Create-a-new life!

Monday 1 December 2014

Taking control: How gratitude affect your health, wealth and relationships!


Gratitude is a lifestyle of appreciation wherein you choose to see good in you first, others and what life has offered. Gratitude positively affect your health, wealth and relationships and therefore is worthy of your attention to learn in order to change your life.
How gratitude impact your life positively!
Gratitude is one of the learned behaviours of people who seek spiritual enlightenment; the state of being aware of the values of the positive mind.  It is therapeutic in the sense that it maintains happiness which reverses illness like cancer.  Gratitude supports holistic wellness as follows:
1.      Wealth
·        It attracts wealth.  Grateful people get excited when they engage in business and they position themselves to succeed.  They have great tenacity to pursue their goals; as a result they increase their positive vibration towards attracting people and incidents that supports wealth.
·        It enables celebration of occurring incidents. Naturally positive emotion wears off within a short period. This emotional state could be greatly improved when appreciation is applied and result in keeping the emotion of the moment alive through daily affirmations. For an example, the euphoria of a new car will stay alive when you appreciate its benefits daily as you use it; thus allowing your state of joy to extend into the near and distant future.  
2.      Health
·        It blocks negative emotions.  Gratitude is a positive emotion which supports life.  Grateful people do not harbour negative emotions like anger, resentment and regrets because their philosophy is based on focusing on positive thinking.
·        Enables stress resilience.  Those who practice gratitude overcome traumatic experiences because they tend to find good in unpleasant situations.  For example, rather than engaging in road rage, it is ideal to be grateful that you avoided accident which could have caused bodily harm or damaged your car.  It has been proven that even when injured, grateful people recover faster because they appreciate life.
3.      Relationships
·        Readily forgives.  Relationships have a common hurdle – inability to let go offences. We all have relationships and because we are not always present to avoid engaging in negative thinking, we fail to maintain peace.
·        It lowers absenteeism in schools.  According to studies, students who were introduced to and practice gratitude had improved grades because they learnt to appreciate their teachers and have learned to be self-directed.  They tended to realize and appreciate that teachers spend hours preparing for lectures and marking assignments.
·        Supports environment.  Spiritually enlightened people understand the creation and their role to nurture the nature. They are aware of the gift of life and the need for mankind to co-exist with other species.
Gratitude is a practice of pure love hence is an ideal for holistic wellness.  It opens doors for success in wealth through increased vibrations. It improves relationships because it block negative thinking and encourages unconditional acceptance of self, others and environment.  The physical body operates at optimum level when is saturated with love which is demonstrated by gratitude.




Friday 28 November 2014

Taking control: Optimize decision-making skill through critical thinking!


Decision-making is a part of the results of functions of your brain which enables you to quickly internalize a matter at hand and figure out the best way to handle it.  You have been wired to make decision, but you have to learn how to develop and utilize this through informal, non-formal and formal education.
How critical thinking can improve the quality of your decision!
Decision –making is the most water-downed ability yet it is a mechanism that could make or break your life.  You make choices after analysing the situation. The most empowering concept of rationale thinking is critical thinking.  It is defined as the art of analysing and evaluating the matter at hand with a view to find the most ideal direction,  thus ensuring that your thought are clearly reasoned out to enable you to identify values, benefits and consequences in any given situation.   Critical thinking is an empowering concept which steers your mind from auto-pilot mode to understanding underlying motives for your thoughts, words and actions.  Let us discuss the benefits of critical thinking as empowering self-development approach:
Self-directedness: This is an ability to shed off undesirable behaviour the does not support your identified goals. What I mean is that often children are socialized to follow what their parents and or guardians desire of their future and may miss the opportunity to find their social and spiritual.  Consider the following self-talk which applies guiding questions to get to ideal decisions:
·        Nobody really knows what I want in life except me. So, I must assess what my parents and other authorities in my life influence my behaviour.
·        I want to be a doctor and anything else should support that burning desire.  I therefore will not engage in a sexual relationship that could possibly bring pressure regarding married before I graduate! 
·        I got divorced, but I can start-over and build my future just the way I want it! I must not react but respond to my real me! Who am I anyway (strengths and weakness)? Why am I here for? How can I find my purpose in this life (where do I start)? What resources do I need?
Self-disciple: Some children go wild when they leave home for college because they feel they were living a restricted life.  Critical thinking would enable you to set ideal morale standards for yourself:
·        I am away from home; and I can now demonstrate to myself that I want to live and achieve my goals.
·        I can now eat what I want but I must improve on what my mother dictated!
·        I need to improve my grooming because it is part of the self-esteem activities that will project my private and public image.  Exercises will enhance my body shape; I will therefore adopt this as part of grooming!
Self-monitoring:  This is critical action for maintaining self-awareness and high level of integrity.  What I speak and do reveal the nature and quality of my thoughts.  So, I will learn concepts that confirm that I am accountable to my words and will adhere to my identified values.
Self-correction: I have in-build effective mechanism called conscience which tells me when I am about to do something wrong.  I will synchronize my inner self and mind to monitor my social ethics and integrity and will make this part of my affirmation!
Your values content (information) becomes a light that illuminate your environment when you practice them.  You came alone in this planet and you are accountable to your own life! Critical thinking enables you to monitor the underlying reasons for your thoughts, and decisions; thus securing well thought choices.





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Monday 24 November 2014

Taking control: How do you know that you believe in yourself?


Believing in self is an inborn empowering value, which was destroyed through socialization from birth and limited your ability to discover and identify given talents. This was done when your parents prohibited you and instilled fear when you undertook daring stances in your attempt to discover your environment.
Guiding principles to check whether you believe in yourself!
You may think this is not an issue in your life; nonetheless I encourage you to keep an open mind and walk with me to check and verify that you do believe in yourself:
1.   What is your relationship with yourself?
Your answer should show whether you are a positive person who accept self as is.  It also should enable you to identify your personal goals and challenges in meeting them.  The thinking process should recall moments when you stopped from pursuing that which you believed in, because you judged yourself as being over-zealous. You probably closed the door which could be leading to you ideal future.  The antidote for such an attitude is identifying successful people and learning from them.  You must also take a break when you need one.  Learn to listen to your body and nurture it instead of stressing it.
   
2.   Seek optimum lifestyle – Adopt good habits!
Because you have identified your strengths and weaknesses, you must adjust your goals to be achievable. Often people fail to achieve anything because first, they have not identified given talents and build their goals on them. Please note that you have something good, which you are able to do with ease and is meant to sustain you in this life.  Start with discovering what your physical body needs; do the basic.  What emotional issues are you battling with? Are you a happy person? If you harbor anger; deal with it! Seek professional help; anger drive away people and you need people to take upward economic mobility! It would also help if you could recognize yourself in others.  For example, there is someone you know who has a good voice and speaks well and use that gift to swear and sing at local shabin. There is also someone who likes ports, who did not finish college but is a millionaire because is a professional soccer star!  Do not put yourself down and make sure that you listen to criticism objectively.  Do not procrastinate in finding solution to your challenges; it helps to find a mentor who could walk with you to your success!
  
3.   Build a better you!
After finding answers on who you are, make conscious decision to build a better you! This means you identified how your behavior is less than ideal and sometimes could recall your childhood environment.  It is time to engage in shaping yourself according to you and not blame your parents for both inherited and acquired behavior.  Here you must be guided by positive attitude to yourself; love yourself unconditionally! Take care of yourself; grooming is very important to support your self-confidence building decisions. Do things that challenges your mind; there is a life-changing sense of achievement when you get on top of your mountain.  Note your insecurities and ensure that they do not become anchors.  If they curtail your progress towards your goals, seek help! This means you remove excuses so that you maintain your forward momentum.


You are taking control of your life when you do not dwell in anything that could hinder your efforts towards a better life.  It could be that you are a genius trapped in socialization and other societal norms and belief systems that created fear in you.  Step out of the box; life is what you make of it!

Thursday 20 November 2014

Taking control: Why you do not succeed to achieve your goals?


Parents make tentative goals before they have children and continue to anticipate their success throughout their various childhood developmental stages. Children establish their dreams early in life too; but do we all achieve what we aspire for?
Principles of success and hindrances!
Success is not adults’ subjects; some prosperous people charted their lives when they chose careers.  If you are an adult and only now are seeking to build your financial muscles, you could likely engage in frantic trial and error approach because you pursued a wrong academic career.  You are generally experiencing dissatisfaction and struggling financially.  Let us consider the following principles of success and note where you lost your direction:
1.   Identifying your vision through personal strengths.  We all become aware of what subjects we like and pass well especially in primary education. Ideally parents should be aware of this and be in a position to explain possible career for such subjects.  This early charting of one’s career enable one to focus on personal development and seek to gain deeper knowledge of what is required to climb the professional ladder.

Unsuccessful people have no vision and therefore have no pointers of what direction to take.  They engage in trial and error and therefore waste time trying to find career after they completed higher learning program.

2.   Regard time as valuable.  In principle, daily chores must be done as scheduled and leave room for tomorrow’s incidentals. Procrastination further shortens chances to find personal strengths in order that you could engage in continuing adult education to gain knowledge and skills in identified career field.

Unsuccessful people stay longer in denial to realize that they are unable to gained financial success.

3.   Face challenges and seek solutions. Failure to take immediate action denotes creating a situation that could be blamed for being unsuccessful. 
Unsuccessful people like to blame others and shift their responsibility for working on their success.

4.   Every person has a given talent to build a future from.  This therefore says no one except mentally retarded people needs permanent help from others.
If you have not identified your talents it means you have not yet identified your passion which will point to your strengths. This means you are lukewarm about life and therefore you cannot attract any helpful resources. Remember you reap what you sow!

5.   Regard failures as stepping stones to success.  Keep open mind to learn from mistakes.  A mistake is missing a target and becomes a learning experience when you analyze what and how you missed. The key to success is not being judgmental to yourself or anybody; just keep updating yourself with new knowledge and skills!

While it is ideal to identify your talents early in life, it is never too late to get back on your planning board and chart your life.  Being successful starts with your mindset.  Believing in yourself is very important because it energize you to let go of the fear of failure and place you in a favorable position to regard each day as an opportunity to gain momentum towards reaching your goals.

Monday 17 November 2014

Taking control: Learn to be compassionate and not judgmental!


Learning to be compassionate is one of the first principles of spiritual enlightenment because its root is love. Compassion empowers you to run in a positive lane wherein negativity is banned. It is a state of humanity that complies with the law of love that governs the whole creation.
The principle of compassion defined!
Compassion is a value which enables a person to assume an ideal state of seeking to apply unconditional positive regard to all people even to unlovable ones. Unlovable people are those who are generally unconscious and may not even be aware that they are negatively charged and bring the worse behavior in other people.  Compassion seeks to see the good in other people and always find ways to bring the best self first and in others.  It starts with deep determination to focus on identifying own strengths in order to increase and maintain the positive energy so that it could be the light that illuminate even the darkest environment.  
The values of being compassionate!
The value of being compassionate is ability to attract positivity in your life because you have saturated yourself with so much positive energy that you:
1.    Attract positive resources such as people who could offer you knowledge or skill or connect you with influential people who could speed up your identified goals.
2.    Get ushered in favorable situations that qualify you and position you to overcome any hurdles that could derail or curtails your progress.
3.    Focus on spiritual growth that ensures connectivity with the Higher Source wherein you access deeper wisdom and knowledge of your purpose, which brings personal fulfillment and intrinsic motivation to continue to pursue good.  
How to be compassionate!
You cannot give what you do not have! The first step is to identify if you have a potential to be a compassionate person:
1.    On a scale of 1 to 10 how often do you ‘catch’ yourself describing yourself with negative words? How often do you do the same to other people?
2.    Recall your childhood environment and try to describe it as objectively as possible; writing down happy and unhappy incidents and the people in them.
3.    Recall your attitude towards your teachers in various stages and how you view their inputs in your life and write down short sentences so that you do not get caught in cover-up sentences that confuse you in assessing how you really feel.
4.    Generally, are you introvert or extrovert person? How do people affect you generally?
5.    What is your attitude about the role of people in your life currently?
6.    What is your desire regarding your relationship with other people?

Helpful tips about developing compassionate attitude!
1.    The guiding principles of ideal life are to love your Creator with all your heart and to love others as yourself! If you do not know how, consider finding out who you are and you will learn that your Creator is love and you have potential love because you are made in His likeness!
2.    If mankind is energy, it means the other person is also energy and therefore if you project negative energy you are harming yourself. 
3.    You are what you believe!  If you see yourself as loving, powerful and seeking to empower others into being compassionate, you have found a way of life that honors your Creator whose mission is to not judge you, but love you unconditionally.  The starting point is seeking your true identity as a spiritual being whose Creator is a Spirit and therefore become aware that compassion is a spiritual function and being judgmental in not who you are.
You take control of your life when you stir yourself from the deep sleep of unconsciousness and engage in learning about your true identity.  You cannot become your best self when you do not even know your make-up.  Mankind is a powerful being because he resembles the Creator of the whole universe which you are part of. 


Friday 14 November 2014

Taking control: Watch out for your psychological attachment!


Psychological attachment is a negative outcome of experiences that become a belief and influence undesirable behavior which includes unhappiness, stinginess, hate of authority and controlling tendencies.  Such beliefs tend to be anchors that could deter you from experiencing positive or full life.
Identifying your psychological attachment!
Attachments are the main cause of your inability to interact or maintain ideal relationships. For you to understand the concept, let us discuss a few examples of situations that challenges you and you are unable to change:
1.    Unhappiness: Often you may blame your hormones if you are a lady and yet there is a deeper emotional baggage from your childhood socialization.  If you were raised by parents who uttered “no” more than “yes” you may unconsciously feel deprived of unconditional love and feel generally confused about loving other people unconditionally.  You have developed a behavior of striving to please someone to earn his/her attention or love.  This will work against you when you exit into adulthood and look for a life partner. Actually the only qualifying person for you would be one who is vulnerable and would give in to your manipulations and controlling habits.
Solution: First identify if you are an unhappy person.  That is, if your happiness is conditional on someone making you have positive feelings.  Unhappy people preempt undesirable situations so that they can maintain their unhappiness. In other words you need a coach that would help you to expect situations that would make you happy.  You must learn to be happy!
2.     Stinginess: This refers to hoarding on what you possess. This is a form of insecurity which says you may never come across this, so keep it and make it last! When children hear lack more than conditions associated with prosperity, they learn to hang on stuff! They get fixated on the lack mode.
3.    Solution: Planet earth was created to be a resource for all living and non-living and mankind is in charge of it all! Again, you must develop a new mentality through coaching and replacing socialization and cultural myths with facts about the abundance of the universe. You must learn to share and to replace poverty mentality with abundance. 
4.    Hate of authority: You can be a hater of authority because you had overly controlling parents.  Do you have subtle dislike or resentment of your parents when they express their opinion; your teacher who demands submission of assignment; your pastor who reminds you to honor your parents; boss who sets production targets? If so, you are classically conditioned to dislike anybody who exercises authority over you.
Solution: You must learn that authority was established with creation and it is meant to establish orderliness and accountability. For an example, your teacher must ensure that you learn and pass well for your own good. He/she is also accountable to meet a set pass rate of the school.  When you understand this, you will learn to love your teacher as someone who is dedicated to assist you to meet your personal goals.
Taking responsibility over your life includes assessing your own behavior and noting lack of control on certain regular incidents.  It is easier when you do this rather than hearing it from another person because you are likely to be defensive.   Try self education on this subject and set a period beyond which you will seek professional help if you cannot loosen your anchors!




Monday 10 November 2014

Taking control: Ideal period to relinquish parental power over your children!


Relinquishing parental powers over teenager children is a debatable parenting principle that is determined by societal values and norms. It is also influenced by whether the parents are educated and living in urban areas or uneducated and living in rural setting.
What doe education has to do with relinquishing parental power?
In the context of Lesotho which is located at the Southern African region, there are two types of parenting approaches: The first is a traditional one wherein parents never actually relinquish power over their children in the sense that they expect to be part of their major decisions even after getting married. For an example, they approve the number of children and their spacing. Actually a son will not make any decisions that oppose his parents.  
Secondly, there are educated parents living in urban areas who have moved from the traditional way of life. Education changes behavior because it enables a person to be open-minded and question principles behind beliefs and values systems. In this case the central question would be; at what point would you let your children gain experience and live their lives? The guiding principle would be to regard parenting as coaching your children from birth to learn to be adaptable to the fast changing world and be independent and seek the best in life.  They can only achieve that if they do not duplicate their parents’ lives; rather they should improve on what they experienced and use available resources to build their own legacy.
The impact of tight controls on your children!
Tight control tends to produce ‘robot’ children who operate from fear rather than from understanding the rationale for acquiring life skills.  Tight controls also tend to subdue children and suppress their free will to think and follow their hearts; thus depending on adult person to chart the course of their future.  For an example, your son may be a potential engineer and fail to pursue that course because he depended on your unqualified advice. How? By believing in you not because you are an authority in the field, but due to the fear of disappointing you for suggesting career counseling.  Such dependent attitude is harmful because it would encourage such a child to not think outside the box. 
If you want your children to live like you, it means you are not empowering them because life itself is dynamic and ideal change is growth.  It is normal to let your children build on whatever informal education you exposed them to and formal one they undertook to experience upward economic mobility. Another danger of tight control over your children is depriving them opportunity to learn from their mistakes. A mistake is an opportunity to review and improve your original motives and strategies.
Ideal period to relinquish control over your teenage children is when they have been empowered to take responsibility of their actions.  It is being there to offer support to heal from emotional wounds and pick themselves up to start over; never letting go of what they believe in. When parenting becomes overwhelming, it does not build an ideal attitude but it suffocates children to the point of non-growth.  It is therefore ideal to coach your children and not run their live to an extent that they do not feel responsible for their failures.


Friday 7 November 2014

Taking control: Watch out how hallow effect affect your relationships decisions!


A relationship is a result of merging social and spiritual interests and responding positively to ensuing attraction. It is actively building a list of things you like about a person and weighing the importance of those that do not conform to your values.
How to overcome the hallow effect!
The hallow effect is the positive first impression impact which overshadows the person’s blemishes.  It is a powerful feeling of liking a person and renders your judgment skewed because you have already been won over by a particular action or behavior.  In jobs interviews, it is one element that human resources experts watch and would assist others in a panel to avoid because it would affect how they assess knowledge and skills of all interviewees objectively.  In relationships, we tend to ignore this phenomenon and fail to assess our own emotional state when we meet people who have powerful charisma.  We even disregard our gut feelings about certain cues that point to subtle negative blemishes.  You could overcome the hallow effect by considering the following pointers:
1.    Are you vulnerable? In order to evaluate your own emotional state, you have to watch how you preempt response to your questions.  For example, if you are a lady and you ask this physically attractive man what he is doing for a living and you already have potential answers, you are under a hallow effect!  In other words you will not listen objectively and therefore fail to pick cues about overstated successes or gaps on personal background.
2.    Are you under pressure to meet your personal goals? Often we set goals like these: I want to get married before I am thirty and I want to have two children by age forty five!  It is good to have goals; however when you are approaching the set dates you become anxious and desperate.  A desperate woman will attract a desperate man! I am sure this is not what you would like.  The fact is that, you have set yourself up for a disaster! You will cancel guiding principles of long-term relationships in order to validate this person whom you are attracted to.
3.    Is spirituality key and qualifying criterion? When you are emotionally vulnerable, issues of spirituality are first to be removed from the list of qualifying factors because your emotional needs have been won over! You believe a lie that when you win this man over; your love will make him give in to your spiritual needs also.  This is a vital mistake! Issues of spirituality are critical and must be agreed upon because they will affect your offspring and your parenting styles!

Marriage binds two individuals under the spiritual blood covenant.  When a couple does not worship together, the relationship develops cracks which gradually create serious communication gaps.  It follows therefore that spirituality should be key and a deciding factor to tie the knot.  You take control of your life when you are spiritually clear because that would dictate your lifestyle.  Should your spirituality be compromised because your flesh needs have been met? This is a matter that should be devoid of a hallow effect!

Monday 3 November 2014

Taking control: Does financial challenges impact on your relationship!


The subject of wealth and relationship raise varying degree of disagreement across social groups in urbanized societies.  It is believed that it is an important resource that enables us to access things that contribute to our needs, wants and happiness.
Why money matters in relationships!
Ladies! Have you ever evaluated your feelings towards your partner when financial barometer hit zero?  I am referring to ladies because it seems natural for man to feel down and powerless when they are not able to provide for needs and wants! It is ladies role therefore to normalize men’s lives by not expressing any lack.  We have learnt early in life that money enable us to get things that we aspire for and was the motivating factor to learn and follow particular careers.  Its absence is likely to matter because parents (especially mothers) express their expectations of financial success as they persuade their daughters to seek affluent suitors.  Many young ladies therefore frequent particular places where the cream of the society buys and dines.  Is this proactive approach bad? Not exactly! This is your personal preference which only you can honestly answer! Nonetheless, if this criterion was a deciding factor, it will significantly affect your affection when financial challenges set in.
The safe route on issues of wealth and relationships!
The safe route is one where you empower yourself as an individual to create your own wealth so that it would not be a deciding factor when you seek a life partnerIn other words ladies, do not seek your happiness outside you!  Have your own success goals and pursue them before tying the knot so that money will not be your deciding factor.  Anytime you look for someone to complete you in a relationship, you are setting yourself up for disappointment! The ideal route is to find someone who is whole and is looking for a whole person like you to share time and other resources with.
The safe route is one in which you spend your money wisely; that is, safe more than you spend!  Money affects relationships because of the following:
1.   Sharing accounts is ideal and ensures transparency; nonetheless, it restricts and forces you to compromise on its ability to avail things you like especially when your partners has a controlling behavior.
2.   One party is likely to safe at the expense of the other.  For an example, your partner may buy less often but spend more than you.  Again there are a few men who would spend on kitchenware, yet would enjoy the luxurious atmosphere of adequately accessorized kitchen.
3.   Whether or not you marry in community of property, it is unlikely to share expenses equally.  For an example, long-term expenses like insurance, house mortgage or car loan; tend to raise concerns that could lead to arguments.  If your partner convinced you to sell your car, it would gradually limit your movement to work and home only.  He will be the one picking up mid-month groceries, and you will become a home person who cooks and do all chores because he will have excuses of not doing his agreed roles. Think about it!

You would be taking control of your life if you ensure that things you like that money buys remain as they are.  Better express your needs and wants than develop resentment when your toys are regarded as unnecessary.  In other words, do not demand anybody to change for you, so that you can live a fulfilling life with this particular person as he is.  Living a lie will catch up with you! Besides, are you willing to change who you are and what you like for another person?  

Friday 31 October 2014

Taking Control: How you can nurture peace in a second chance relationship!


Second chance relationship is fragile and need to be handled with care, which can only be attainable through being conscious of the underlying motives.  Thoughts are the starting point of your words and actions and they creep in when you lose sight of your decision of being a peaceable person.
Second chance relationship defined!
A relationship occurs when the two parties build on their first encounter rapport and allow it to create a bond that connect them as they discover each other’s personality and interests.  It comes as each identifies and gets intrinsic satisfaction that adds value to their personal needs and goals.  A second chance relationship is a fruit of objective assessment of the conflict and learning from its causes.  It is based on strong determination to focus on the strengths of the other party and refusing to allow small specks to disfigure the values inherent in the other person. It is characterized by focusing on development of self and learning to allow imperfections in your life and others.   
Why is the second chance relationship fragile?
A normal person learns from his or her mistakes and would therefore be sensitive to cues that lead to similar conflict.  While it is logical to stay out of trouble by not discussing the old situations, you must purposefully abstain from negative confrontations that could arouse or encourage you or the other party to make reference to situations outside the current one.  Your subconscious mind is good in keeping records and will always perform this function with excellence. So the ball is in your court to keep that door shut by being conscious of ego’s desire to refer to previous feelings of hurt, resentment, need to revenge or being controlling. The challenge is learning to listen to your inner self and recognize negativism.  Secondly, it is verbalizing the decision not to reopen shut doors so that each will comply with these expressed needs to nurture peace and do everything to sustain it even in trying situations.  Thirdly, it is to recognize that to sustain peace is your daily goal affirmed through statements and actions of love to the other party.  By expressing loving words and confirming with actions, you are reprogramming your mind to not indulge in sabotaging thoughts.   However, you must not deny those thoughts when they surface.  Rather watch them without judging yourself because you will be repressing then instead of learning from them; thus assessing how far you have progressed in configuring a new you!
Observing the golden rule to peaceful environment
It takes two to tango so to speak! Both parties must therefore agree on a golden rule which suits them.  For an example, they could both discuss and agree that fostering a safe environment is fundamental to building trust, true forgiveness, empathy and relearning to love unconditionally.  Such an agreement could assist each party to feel normal and be under no pressure to display window dressing behavior.  This means that both parties individually seek to nurture positive attitude within self because it is the only approach that would be devoid of controlling or manipulating.

Second chance relationship does more than give you an opportunity to ‘see’ yourself.  It reveals your ability to uproot undesirable learned behaviors that could derail you and therefore deprive you of an opportunity to life a fulfilling life with others.  You take control of your life when you maintain an open mind to learn from all circumstances. The truth holds that learning transcends the grave!  If you are a human being, you have a potential to taint a good environment or neutralize a bad one! 

Monday 27 October 2014

Taking control: Teachable attitude will read success in failures


Teachable attitude is one that sees and feels the truth behind own thoughts, words and actions and have a high sense of smell to detect when these are fishy.  All great inventions are results of persevering and teachable attitude in which each failure revealed a key to success.
Do you have a teachable attitude?
If you want to build a leader in you, you must learn to develop a teachable attitude for your greatest teacher is your inner voice and then all people you interact with outside the classroom.  First, your inner voice will rebuke and disprove your arrogant, judgmental, delusional and jealous thoughts; learn to comply for this is your in-build mechanism that seeks nothing but the best for you! Secondly, learn to recognize the motivation behind your thoughts, words and actions.  If you are out developing teachable attitude, you will identify non-positive motives behind your destructive behaviors.  Remember pride come before the fall!  In other words the moment your ego succeeds to blind you to the truth, you are not open to learn from your failures.  You have succumbed to unconsciousness in which you operate on auto-pilot mode and you have lost one of the spiritual monitoring devices that set you apart from the animal kingdom.
 Are you capable of seeing the true score in your self evaluation?
Following your decision to evaluation your successes or lack thereof; you need to engage in your spiritual self, for only then will you not intentionally overlook your failures or white-wash your procrastinations with excuses.   Here are key pointers on issues of health, wealth and relationships:
1.   Health: Why have you not reached your optimum health even though you have information and other necessary resources? Do you have accurate knowledge to know whether you are on track or you are on a queue for lifestyle diseases? If you intent to live beyond seventy, you need to get interested in yourself! For example do you know that if you have not been regular with dentist you are running a risk of gums diseases which lead to stoke and heart conditions? Update yourself on holistic wellness!
2.   Wealth: Have you determine when you will retire? If you have not, it could be that you do not have a goal for starters.  Secondly, you have not decided whether what you are doing is ushering you into perceived destiny! If you cannot answer these questions, do not despair! At least you are becoming aware that you have not charted your life for financial success! Wishful thinking will not get you anywhere; switch off your television, cell phone, remove your key on your front door and get busy!  You need to know what it is that you need money for and will satisfy your needs and wants in this life! It is not only a thinking exercise; it is a life changing writing of goals and strategies.  If you already have a plan, is the current strategy effective? Self-evaluation exercise is essential for revealing mistakes that derailed you from your plans and give you an opportunity to take remedial actions.
3.   Relationships: We are social beings and anything you are busy with will have very little impact if it is for you only! Without people you care for in your life, you will have very little motivation to get up in the morning to pursue your chosen career, seek promotion, or start a new business!  When you are young you tend to think you can make it alone at the risk of not learning to life with other people! As you age, the moment of truth sets in; you will experience the need to have someone who is not your servant, who could commune with you and rub your back without paying for that service. The Creator had a purpose for populating planet earth!

Learning transcends the grave and is fun when you have teachable attitude. Remember that there is something which only you would do it so differently that you will change someone’s life when you share it! You take control of your life when you learn to empower others to experience fruitful life in health, wealth and relationships!  

Friday 24 October 2014

Taking control: Evaluate progress on your personal development!


Apart from biological development, it is expected that you upgrade your knowledge content in order to continue to explore and utilize available resources for your needs and pleasure. It is your personal responsibility therefore to identify given talents and continue to improve your skill until you depart from this life.
What is your current content?
It is possible that you have never really assessed your content against what you want in life and the actual level of relevant knowledge and skill required to achieve your goals. So, taking control of your life denotes honest assessment of who you are, what you want and how you will achieve it. Consider the following steps:
1.   Who you are and your goals: It could be that you are a student and undecided about your given talent.  It is important to seek career guidance so that you become focus as you progress to higher learning.  It could be that you have just graduated and are seeking a long-term relationship. To find ideal person requires an update on who you have become as an adult.  From infancy to date you have been socialized by your parents, schools, the church and other social institutions and therefore have shifted emotionally, socially and spiritually. Or you are happily married and want to update yourself with 21st century parenting skills. The latter is the most ignored of all functional literacy; yet is fundamental in reducing societal ills. 
2.   Identify the gaps:  This is another important self-evaluation exercise which you need to engage in before you undertake life-changing decisions. For example, it could be that you enjoyed the false victory because you won the court-case against your wife, yet you know the truth that you contributed to the divorce. Identifying the gaps denotes seeking the inner peace or its absence.  Do you know that your inner self could haunt you and render your false victory an emotional burden which will steal your joy and peace?  Without these pillars and seed of positive growth, you are a destroyed man, without a meaningful future!
Reviewed plans for your personal development.
Now that you have identified your personal development gaps, you need clear plans and strategies that will enable you to reach your goals:
1.   Do you have a zeal for an improved life? This question is relevant to your current position and seeks to challenge you to determine the level of your motivation to exert yourself for a change.  Remember that you reap what you sow!
2.   Include yourself in resolving the root of the problem!  Immature people exclude themselves in identifying the contributing factors to the problem and therefore miss the mark in moving forward. Identifying your own blemishes is empowering yourself to change the soiled nappy so to speak, instead of adding a powder or adding a fresh one without cleaning the bottom first!  The problem will continue and growth will not be sustainable.
3.   Shout for help! Are you equipped to handle your mess? Be honest and seek professional help.  It is amazing that we all accept physical illness but are reluctant to notice our emotional instability and hurts!

Assessing your progress on personal growth is very important! It enables you to stop blaming delays or failures on others.  You take control of your life when you see your contribution in things that happen in your life – good or bad! You are the only one who knows the truth about your current challenges and therefore knows whether you are capable of making desirable changes with or without professional help! The truth will make you free!

Monday 20 October 2014

Taking control: Narrow the best options to maintain your peace!


Peace is a calm joy that results in a person seeking harmony with inner self and the environment. Maintaining peace is ability to narrow incidental hurdles to now, thus ensuring that nothing negative becomes the point of reference.
Identify your best options to maintain your peace!
Any behavior starts with motivation whether conscious or unconscious.  If you seek peace, you must generate positive emotions and empower yourself with love and ensure that it saturates your mind to the point that it bars and cancels any negative impact on self. How do you acquire abundance of love? It is a decision that is supported by learned behavior. A behavior starts with thoughts which produce feelings. Peace therefore starts with your ability to monitor your thoughts.  Note that you are the mastermind of your peace; nothing more and nothing less! Let me explain: When you have decided to have peace, it means you are alert to any thoughts that are not positive and therefore sabotage your goal. It means that you will identify and deal with environment that negatively stirs your tranquil state.   It is being aware that your ego is your enemy because it always seeks to satisfy itself, which often become the source of conflicts within yourself; it opposes your spiritual desires.  Ego does not approve anything that does not elevate it. It hardly offers service to others because it finds satisfaction only in receiving.  Its major function is to judge and control others. When you are fully alert of these tendencies and know that they do not demonstrate love nor build peace, you will have identified your best options to maintain your peace.
How do you narrow your best options!
Having described factors that sabotage your goals, you can now narrow down your options by working on your own biological and learned emotional blemishes that do not support your peace. There are two types of people: Those who are self-motivated and have inner strength that ignites their positive energy towards fulfilling their identified needs.  There are also those who need external motivation from their environment to energize them to pursue their goals. If you are self-motivated, your intrinsic positive energy is sufficient to enable you to stay focus on your goal with minimum distraction from external factors.  It means your decision to maintain peace will hold because you are capable of removing yourself from anything that could possibly prevent or derail you from your mission. If on the other hand you are externally motivated, you have greater challenge because you need supportive environment to achieve your goal. Consider the following options:
1.   Victim mentality: It is said that whatever happen to you, you have attracted.  So, it follows that your actions will always impact you positively or negatively. Do good and you will reap goodness!    
2.   Stress relief techniques: When you feel you need external energy to perform, you better learn and practice emotional freedom technique (EFT) which will ignite your self-build mechanism to generate positive energy through affirmations.
We all seek peace and often we do not know how to maintain it because we look to others yet is within ourselves.  If you learn to shut your emotional ports, nothing that you do not allow will penetrate your tranquil state and stir your peace.  The key is making decision about attaining peace through your own thoughts, feelings and actions to self and others; then you shall possess peace!




Friday 17 October 2014

Taking control: How to handle spiritual issues of the second chance relationship!



Spirituality is a personal and very sensitive subject especially if you discovered it after you tied the knot.  The challenge is how you handle the fact that your spouse is not keen to listen and is averted by the subject!

Trust the power of the Creator!
It is important to remember that you can only control you and nobody! Marriage is the first social institution through which the Creator demonstrated the need for authenticity of all human being by prohibiting sex outside marriage. So, if your spouse is not listening to anything that speaks of spirituality, run to your Creator with faith that He knew your situation and is not even surprised that you are unevenly yoked. His promise is that He will not allow anything beyond your capability to happen to you.  He knows your predicament and you must seek the wisdom of the Holy Spirit.  The challenge is; do you know how He speaks?

  1. Evangelize with your actions!
Are you being judgmental? This is a very serious analysis; one that could make or break the relationship!  Actually the ball is in your court so to speak! Your husband must see your tranquil attitude in spite of the storm.  He must wonder why you are not pissed off by his non-committal attitude to his life after death and his role as the head of the family to be a role-model for his children.  In other words, it is up to you to demonstrate that spirituality is the essence of life for we come out of the Creator who is the Spirit.  It is your opportunity to show that believers are the light of the world for they cannot align themselves with any underworld activities.  Believers are also the salt of the earth for they impact others positively through unconditional love! So, practice unconditional love for your spouse so that he could see the beauty of walking in the light!

  1. Observe key principle of Christian life!
Key principles of marriage is faithfulness to each other; submission; quite life; empowering yourself with the Scripture; raise your children well and love God and other people. Men like orderliness and these will surely show him that you are dependable and are truly a help-mate.  Integrity should be demonstrated at home; this will increase his respect of your openness and accountability.  Be a role-model at your work and seek God to make your strengths your winning cards! You can achieve this by updating your professional credentials and skills; simply be proactive!

  1. Balance your functional roles!
Give him his undivided attention as spouse so that he would not have any objection when you set a time for your morning devotion and Scripture reading and learning.  You know that God wants believers to minister to each other; do your best to make him happy.  Avoid crowding your day to avoid a burn-out experience.  He will eventually learn to observe your determination to serve him as a husband, be a compelling mother to his children, professional woman of substance and a believer who make a difference! God says His yoke of light and wants believers to minister to Him first and everything they seek will be granted as requested!

  1. Socialization blocks are real!
Sometimes we forget the power of informal foundational education; its roots could be unshakable especially if the parents used corporal punishment for compliance of the rules.  So, this handsome man beside you could still be struggling with the fear of his parents even if they are both dead.  Such classical conditioning could have a firm hold on your spouse’s ability to make new decision that deviate from his family norms, values and beliefs.  Under such conditions, no amount of persuasion will work; seek the Creator’s power to transform and bring harmony in your marriage!
  

Taking control is learning to surrender rather than being forceful about social and spiritual changes.  What you resist, persist! You will never win by pulling stances and pushing good stuff down your spouse’ throat! Surrendering is being malleable in applying good principles on yourself to win the other person!