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 12, Issue 25: Effortless

While looking for Greg Mckeown's Essentialism: The Disciplined Pursuit of Less book, I found his Effortless: Make It Easier to Do What Matters Most book. I listened to the audiobook multiple times last week to increase my retention of the content. Reflecting over the content, here's what I found to be the meaning of effortless for me.

Effortless first starts with essentialism, which is the art of doing only what matters most, and doing them mindfully and wholesomely. Effortless is then learning to do essential things with ease.

For me, effortless is when I divide a big task into manageable pieces and tackle each piece one by one over a defined time frame.

Effortless is when I set schedules ahead of time to do the things I need to do routinely such as my workouts, my home maintenance tasks and the like. Then I don't have to figure out what to do, and when to do it.

Effortless is when I maintain my weight and health by consistently walking and strength training for about an hour a day and eating mindfully, compared to being irregular at these practices and having to do extraneous workouts and heavy diet restrictions to get back in shape.

Effortless is baking a few weeks ahead of a birthday, preparing the frosting a week ahead of the birthday, applying the cram coat a few days ahead of the birthday and doing the final coat and decorating the cake a day or two ahead of the birthday.

Effortless is going through a challenging time without burdening myself with needless worry or guilt or overthinking. It is going through a difficulty with a positive mindset, choosing happiness. Effortless is going through a difficult season unburdened.

Effortless is choosing to do less when that is a viable option. If I have two family birthdays being celebrated at one event, effortless is baking and decorating one large cake rather than decorating two cakes.

Effortless is maintaining the tidiness of my closet or kitchen or pantry daily, than having to tidy up every now and then as a result of not having the discipline of returning things where they belong every time I use them.

Effortless is deciding my family's menu for the week ahead of time and doing the meal prep accordingly, rather than having to figure out what to cook each day and working on the dish from scratch.

Effortless is deciding and writing down what to wear for each day of the upcoming week over the weekend rather than facing the mental fatigue of figuring out what to wear each morning. I actually have a printed list of daily outfits for 3 weeks in a row, which is all the clothes I have my closet.

What does effortless look like to you? What can you do to make your life more effortless?

For His Glory,

Lillian Chebosi

Volume 12, Issue 24: Resilience At Work

Not so long ago I wrote about developing resilience. At the time, my focus was on big things in life. But this past weekend my experiences revealed that resilience is just as important in minor life occurrences as it is in major ones. I had just come from hosting a birthday party for my daughter and needed to bake for two other birthdays.

Starting Friday afternoon after work, I embarked on a task of baking and decorating two cakes for my brother's and nephew's upcoming birthdays. Ready to put the second cake in the oven, I found that the large round baking tin I intended to use had a fault. So I used a large square baking tin instead. Getting the cake out of the tin after cooling resulted in part of the cake breaking. That didn't worry me too much as I figured I could plaster it with frosting.

Prior to this, I had passed by a nearby grocery store on my way back home from dropping my son to school in the morning. I wanted to pick the brand of margarine I use for my buttercream. Unfortunately, it wasn't on the shelves, so I picked a brand I had never used before. While the cakes were cooling, I started working on making the first batch of buttercream. It turned out to be a complete flop as the margarine was too light and runny. I ended up using two extra packets of icing sugar in the hope of firming up the buttercream. The buttercream didn't thicken enough nor whiten but I thought I could still use it.

Come early Saturday morning, my mission was to be done with frosting the cakes by the time I needed to drop my son for his basketball training. Shock on me. The buttercream was a mess. It didn't hold either of the cakes, nor successfully patch the broken cake. So I picked another set of icing sugar packets and the right brand of margarine from a different grocery store after dropping my son off for basketball training.

Getting back home I baked another cake to replace the broken one. I scraped off the imperfect buttercream from the other cake and started the process all over again, eating into part of my Sunday afternoon. I realized that throughout the flops: the buttercream backfiring, going back to the store, spending money on products I had already spent money on but lost as a result of the flop, rebaking a cake, preparing buttercream and frosting the cakes a second time, I kept telling myself not to let it discourage me. It was important that I keep my motivation up.

If that's not resilience in its basic form then I don't know what is. I could have thrown in the towel and given up on the cakes. Or, I could have powered through discouraged. But having developed resilience prior to this experience, I knew that I could not only not give up, I also couldn't power through in a discouraged state. So I focused on the positives instead.

I told myself that by repeating the work, I would be getting better at frosting cakes. These were going to be the best cakes I ever presented. More so, I reminded myself that it was an honour to get to bake for my family on their birthdays. That this is one of my opportunities of being a blessing in my community.

What small things have you had to pick yourself up from recently? Don't dismiss your small acts resilience because it is still resilience.

Related Article: Build Resilience

For His Glory,

Lillian Chebosi

Volume 12, Issue 23: Keep The Habit Alive

I recently listened to the Life Changing magic of Tidying Up audiobook by Marie Kondo. I am glad I picked up the book because it confirmed what I thought was true all along.

I don't tidy up my wardrobe or kitchen or pantry over and over again. I rearrange these spaces a couple of times a year, but I don't tidy them, because they are already tidy. I did the tidying work once, and that was enough. All I do on a daily basis is maintain the tidiness by returning things back to their designated spaces in the neat state they were in when I got them out.

In the book, Marie Kondo stresses that tidying is a once and for all exercise. If done right, it's not something that one has to keep doing repeatedly. However, I must add that for this to hold true, an individual's systems must be ingrained to ensure the space stays tidy afterwards.

I routinely tidy up my family members' closets. But there's one family member's closets that I stoped organizing all together a few years back. This is because I accepted that this family member doesn't have systems in place that would ensure that once organized, he would keep him closet tidy. As a result, his closet would be back to the mess it was in, in a few days, rendering organizing it in a first place a waste of time.

Tidying up a space for the first time can be daunting. But once tidied, keeping it tidy is easy with the right systems in place. Similarly, I find working out now, which I do to stay in shape much easier than it was when I started twelve years ago, needing to shed off the extra pounds I had accumulated. Likewise, my once a week all day long cleaning service is hard work on my cleaning lady. Keeping the house clean throughout the week is much easier on me.

"Keeping the habit alive is a powerful act. It's easier to stay in shape than to get in shape. It's easier to keep a house clean than to get it clean. Many days it may feel like you are treading water, but maintaining your progress saves your future self a great deal of work." James Clear.

Whatever you are working on, keep up the momentum. You will soon get to the sweet spot of maintenance. Don't fall for the wagon. Keep showing up. Your future self will be glad you did.

For His Glory,

Lillian Chebosi

Volume 12, Issue 22: Take Action Today

"Most big, deeply satisfying accomplishments in life take at least five years to achieve. This can include building a business, cultivating a loving relationship, writing a book, getting in the best shape of your life, raising a family, and more.

Five years is a long time. It is much slower than most of us would like. If you accept the reality of slow progress, you have every reason to take action today. If you resist the reality of slow progress, five years from now you'll simply be five years older and still looking for a shortcut." James Clear.

This is so true. Big accomplishments in life do indeed take time. But it takes more than time. It takes consistent pursuit of a goal over time. One of my pursuits for the past decade or so has been staying in shape. To do that, I have consistently worked out five days a week irrespective of whether I feel like it or not.

Something my boss of long ago once said to me has stuck with me even since. I had just started my career and was contemplating starting my masters degree. He said "Time will pass whether or not you do something". It hit me at that point that the year will come and go if I go to school, and the year will come and go if don't go to school.

The mornings I don't feel like getting out of bed to get on with my morning routines, I ask myself, "How will I feel 2-3 hours down the line when I finally get out of bed too late for my morning routines?" The mornings I don't feel like going for my walk, I tell myself, "Thirty minutes will be over in no time. I might as well have done my walk by then."

Take action today if you want more than just the passage of time out of your life. It may not look like you are getting anywhere, but you are. Every daily action is getting you closer to your grand accomplishments. Keep going. Keep showing up.

For His Glory,

Lillian Chebosi

Volume 12, Issue 21: Build Resilience

On any journey, and every goal is a journey, there are usually setbacks. We make mistakes, something unexpected happens, or circumstances change. Without resilience, a setback results in the end of the journey.

Most of us have mastered the art of persistence. We are determined to stay committed to the pursuit of our goals. But a time comes when determination alone is not enough. There comes a time when we need to add resilience to our tool box.

We have to be able to withstand or recover from setbacks and difficult situations. That is what resilience is. It's the ability to become strong, healthy and successful again after something bad happens.

Resilience is actually more critical than persistence. As David Beavers has written, persistence is the ability to stay in the game, to not quit, to hang in there. It's the attitude needed for the long haul. Resilience on the other hand is about our capacity to bounce back from difficulties, disappointments, heartbreak and hard times.

Some of us have persistence but lack resilience. Yet resilience is critical in succeeding in life and business. As written by David, persistence keeps us in the race, but resilience returns us to the right path when we get knocked off course, even knocked to the ground.

The ability to bend and not break comes with developing resilience. Since the playing field is never guaranteed to remain predictable, we must develop resilience to guarantee us a chance of making it to the finish line should we have to maneuver a few curve balls along the way.

Moving on and learning from our mistakes takes resilience. By facing facts squarely, allowing time for recovery and bouncing back with an attitude for growth, it's possible to be resilient in the face of any setback.

Although persistence will keep you showing up, it's resilience that will see you resume showing up after dusting yourself from the effects of difficulties and setbacks. Resilience is what makes you unstoppable and unperturbed in the face of setbacks and difficulties.

For His Glory,

Lillian Chebosi