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 01 Issue 15: Setting Goals for Growth

We may still be refining our resolutions and work plans for achieving our goals for 2011. As you plan, be sure to set the standards that you will use to measure your progress as you go along; because only what gets measured gets done. If we do not measure how well we are doing against a set standard, anything will be good enough for us. We will risk settling for less than our best.

We set goals because we want to grow. We realize that we can be more than what we have become so far. It is commendable to want to grow, but we have to be committed to work it out. Personal growth takes discipline. We must discipline ourselves to do what we need to do every day to reach our potential.

A desire for self improvement begins with self discovery. I can attest to the fact that we do not remain quite what we were once we discover ourselves. We cease to be comfortable with the status quo. Our ignorance becomes clear to us and it pushes us to learn some more. Self discovery spurs within us a hunger for growth, a love for learning and application.

Once you decide what you want and the goals you want to achieve, recognize that growth is a process and stick with it. It isn’t something that you do a couple of times and then set aside. It is something that you determine to pursue continually.

We succeed only in what we give attention to. The secret of achieving our goals lies in our daily preoccupation. Isn’t it funny how at the beginning of the year we set a goal to go a certain direction but get preoccupied with actions that take us in a different direction? We can do things differently this time. What we do on a daily basis determines what we get out of life. The Bible warns that we reap what we sow. The honours is then to occupy ourselves with actions that are in line with we want to achieve.

We fear that we are not qualified enough; that we don’t have what it takes to succeed. God does not give us a passion for something without the means to do it. He not only gives us a dream but he also provides the resources to fulfill it. Take the initiative to grow in spite of your current state. Don’t wait to have it all together to start doing what you want to attain growth in. Start with the tools you have at hand and you will certainly find better tools as you go along. Don’t be intimidated by the progress of people who are miles ahead of you in their journey either. Acknowledge that most worthwhile accomplishments begin small.

Lillian Chebosi

Volume 01 Issue 13: Embrace Your Uniqueness

God has given each of us the ability to do certain things well. There are certain things that come naturally to each of us. Things that we not only do with ease but we also have fun doing. It could be organizing, cooking, entertaining, educating, motivating, decorating, designing, landscaping, I certainly couldn’t begin to try to exhaust the list. We have jobs that we endeavour to do well and be outstanding at, and rightly so. A job is what we are trained to do, a skill we sharpen along the way. But there is at least one thing that each of us is uniquely good at. It is our gift. It is the thing that people praise you for, yet to you it’s not a big deal. People who take for granted what you do well and don’t want to lend a hand usually say something like “You have a touch for hosting. Why don’t you host the next meeting as well?” But if you think about it, it isn’t just a touch. It is a gift but you still have to work hard at it to do it well. A gift unattended is not good for anything.

God has built in each of us talents for specific purposes. If you haven’t already, find your natural talent endowments and sharpen them to limits of outstanding excellence. Every gift or talent is a solution to someone’s problem. When you utilize your gift, you become a solution provider to someone, an answer to their prayer. Someone’s need may never be met until you get started utilizing your gift. Find something you like to do so much that you would gladly do it for nothing; then learn to do it so well that people are happy to pay you for it.

It does not matter what you are good at. What matters is your discipline to exercise your God given talent and strive to be the best by diligently working on it over and over again. Take the risk to serve your talents to a world that may at first seem disinterested.

Lillian Chebosi

Volume 01 Issue 12: Befriend Your Failures

“It is important to use the past to learn from our mistakes. Or if we have done well in the past, it is time for us to look at why and build on our successes.” Johnson Spencer, author of The Present.

Every day offers us opportunities to fail in different areas of life. In spite of all of our good intentions, we are prone to sometimes make bad choices, wrong judgments and lose focus. We don’t always get it right in our work, in our relationships and in the general business of our lives. You may have lost money in a bad investment; lost your job or a promotion opportunity; or failed an exam. You may have failed to be there for a friend when he or she needed you most; or said hurtful things in a moment of heated emotions to people you hold dear. We can’t help it but get embarrassed and ashamed of ourselves when we fail. However, if handled well, failures can be stepping stones for future successes.

Sometimes we learn from our mistakes, sometimes we don’t. In instances where we fail to learn from our failures, we consciously or subconsciously choose one of two options. We either hold on to past mistakes or ignore them. Firstly, when we hold on to the past, we beat ourselves over it and hang on to our past failures as if they define who we are. I realize that the reason we hang on to our past failures is because we do not learn from them. It is hard to let go of the past if we have not learned from it. We deny ourselves the chance to live to our full potential when we hang on to the past. Secondly, when we ignore our failures, we behave in a manner that shows that we don’t want to think about the mistake we made and want to move on as though it never happened. By doing this we don’t learn from our mistake and enlist ourselves as obvious candidates for making the same or a similar mistake in future. We need to squarely look at the mistake and learn all that there is to learn so that we don’t repeat it.

There is something valuable to learn from your failure. Learn from it and then let go of it. Look at a mistake you made and admit how you feel about it. And then realize how you could do things differently now. Admit that you cannot change the past but you can learn from it. When the same situation arises, you can do things differently. When we behave in the same way, we get the same results. But when we behave differently, we get different results. We afford ourselves the possibility to get the results we want.

The fact is that we are bound to fail from time to time, however elaborate we make out our plans to be. It helps to admit this and choose to befriend our failures rather than let them distract us from our goals. If we have not learnt from the past, we are not ready to create the future we want. When we befriend our failures, it becomes easier to quickly rise up after a fall. Because then we know that our failure does not define us; that despite our shortcomings, we are made for greatness. Choose to live a life that is free of regrets by acknowledging that you have made, and will continue to make mistakes. Get past them by picking out the lessons you need to learn.

Lillian Chebosi

Volume 01 Issue 11: Gifts and Money

As we start the holidays and festive season, we stumble upon the emphasis to give gifts to those dear to us. We give gifts throughout the year at different occasions but the Christmas spirit does put an emphasis on us to express love though gifts. Gift giving is indeed fundamental to love. As reiterated by Dr. Gary Chapman in his book on love languages, "it doesn’t matter whether it costs money. What matters is that you thought of him or her. And it is not the thought implanted only in the mind that counts, but the thought expressed in actually securing the gift and giving it as the expression of love." However, as obvious as it may seem, giving gifts doesn’t come naturally to all of us. Some are good at it, others could use some help.

Gifts come in all forms. Some are expensive and others don’t have financial implications. My focus today is on gifts that we have to spend money on. Each of us has a personal perception of the use of money and we have various emotions associated with spending it. People with a spending orientation feel good about themselves when they spend money. Some of us on the other hand have a saving and investing orientation. We feel good about ourselves when we save money and invest it wisely. Spend thrifts have little difficulty purchasing gifts for their spouses. Savers on the other hand experience emotional resistance to the idea of spending money as an expression of love. They certainly don’t consider gifts as investments but as expenses to be avoided. A saver hardly buys things for himself or herself. This makes it difficult for a saver to buy things for his or her spouse.

But here is a reality check for you if you fall on the category of savers. Saving and investing is purchasing things for yourself. By saving and investing you are purchasing self worth, emotional and financial security. You are caring for your own emotional needs for financial security in your way of handling money. What you may not be doing is meeting the emotional needs of your spouse. If your spouse feels loved by receiving gifts, then purchasing gifts for him or her is a worthwhile investment to make for your relationship. Gifts are enjoyed by all, including those who don’t put too much value on receiving gifts. A well thought out gift every now and then won’t compromise your savings. Invest in your spouse.

Receiving gifts makes us feel thought of, remembered and special. “People will forget what you said; People will forget what you did; But people will never forget how you make them feel”. Bonnie Jean Wasmund.

Lillian Chebosi