Life in Balance- Attention Newlyweds

So you just got married. Congratulations!
Remember this: your wedding was not the end of a journey, it was the beginning.
Here are a few pointers that your pre-marital counsellor may or may not have told you.

1. Don’t let it all hang out: To a certain degree, you need to give your spouse respect and space and not let them see the worst of you most of the time. Let me explain. Girls, those granny knickers, ugly robe and plain-Jane pajamas have got to go! Maybe you can wear them if your husband travels or something but as long as he is around, keep them to a minimum. Men(and ladies), if you must kiss in the morning, pop a breath mint. Do not come into bed with the stinkies: breath, body or socks. Any shaving of body hair should not be done in view of the other person.

2. Romance: Do not think that now you are married, you can stop all the”honey”, “sweetheart”, “baby”. In fact, now you should do it more. It keeps the romance alive. Men, if you used to buy her flowers once a month when you were dating, now it should be twice a month. Think of your spouse and save them that last piece of cake. Call them up at work. Leave love notes in his/ lunch box.

3. Mentorship: Find a couple whose marriage you respect and get close to them, hang out with them, get them to share the “secrets of their success” such that they are. These are the people you can go to for wise, confidential counsel. Do not wait until you have a problem so serious that someone wants to run out, before you find a mentor. Find one while the going is good. You don’t try to buy car insurance after an accident, do you?

4. Don’t rehearse your problems: No matter how great your pre-marital counseling was, you will have challenges. Do not run from friend to friend, complaining about your spouse. This is betrayal! Do not run to your family to complain about the issues you are having in your marriage. They will not forget it even after the problem is ancient history.

5.Family: Speaking of family, your spouse should never have to confront your family. Family issues should be dealt with by the person from the family, not the daughter/ son-in-law. Protect your spouse from your family( if you come from one of the families). Your spouse comes first, not mama, not papa. If you wanted to be with your family you should not have got married.

That’s all for now!

*This piece is dedicated to Bunmi and Oge Adeboje who recently got married. They know all this already though 🙂 *

LIFE IN BALANCE- Modeling

LIFE IN BALANCE- Modeling.

LIFE IN BALANCE- Power over procrastination

So, you may have heard this before, but when it comes to handling procrastination, I don’t think there can be too much information on the subject. As a person who has had challenges in this area, I realize that sometimes you have to “force yourself” to get up and move, instead of just “vegging out ” in front of the TV when you have 1000 tasks screaming your name.

1. Have goals: If you have no goals how will you know wether you are procrastinating or not. For me, it works to break my day into time slots ie from 2pm to 3pm, pay bills and call Mom; from 6pm to 7pm, hang out with the children etc. Have goals for your free time too! Chances are that your free time is not so free after all.

2. Remember that desire follows effort and not always the other way round: The “get-up-and-go” has to come from within. There is no one who will give you the push. There is no magic pill. The desire follows the effort. When you decide you want to do what you need to do the desire may come. If you sit waiting for when you “feel like it” , the feeling may never come.

3.Have a reasonable plan to achieve those goals: Set reasonable deadlines for yourself, and as you achieve them, the accompanying sense of wellbeing will drive your progress.

4. Pray: According to Galatians 5:22 faithfulness is fruit of the Spirit. As a Christian you can ask for God’s help in manifesting that faithfulness in sticking to your goals.

5. Focus: You have to develop focus. It is learnt and it won’t come just you saying things like I can’t focus, I just waste the day away etc, etc. You need to change the way you see yourself and make a choice to focus on starting and completing your projects.

6. If you are prone to procrastination, do not take up multiple projects at a time. Have one at a time and stick to it. The tendency is to get overwhelmed at the different things and just give up.

7. Do not give up:If you have been given to procrastinating for years, the habit will not go away in a day. You have to keep picking yourself up, remind yourself that you have goals, you have a plan and above all God has a purpose for your life.

LIFE IN BALANCE- 5 keys to developing confidence

So how do you change self thoughts of doubt and low self esteem to thoughts of confidence?

The answer is in the images that you continually expose yourself to:

1. Associate with confident people: if you suffer with lack of confidence, don’t continually hang out with people like you. Yes, I know, birds of a feather flock together. To that I say, if you want to fly like an eagle, don’t hang out with the chickens.

2.Change your internal conversation about yourself: If you keep saying things like ” I’m such a klutz”, ” I hate myself”, “I am not as pretty as so-and-so” or another one I recently heard, ” xxxx people are not as good looking as yyyy people”. This person belonged to the ‘x’ group, by the way. The Bible says: As a man thinketh in his heart so is he. You are a sum total of your thoughts.

3. Change your external conversation about yourself: You do not have to be self deprecating. If you get a compliment, accept it graciously and say thank you. Do not reject sincere compliments.

4. Get inspired: Read books. A really good one is Developing Confidence by Kevin Gerald. Read Bible verses and scriptures that talk about confidence and who you are as a child of God. Most confident people are not born that way.

5. Do not go against your guiding principles and philosophies: You weaken yourself when you act contrary to what you believe to be true. When your inner strength is weak, you lose confidence. Guilt and shame set in. As a Christian , going against God’s Word will make you lose confidence in God, thence confidence in yourself.

A little to the left, a little to the right

A Balanced Life- Tips for health and balance in life

1. Realize that you cannot do it all: You cannot do it all. You cannot be everything to everyone, you cannot be the Savior of the world. Your child cannot be in every sport. You cannot volunteer for every thing that comes up. Sometimes you have to let go, and let God.

2. Prioritize: Decide what will come first and know what the results of the decision will be. For example if it is priority for you lose that baby weight, the result of that decision is that you will not be able to eat burgers every night. Or if it is priority to spend time with God in prayer( which it should be, as a Christian), the result of that decision is that you may have to give up some TV time.

3. Don’t major on the minors: Do not spend large amounts of time, money and effort on things that are not that important to you. Instead invest your efforts in the things that you feel are important.

4. Saying no: Saying no comes with a price. People might be annoyed; and if you have the type of personality that likes to get along with everyone, this may be a challenge. Which is better though: saying no and having folks momentarily miffed, or taking on something that you don’t want to do, have no grace to do, and getting resentful of the people who asked you to do it?

5. Be happy: A balanced life should be one of joy. Granted there will be times when you might feel that you have nothing to laugh about. Read my post My Life Sucks Find something that is going on right and be grateful for that. Do not give the keys of your happiness into the hands of someone else.

6. Take pride in what you do: If you have a job or a business , a positive attitude will help you enjoy it more. If you are a stay home parent, take up a positive attitude and go for it. Most people spend 8 hours a day working in a job they hate saving up so they can retire and start living. What mixed up thinking! Enjoy your life now. If you have a bad job seek God in prayer for another one. While you wait for the manifestation, have a positive, can-do attitude. It will help your day go faster and alleviate the mental stress.

7. Ask God for grace: There is grace supplied for everything you have to do. God will not give you grace to be a good wife and not give you grace to be a good mother. God will not withhold grace from you if only you would ask him.

Hope this helps someone!

Work Life Balance 2

God said, “Be fruitful and multiply”. He never said, “Be busy”. Most of us have wondered at different times whether we were achieving the right balance of work and the rest of our life ie family, relaxation/hobbies; and whether we are spending enough time doing things for God. You cannot bear much fruit in life if you cannot use the time God has given you wisely.

Time is the one resource that God has given everyone equally:24 hours a day.

This is the concluding part of Work life balance

5. Prioritize: Have a plan for your life, a plan for your year, a plan for your month, a plan for your week, a plan for your day. Do not just float along, letting life happen to you. Write down your plans for development in every aspect of your life: Career/work, spiritual, family, social, mental and emotional. If you have a good plan and stick to it, you will avoid the imbalance of spending too much time at work, in church activities, and yes, in family oriented stuff. I am sure you probably know a few people (especially women, I must say) who are wrapped up in their family to the exclusion of everything else. Decide early on what is important and what is not. Decide what is urgent and what is not. Do the important urgent things first, and then turn your attention to the important, non urgent things. If it is unimportant, ask yourself if you should be doing it at all!

6. Avoid the danger of “busyness”: I define “busyness” as, “a lifestyle of frenetic activity not pursuing purpose, which leads to frustration in the life of the busy person”. Do not define your life by how busy you are. Define it by how fruitful your life is and whether you are really doing the things you want to do; things that God would have you do. Are you so busy you have not called your mother in three years? Are you so busy you have not had a vacation in 5 years? Are you so busy you have not “had the time” to see a doctor for a health check? Are you so busy that you regularly leave your home before your children wake up and return after they are already in bed? At the end of your life, you are not going to ask to see your bank balance, or your boss; and you are not going to wish you spent more time being busy.

7. Do not “kill time”: Have you ever heard people say (or maybe you have said it yourself): “I am just killing time”. Never, ever be “just killing time”. Your time is your life. If you have 30 minutes between meetings for instance, do something meaningful with it. Call your mother, read your Bible, pay some bills online, take a nap, pray a while to reconnect with God. The point is, do not just sit around consciously wasting time away. It is time you will never get back.

Conclusion:

To be fruitful in life, living our purpose and doing all that God would have us do, we all have to learn to live with balance in the area of time management.

Work Life Balance Part 1

God said, “Be fruitful and multiply”. He never said, “Be busy”. Most of us have wondered at different times whether we were achieving the right balance of work and the rest of our life ie family, relaxation/hobbies; and whether we are spending enough time doing things for God. You cannot bear much fruit in life if you cannot use the time God has given you wisely.

Time is the one resource that God has given everyone equally:24 hours a day.

1. Give God your time: As clichéd as this many sound, if you want to have a successful life with no time wasted, you need to give God 1st place in your life. People pay lip service to this, but who can better help you with your time management than the One who controls time and knows the end from the beginning? If you prioritize God, He will make sure you do not waste time by guiding your activities and by His Spirit leading you right causing what you do to be more fruitful. Spending the first minutes of you day in prayer and Bible study is a way to honor God and get Him involved in your day.

2. Work while you work, and play while you play: When you go to work, or if you run a business, try your best not to let work encroach on your home life and vice versa. There are some jobs/professions where you have to be on call ie you have to attend to work issues from home, but it is not usually a daily thing. While at work try not to let your personal issues/ home life get in the way of doing a good job. You will be more effective when you focus on one thing at a time. Excessive multi-tasking only leads to broken focus. Take time to play, rest and have fun.

3. Have a sense of purpose about you: With a sense of purpose your work-life balance will not be messed up because you will avoid time wasting activities. If it is not about purpose, then think twice about doing it. This does not mean that you cannot have fun and relax but do you have to go to every single office party and be the last one to leave? Do you have to join every committee in church? Do your children have to play so many sports that all you can do is go to their games every weekend? Do you have to watch 5 hours of TV every day? Think about what you are doing and how it will ultimately affect the purpose of God for your life.

4. Have a sense of balance about you: Balance means knowing when you need to leave the office and head home. Balance means trying to make up for lost time whenever you can. For instance, if you have had to work a lot of long hours due to a project, being on-call, etc., try to make up the family time where you can. You might take a short vacation or find some way to spend time with your family. Balance means not feeling guilty about unavoidable situations that take up your time. Balance means doing important things first, at home, in church and on the job. Balance means not doing too much of one thing at the expense of another.

Watch this space for Part 2

Sister to Sister

Hey girls! Here a  few simple tips on your road to living a balanced life.

Your spiritual health: Stay connected to God. Take time to pray and  read your Bible. Make God your number one priority and the rest will be easier than you imagined.

Your emotional health: Stay filled with the joy of the Lord. Learn to enjoy life. Do not go through life on survival mode or you might burn out. Take a break  when you start to feel overwhelmed.

Your physical health: Do not be too busy working or taking care of other people. You have to take care of your health. Eat healthy, exercise, see a doctor when you need to. You have only one body, take care of it.

Your social health: Develop healthy friendships with ladies other than your sisters and daughters. Find Christian friends that you can share with. Iron sharpeneth iron, the Bible says.

Your work life: Do your best at work and try not to take it home with you. In the same vein, leave home matters at home. Do not take on more projects you can handle, at home, at work or socially. Take a vacation when you need to, taking a break from work is not an option, it is a necessity!

Hope this helps someone. Good night!