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 02, Issue 07: Autograph Your Work With Excellence

We are all capable of excellence. Therefore, we shortchange ourselves whenever we fail to produce our best work. It may be easier to be floppy and get by being average at everything. But if we want to go far in life, we must tread the path of most resistance; we must aim for excellence.

Take care of business. Be excellent in all that you do. Build a reputation for being consistent and reliable. Excellence is doing something right the first time and doing it well. It is the art of exemplary performance, a personal responsibility.

There isn’t much satisfaction in doing something just to finish. That is not the way to live. I believe there is a desire for excellence in each of us. We want to be outstanding at the things we do.

Excellence is not something we embrace just when people are watching or for people to see and applaud us. Excellence is for ourselves. We feel good when we do things well. We are made after God’s own image. When we operate at our best, we are like him, excellent. God looked at everything he created and said that it was good. We should be able to say the same about our work. We ought to autograph our work with excellence.

Discipline yourself to produce your best work. Raise the standards for yourself. Until we hold ourselves to a higher standard, we will never rise above the mediocre. Only you know the quality of work you can produce. Move away from the culture of doing things in a shoddy manner and aim for precision. Refuse to take anything less than the best from yourself. Once you decide to do things well, you will find that your brain will start being precise without thinking about it.

When we embrace excellence, our focus shifts from competing with others to outdoing ourselves. A little competition with others is healthy but the larger part of competition in life should be against ourselves. Because deep down we know we can do better. We can rise up and do things well.

Lillian Chebosi

Volume 02, Issue 06: Staying Collected in the Company of a Fool

What do you do when someone in your life is a fool? How do you maintain your cool in the company of a fool? Foolishness is highly contagious because a fool can really make you lose your composure, put you in a place where you want to give them a dose of their own medicine.

When in the company of a fool, it is easy to act like a fool yourself. The person could be insensitive, or critical, or sarcastic, or abusive. Whatever it is, you cannot fall prey to the madness. Refuse to go there. Do not allow the foolishness of others to bring out the fool in you or cause you to lose your temper.

Exercise self-control when dealing with a fool. Desist from reacting to the foolishness in the fool in your life in a disparaging manner. Rather, determine to remain calm and collected in the midst of the madness.

Foolish actions have consequences. A fool’s foolishness is no excuse for bad behavior for you. No one can make you do anything. Therefore, you cannot blame your foolish actions on others. Even when others push your buttons to the point of losing control, you will not get away with saying "they made me do it." If we replace the seeds of foolishness in our own hearts with wisdom, we won’t have to worry about acting out of character when confronted with the foolishness of others.

Self-control does not always feel good. Sometimes we just want to give the person who has insulted or aggravated us a piece of our mind, not realizing that with that goes our peace of mind as well. In such a situation, you would be better off letting the other person revel in their foolishness while you remain a mature observer.

It is pointless to argue with a fool, to correct or tell off a fool, to push their buttons, or defend yourself before a fool. A fool is always right in his own eyes. Leave a fool to argue with himself. Maintain a reputation for great poise despite the kind of person or situation you have to constantly deal with. Don’t allow a fool to turn you into a fool or the victim of one.

Lillian Chebosi

Volume 02, Issue 05: Unclutter Your Life

Are you finding yourself all over the place, running around doing everything you presume to have time and energy for, things other people want you to do? How sane is your schedule? Spreading yourself too thin makes it impossible for you to have an impact significant enough to make a difference.

Knowing your purpose simplifies your life in a big way. It defines what you do and what you don’t. Your purpose becomes the benchmark you use to evaluate which activities are essential for you and which ones are not. It is impossible to do everything people want you to do. You just have enough time to do what is rightfully in your plate. Purpose-driven living leads to a simpler lifestyle and a saner schedule.

Knowing your purpose focuses your life more than anything else. It concentrates your efforts and energy on what is important. Intentionally choose what to do and what to reject. It is only by being selective that you become effective.

There is nothing quite as compelling as a simplified and focused life, one lived on purpose. Stop trying to do it all. Cut back even on activities that seem good, and do only that which matters most to you. Its only when you simplify and focus your life that you will find it to have a meaningful impact.

Develop yourself along the lines of virtues that matter, doing only those things that bring meaning to you, and about which you are enduringly passionate, and give you the greatest return. To be on purpose means doing what you love to do, doing what you are good at and accomplishing what is important to you. These cannot be more than just a few things.

Lillian Chebosi

Volume 02, Issue 04: What Drives Your Life?

Everyone is driven by something. We hardly stop to consider how constructive the things that drive our lives are. What is the driving force in your life? Let’s consider some of them.

Material possessions: Here, the desire to acquire things is the whole objective of life. The drive to always want more is based on the fallacy that having more will make you happier, more significant, and secure. However, possessions only provide temporary fulfillment. Self-worth and net worth are two different things.

The problem with acquiring more and more material possessions is that many are still left feeling empty, wondering what the true purpose of life is, and what is good in the midst of all the getting.

The most valuable things in life are not things. You never get enough of what you don’t really need to make you happy. Ultimately, no form of acquisition can lastingly deliver what we long for – the authentic idea of being fully alive.

Fear: Fear-driven people often miss great opportunities because they are afraid to try out anything they haven’t done before. They play it safe. They tip toe through life, make the fewest of mistakes, take the least of risks, and fail to reflect on the consequences of their action-less lives. Doing what you fear is the surest way to overcome your fear.

Anger and bitterness: This category of people hold on to hurts and refuse to get over them. This is a grave disservice to themselves because resentment always hurts you more than it does the person you resent. Your past is just that, past. Nothing will change it. For your own sake, learn from it, and then let go of it. Do not be consumed by your pain, rather embrace and squeeze life out of it and move on.

The need for approval: These people allow the expectations of significant others to control their lives. Others still are driven by peer pressure, always concerned by what their peers think of them.

Guilt: Guilt-driven people allow their past mistakes to control their future. We are a product of our past, but we don’t have to be captives of it. In spite of your past, embrace a fresh start and live in the present. Don’t allow a wandering mind to rob you of the present pleasures of life.

Nothing matters more than knowing God’s purposes for your life, and nothing can compensate for not knowing them. Without a purpose, life is activity without meaning, movement without direction, and events without reason.

Lillian Chebosi

Volume 02, Issue 03: Thriving to Get a Paycheck

We all get up week after week to go to work. Have you ever considered whether or not you are a willing worker? Could it be that you do your work begrudgingly? Working just for the paycheck is a waste of life, not with all the opportunities available to each one of us to make a decent living doing what we love.

The best way is to spend your day at work is to throw yourself into it with passion and choose to revel in productivity. One can only have passion for their work if they are pursuing things in the area of their natural gifting.

What makes the Proverbs 31 woman rise so early to delve into her work with such eagerness? She must love her work so much so to throw herself into it like she does and still manage to have the zeal to be wonderful to everyone in her world and excel in all other areas of her life. She not only reaps great financial gain from her work, she enjoys herself doing it.

Whatever your job is, see to it that it is something you love to do. Passion is everything when it comes to one’s occupation. It makes the difference between thriving and surviving to get a paycheck. Let all your senses be involved in the things you choose to engage in and reap a profit from. Don’t only seek to gain financial dividends but immense pleasure from the tasks you do.

Take a candid assessment of your abilities and passions and choose your work along those parameters. Develop your natural gifts into a productive craft that will be valuable to others and bring you personal joy and satisfaction. Seek to work in the area of your passion and perform with excellence, knowing that if your motivation is to bless others with your gifts, you will naturally prosper.

Live life passionately. Using your natural abilities in your work and in response to the needs around you will stir your heart. Small wonder the Proverbs 31 woman rises early and goes to bed late. She is consumed by enthusiasm. She enjoys her work and looks forward to it. If you love what you do, you will be excellent at it and others will be blessed by your contributions.

Lillian Chebosi