Equipping young women professionals with young families to find fulfillment, contentment and joy as mothers and home makers without losing sight of who they are as women.

Volume 03, Issue 04: Made for Excellence

Most of us are uncomfortable with mediocrity. This is because we are made for excellence. Are you often running late and feel terrible about it each time it happens? You probably can’t get away with submitting sloppy work. That is because that is not who you are.

Now that we have established that we have excellence on the inside, could you honestly say that you do your work with diligence and in the spirit of excellence?

How about your service to your family, or your ministry, even still, your countenance and appearance? How do you look on your day off, on the day you have no plans of leaving the house? Suppose something came up and you had to rush to the grocery store to pick something, would you change into something presentable, or would you just dash out as you are?

Do people have to pick after you - close and return files that you left open, pick towels that you left on the floor? A person of excellence returns things where they belong.

Present yourself with excellence. You should look good. Take care of yourself. Remember you represent the Almighty God, and He does not like sloppy, even around the house. Make sure you still look good for your spouse, for your children.

Excellence is in the little things. It’s the little foxes that spoil the vine. Pick up waste in the bathroom even when you are not the one who accidentally dropped it. Clean the top shelves in your pantry even though nobody sees it. Keep your car clean and in good condition.

Do the right thing not because someone is watching you, even when you don’t agree, even when you don’t think it’s necessary. Do it to honour God. Even in small areas, make sure you are representing God in an excellent way.

Let’s be true to ourselves and be persons of excellence. Go up higher. Have the affairs of your life and household running smoothly and efficiently. Get to work on time. Do more than is expected of you. Distinguish yourself – don’t just go with the flow, doing what everybody else is doing. You are called to be a cut above. Refuse to compromise, and you will find favour with God and man.

Lillian Chebosi

Volume 03, Issue 03: Make no Little Plans

Most of us are still putting together our goals for the new year. It is important that we make our goal setting and goal getting process a continuous progression. Don’t just rush to make totally new goals, start with picking up from where you left things in 2012.

Some of the goals we made last year were one-off targets, the ones we accomplish and move on to the next thing, while others were continuous or even lifelong goals. For instance, if one of your goals was to embrace a healthy lifestyle in order to improve your physical well being, then you may not want to drop this goal in exchange for a totally different goal this year. Such a goal would fall under your on-going goals and would remain in your resolutions year after year.

See how far you went in accomplishing the things you wanted to start doing last year, and evaluate your performance. If there are items that you did not get to, or did not complete, consider if they are still important to you. If they are, they should be on your list for this year, with a tighter plan on how you will go about attaining them.

Move on to the things you were doing before last year, and purposed to continue doing. Review your priorities and decide if you still wish to continue doing them, or if you wish to drop them if they no longer serve your interests. We should always keep up good habits and practices while remaining dynamic enough to pick up new methodologies and strategies.

Also, consider the things you decided to stop doing last year. Some of these were good things, but you set them aside in order to focus on the best. See if any of those could come back on your list of things to do, given the changes that have taken place in your life by now. One of the reasons why it’s important to review this list is to ensure that you don’t find yourself allowing old disparaging habits and practices to creep back into your new improved life.

At this point, you are now ready to make some new goals. Make no little plans; they have no magic to impress anybody, or guarantee their realization. Make big plans; aim high in hope and work. As you do, go for balance. Make goals for your career and business, relationships, finances, health and fitness, fun and recreation, spiritual growth, and legacy goals.

I challenge you to raise the bar. Set yourself up for higher horizons. Dare to go further than you did last year. Stretch yourself, get out of your comfort zone while remaining true to your purpose.

Lillian Chebosi

Volume 03, Issue 02: Embracing 2013 with Hope for Great Things

2013 is going to be a great year. I don’t see why it shouldn’t. This year offers us yet another opportunity to live out our purpose, maximize our potential, and move closer to realizing our greatness.

I am excited. Just like any other new year, 2013 is here to afford us yet another chance to reach our goals, improve our productivity, finances, health, grow deeper in our faith, and be the best that we can be in our professions, relationships, ministries, businesses, and other occupations.  I am choosing to live my best days in 2013.

Choose to speak the best of this year. Think, confess, and do great things. Reach out for new cycles of victory, success, and prosperity. See yourself gaining new territories in 2013; new emotional territory, new intellectual territory, new business territory, new spiritual territory, new ministerial territory, and new financial territory.

As usual, unwelcome circumstances will come up. Purpose not to let the elements of your days dictate your destiny, rather choose to take control of them and direct their course to a greater end. Choose to have a great year - 2013.

Lillian Chebosi

Volume 03, Issue 01: Looking Back at 2012 with Gratitude

The last couple of months have been the busiest times I have ever known. It got to a point when I almost gave in to discouragement for what was becoming of 2012 for me. But now as I look back, I see that 2012 was a great year. Everything did not go as I planned it, but I am grateful for the surprises.

I choose gratitude as I look back at 2012. A ton of things went exceptionally well. The surprises stretched me, and I experienced exponential learning and growth. I am grateful for the successes, for the good times, for the blessings of a wonderful family that made my life beautiful, for dear friends who held me up and coloured my life, for the time to do the things I love to do, and for the works of my life.

What is your evaluation for 2012? If you are like me, you did not accomplish all your goals. You probably experienced some disappointments here and there, some setbacks, holdups, delays, frustrations, and even losses. Nonetheless, you must have something to be grateful about 2012. If you haven’t done so already, take time to look back and make a list of the things you are grateful for in the last twelve months.

Don’t let 2012 pass-by just like that. Reflect on your experiences and marvel at how blessed you were. Take time to reflect over your goals for 2012, one by one, and grade yourself. You will be surprised by how well you did.

Start with the things you purposed to continue doing and see how you faired. Then move on to the things you purposed to start doing, and then to the things you purposed to stop doing. Evaluate your 2012 before you can courageously embrace 2013 with renewed hope for even greater things.

Choose to be grateful as you look back at the last twelve months of your life. Keep record of your achievements and take note of the areas you need to do more work on, even as you come up with new goals for the new year.  It was a good year – 2012.

Lillian Chebosi

Volume 02, Issue 41: Redeem the Time

Time is what life is made of. Do you find that you don’t have enough time to live your best life now? We make excuses for not having the time to do the things that are important to us. Consider making a list of the things you would love do to on a regular basis but don’t get to do due to “lack of time”.

How is it that some people have time to do so much than most? One of the wisest things we can do is to live on purpose. Purposeful living enables us to be intentional with how we spend our time. It structures and focuses our lives to only what matters.

Everyone in the universe has the same quantity of time. With no exception, we all get twenty-four hours per day. What we do with those twenty-four hours determines what we accomplish in our lifetime.

We must learn the art of ordering our day. We must take into account each day and not squander the time that we have. It helps to note down what you want to accomplish, and list the specific tasks you will do daily, weekly, monthly, and yearly, to get you to your desired end. Without a plan, we leave ourselves to doing everything but not achieving much.

We live in an age of tremendous time-saving mechanisms. Tons of time is saved with modern conveniences such as instant coffees and microwaves. Despite these, we also have major time-depleters such as the television and the internet. There are people who sit for long hours in the night in a night club chatting and drinking; others before the television set surfing channel after channel, just because they are too tired to go to bed!

The only time we have is the time we make use of. We reap what we sow. If you want to get ahead in life, learn to make use of the time that others squander. What are the things that are stealing your time? What draws from your time that doesn’t yield much return? To make optimal use of your time, identify your time stealers and deal with them.

As with any financial investment, ask yourself what kind of return your time investments are yielding. Time spent is a cost – be mindful of the benefit you are exchanging for the cost you are incurring.

Redeem the time and make the most of every opportunity. In addition to being very intentional about what we spend time on, we must also learn to prioritize our time. Planning our time makes us efficient, but it is prioritizing that makes us effective.

Lillian Chebosi