I am doing me- Looking good

I had lunch with a client of mine, and just as we were rounding up, his family joined us, his family being his wife and 3 kids who are in high school. I'm assuming my client and his wife are in their 40s but when his wife and kids walked in, I could have sworn they were sisters (as in the kids and their mum). My client's wife was looking sooo good, dressed casually but nice and greeted me with such warmth. Her skin was healthy and carried a magazine cover smile, you know that perfect smile, and her body certainly did not look like she had 3 kids! And when I was introduced to her, I was convinced they were joking, and my client wreaked with pride knowing that I thought his wife was so hot! Looking good doesn't hurt and it changes your perception towards a lot of things. I like the feeling I get when I have a new hairstyle,so I have made it a point to change my hairstyle often because it makes me feel good and that resonates in everything else in my life. When you are confident in the way you look, guaranteed everything else you do will be done confidently. I'm on a massive #Iamdoingme campaign because sometimes we neglect ourselves and it affects aspects of your life that don't even deserve to be neglected. A friend said to me unless I start doing me, nothing else will take shape because 'me' has to be grounded before I can even start helping you! So find out what makes you feel good about yourself and do that as often as possible. I am doing me, so you do you, so that when we come together...makeke!

I am doing me - Introducing me.

Don't you just get irritated when someone says to you "So tell me about yourself". I'm often tempted to say "google me, save me the drama". I know this question comes so many times and half the time I don't even know where to start. Sometimes you dread that question because you don't even know yourself enough to pitch yourself to your potential employer, a new friend or even potential lover. So this pitch about yourself cannot be confidently delivered unless you know your product in and out. What can you do, what can't you do? What are your strengths and weaknesses? Are you honest enough with yourself to expose the weaknesses. And have you accepted those weaknesses and see them as opportunities to make yourself better? And what steps are you taking to continually make yourself relevant? This product of me is so exciting and getting to settle into your skin is not easy let alone presenting an idea of who and what you are about to someone else. So what I have done is I've sat down and created a little prose about myself, what I do, what I like and don't like and a few personal details and memorised it. Who better to sell yourself, than you! So next time you ask me to tell you about me WATCH OUT, I'm ready!

What are you doing with your time?

If there is a wish that I would want granted, it would be to have more hours in a day. Its amazing that with all this technology that we have nowadays we cannot recycle or reverse time. So in essence every second counts hence whatever you do in every second of the day should really be productive. A lot of us take this very lightly but that is what seperates the winners from the losers. The amount of time put into a particular task, in addition to discipline and focus determines its outcome. As if there was some sort of divine intervention, my bible reading for the day seemed to echo sentiments on time management. "See then that you walk circumspectly, not as fools but as wise, redeeming the time, because the days are evil." (Ephesians 5vs15-16). The sequence in which you perform tasks on a daily basis has a profound effect on how much you get out of life. Its important for you to analyse what you are doing with your time and remove the things that are not productive in your day immediately. So how best can you do this? I have been following Tim Hindle's Essential Managers series, particularly "Manage your time". You must cost your time so that you see just how much money you lose by wasting time. To find out the cost of each minute, multiply your annual salary by 1.5 to include overheads and divide the total by the number of working hours in a year. Divide this total by 60. The only way you can make better use of your time is analysing how you currently use it and then make adjustments where necessary. Keep a time log for about a week stating exactly what you are doing and at what time. You would be suprised how much time you are wasting away. Have a long term vision and whatever you do with your time in a day should be contributing to that vision in one way or the other. "You cannot decide what to deal with today unless you know where you want to be tomorrow. Any plan to improve your use of time depends on being clear about your goals." Tim Hindle. Jason Drew, CEO of Dialogue SA, says one must commit to an outcome then ask "What do I need to make this happen tomorrow?" Then start doing it today. According to the CEO, tomorrow is long term if you want change. If you just sit down for one minute and then say "right what can I do in the next hour? What phone calls can I make? What things can I do to change the week ahead? Then you can achieve more in an hour than in a whole week of tomorrows!!! So I ask you again, what are you doing with your time?

There is no box!

I have often heard people say that you need to think outside the box. Then I remember reading somewhere that the first perception that people need to get out of their minds is the idea of thinking outside the box because really, there is no box...just think. Oftentimes we get ourselves into situations and then think we are in such a rut and don't know what to do about it, yet the only person who can possibly do something about the situation that you are in is you! So I was in a financial 'rut' and went to see a mentor, an amazing lady and she shared a few words with me. Firstly she said there was nothing she could do about my finances immediately, but she gave me ways in which to avoid getting into the same situation again. (That's a topic for another blog altogether). Then she went on to talk about goals. It is very important to set your long and short term goals clearly. This may sound cliche but really, this maps your whole life and your day to day routine because everything that you do on a daily basis should contribute to the achievement of your goals in one way or the other and if it doesn't, why are you wasting your precious time doing it? Then we talked in great length about money and its management. She said the way you deal with $10 is exactly the same way you deal with a million dollars. So its important to have a plan for all your income, which should include investment. What I liked was her idea that money is a creation of the mind. You are as rich as you imagine yourself to be. Its all in the mind, correct your state of mind and you correct everything else. It might not make sense to you now, but the place I had reached, this statement was the solution to all my problems. We hold the power to shape our destiny in the way that we want, just believe it and you can achieve it. Then we talked about relationships and what was profound was the fact that you are only 50% responsible for a relationship with someone else, but you are 100% responsible for how you feel. Your success, or lack of it is your responsibility. Above all, deal with happy people and remove ALL forms of negativity in your life, it only pulls you back! Use every failure as an opportunity to do better. So now that you realise that the power is in your hands, what are you waiting for?