a lot of things.
• Best of all, time management is very important. I used to be good at procrastinating and making plans without factoring time into those plans. Through this service year, especially during the first 3 weeks in camp, I learnt the importance of daily time management.

My service year helped me learn new things about myself and life and I won't trade it for anything. I hope you connected with, and learnt from, at least one of the lessons I learnt? Thanks for reading.
Have a great day.
With love,


- The Lady

“And the Lord direct your hearts into the love of God, and into the patient waiting for Christ.”

2 Thessalonians 3:5