Change your Life Style

If your debts are building up, your relationship is leading you astray, or your career is at a halt, it's about time to analyze your situation and start the process of life change. Make a decision today to do all that yo u can to transform your life. To do or not; it's all up to you.

Create clear and well defined goals.
In whatever you attempt in life, you must first have clear and well defined goals. You are where you are now because you might have become indifferent about your goals in life.

Establish the action Steps.
You should not think about making your problems go away. Instead you should set your mind to create action steps to bring what you want into existence. Clear goals and precise action steps or strategy are requirements to start off.

Be willing to make Changes.
Wanting something different means letting go of whatever is holding you back up until today. Your personality may need a lift, yourself esteem a boost and your thinking definitely has to shift.

Start Believing in yourself.
Even though you have made mistakes and gone through challenges in life, there is every possibility to turn things around. You have to start to believe yourself. Your beliefs about what you can do and achieve are vital to making your dreams come true.

Take Immediate Action.
It does not matter whether you are fully prepared to start. Once you have a goal, know what you have to do, and are willing to get out of your comfort zone and start believing yourself, take immediate action. Do what you can with want you have and you will build the momentum and fight your fear.

Allow time for study and learning the skills.
In order to make life changes, you have to allow time to study and learn new skills. You gain knowledge through reading, listening and from doing things. If what you do does not give you the expected result, you have not failed instead have gained a new experience.

Take charge of your thoughts.
Your mind is endlessly producing pictures, images, voices and sensations without your conscious awareness. Those thoughts have influenced and affected your emotions and responses. It is abut time you take control and give the instruction instead. Direct your mind by creating images of what you want to say to yourself. Otherwise it will go on with the endless cycle of producing thoughts from the past and that of doubts and fears. Pause during the day and night to contemplate and to remain in focus. You need to take a break in between to see whether you are moving in the right direction. Sometimes you may seem busy doing things that are of not much importance. Contemplation allows you to observe and listen and it provides inspiration.

Impose the disciplines. Persist even when progress seems slow.
Keep on even when progress seems slow. Remind yourself that it takes time to grow and to make life changes. Impose the disciplines to take action everyday. Your next action or the next person you meet may provide the solution

Who Moved My Cheese?

An Amazing Way to Deal with Change in Your Work & In Your Life.
DR SPENCER JOHNSON

“Cheese” – a metaphor for what we want to have in life, whether it is a job, a relationship, money, a big house, freedom, health, recognition, spiritual peace, or even an activity like jogging or golf. Each of us has our own idea of what Cheese is, and we pursue it because we believe it makes us happy. If we get it, we often become attached to it. And if we lose it, or it’s taken away, it can be traumatic.

ONCE, long ago, there lived 4 little characters who ran through a maze looking for cheese to nourish them & make them happy. Two were mice named “Sniff” & “Scurry” and two were little people named “Hem” & “Haw”. Every morning, the mice & the little people dressed in their running gear & headed over to Cheese Station C where they found their own kind of cheese. It was a large store of Cheese that Hem & Haw eventually moved their homes to be closer to it & built a social life around it. To make themselves feel more at home, Hem & Haw decorated the walls with sayings. One read:

Having Cheese Makes You Happy

One morning, Sniff & Scurry arrived at Cheese Station C & discovered there was no cheese. They weren’t surprised. Since they had noticed the supply of cheese had been getting smaller every day, they were prepared for the inevitable & knew instinctively what to do. They were quickly off in search of New Cheese. Later that same day, Hem & Haw arrived. “What! No Cheese? Who moved my Cheese? It’s not fair!”, Hem yelled. They went home that night hungry & discouraged. But before they left, Haw wrote on the wall:

The More Important Your Cheese Is To You, The More You Want To Hold Onto It.

The next day Hem & Haw left their homes, & returned to Cheese Station C. But situation hadn’t changed. Haw asked, “Where are Sniff & Scurry? Do you think they know something we don’t?” Hem scoffed, “What would they know? They’re just simple mice. They just respond to what happens. We’re little people. We’re smarter.” Haw suggested, “Maybe we should stop analyzing the situation so much and just get going & find some New Cheese. Haw decided to leave Cheese Station C while Haw was more comfortable staying in the cheeseless Station C. Hem announced, “It’s MAZE time!” and wrote:

If You Do Not Change, You Can Become Extinct.

Meanwhile, Sniff & Scurry went farther into the maze until they found Cheese Station N. They found what they had been looking for: a great supply of New Cheese. It was the biggest store of cheese the mice had ever seen.

Haw on the other hand become more anxious & wondered if he really wanted to go out into the Maze. He wrote a saying on the wall ahead of him & stared at it for some time:

What Would You Do If You Weren’t Afraid?

Haw now realized that the change probably would not have taken him by surprise if he had been watching what was happening all along and if he had anticipated change. He stopped for a rest & wrote on the wall of the Maze:

Smell The Cheese Often So You Know When It Is Getting Old.

Haw wondered if Hem had moved on, or if he was still paralyzed by his own fears. Then, Haw remembered the times when he had felt his best in the Maze. It was when he was moving along. He wrote:

Movement In A New Direction Helps You Find New Cheese.

As Haw started running down the dark corridor, he began to smile. Haw didn’t realize it yet, but he was discovering what nourished his soul. He was letting go & trusting what lay ahead for him, even though he did not know exactly what it was.

To his surprise, Haw started to enjoy himself more & more. He stopped to write again on the wall:

When You Move Beyond Your Fear, You Feel Free.

To make things even better, Haw started to paint a picture in his mind again. He saw himself in great realistic detail, sitting in the middle of a pile of all his favorite cheeses-from Cheddar to Brie! He saw himself eating the many cheeses he liked, & he enjoyed what he saw.

The more clearly he saw the image of himself enjoying New Cheese, the more real & believable it became. He wrote:

Imagining Myself Enjoying New Cheese, Even Before I Find It, Leads Me To It.

Haw wondered why he had always thought that a change would lead to something worse. Now he realized that change could lead to something better.

Then he raced through the Maze with greater strength & agility. Until he found bits of New Cheese. He entered the Cheese Station but it was empty. Someone had already been there.

He stopped & wrote on the wall:

The Quicker You Let Go Of Old Cheese, The Sooner you Find New Cheese.

Haw made his way back to Cheese Station C to offer Hem bits of New Cheese but was turned down. Hem wanted his own Cheese back. Haw just shook his head in disappointment but this does not stop him from finding New Cheese. He smiled as he realized:

It Is Safer To Search In The Maze Than Remain In The Cheeseless Situation.

Haw realized again, that what you are afraid of is never as bad as what you imagine. The fear you let build up in your mind is worse than the situation that actually exists.

He realizes it was natural for change to continually occur, whether you expect it or not. Change could surprise you only if you didn’t expect it & weren’t looking for it.

When he realized he had changed his beliefs, he paused to write on the wall:

Old Beliefs Do Not Lead You To New Cheese.

Haw now realized that his new beliefs were encouraging him to behave in a new way. He was behaving differently from the way he had when he had kept returning to the same cheeseless station.

It all depends on what you choose to believe. He wrote on the wall:

When You See That You Can Find And Enjoy New Cheese, You Change Course.

Haw just hoped he was heading in the right direction. He thought about the possibility that Hem would read The Handwriting On The Wall & find his way.

He wrote on the wall what he had been thinking about for some time:

Noticing Small Changes Early Helps You Adapt To The Bigger Changes That Are To Come.

He continued on through the Maze with greater strength & speed. He proceeded along a corridor that was new to him, rounded a corner, & found New Cheese at Cheese Station N where he saw the greatest supply of Cheese he had ever seen.Sniff & Scurry welcomed him.“Hooray for Change!”

Haw wrote down a summary of what he had learned on the largest wall of Cheese Station N & smiled as he looked at what he had learned:

• Change Happens
• Anticipate Change
• Monitor Change
• Adapt To Change Quickly
• Change
• Enjoy Change !

Be Ready To Change Quickly & Enjoy It Again.

Move With The Cheese & Enjoy It !

Career Advice

Once you have found a job vacancy that you want to apply for, the top tips below will help you compose a covering letter and make the most of your skills, qualifications and experience as you compile a CV.

Career advice: covering letters

A covering letter is sent with either a CV or application form and is usually the first thing that is read, so while it isn’t hugely important in the total communication regarding a job, you can fall at the first hurdle if isn’t done properly.

As with any communication, a covering letter is an expression of your brand, i.e. you, so think about how you want to come across and what you want to convey.

Here are some guidelines which will help you to write a good covering letter:

· If sending by post, use good quality paper
· If sending via email, use tables without borders to keep the copy tidy and prevent it moving around or going onto a second page when sent to a different computer/operating system
· Create a headline with the job reference number and/or job title so that they are immediately clear about what it is referring to
· The letter should be short, to the point and clear
· If possible, find out the person’s name rather than putting ‘Sir/Madam’ and remember to use the correct sign off before your signature, i.e. ‘Yours sincerely’ if you use their name or ‘Yours faithfully’ if you can’t source their name and need to use Sir/Madam
· Use 12-point size copy and a normal, “non-wacky”, typeface
· Remember to check the spelling and grammar using spellchecker and have plenty of space rather than it feeling crowded. Use paragraph 1.5 lines in Word
· Refer to the advert/job specification and pull out the most salient points to refer to when you specify how you meet these criteria
· Unless you are asked to do a hand-written covering letter, create one using a computer
· Show enthusiasm for the job advertised and illustrate your knowledge of position/company
· Offer to provide additional information and make sure that you put your relevant contact details, i.e. a phone number that you can speak freely on and an email that is confidential to you. Put your contact details on the letter, either at the top of the page or in the footer
· Be positive and never be negative about your current employer or job, or your potential employer may fear that you will do the same in the future about them
· At the end of the letter, put Enc. and list what you are sending with the letter, e.g. a CV, references or an application form.

Career advice: Your CV

Your CV is a very important document. It is a summary of who you are, where you've worked, and it needs to convince the reader very quickly to read on beyond the first page and that you are worth investing more of their time in. Its main objective is to gain you an interview and its second objective is to give an initial impression of you as a brand.

As someone working in the marketing and communications field, remember the skills that you apply to brands can also be applied to yourself, so keep your objective in mind and create a strategy and plan for your CV.

In an ideal world, your CV would be targeted 100% to each individual job, but lack of time can prevent this.

A good CV:

Is no more than three pages in length
Its content and style is targeted to your target audience, i.e. the interviewer(s)
Its design/layout matches your target employer/profession, i.e. modern if modern, traditional if traditional
Says enough without saying too much
It needs to convey both what makes you different or better than your competitors, and give an indication about your ‘brand' character

Common mistakes on CVs

Putting the education section first
Not putting the most recent information e.g. jobs and qualifications first
Making it too long/wordy so the reader switches off
Having too much detail about what you do in your job, rather than how you've added value
Including references
Not giving enough thought to the design and font used
Lying/exaggerating your role

Tips to create a good CV:

Create a clear and consistent structure using tables/borders/different sized fonts or bold/underline/italics for headings
Put the key information on the first page, i.e. your name and address; paragraph summary about your years' experience and achievements and initiatives.
Unless you have under five years experience, put where you've worked and what you've done further back in a tidy format
Include training and other information such as hobbies to give a flavour of you the person
Don't repeat information - summarise your core skills
Think about what you want the reader to feel and think and then design your CV to elicit this response
Use action words and data on £ budgets, % increases etc to build evidence e.g. achieved, initiated etc
Get feedback from people you know and trust; recruitment agencies and interviewers can also provide useful pointers
If posting, use good quality paper; if emailing, send a PDF to keep the design intact.

Imagination is more important than knowledge

Albert Einstein once said “Imagination is more important than knowledge”. I woke up this morning and imagined a world where I would wake up one day and just place a call each to people like Richard Branson, Warren Buffet, Bill Gates, Steve Balmer, Jack Welch, Abramovich,Femi Otedola, Dangote, Jim Ovia, Subomi Balogun, Fola Adeola, Okonji Iweala, Oby Ezekweseli, Dora Akunyili, Felix Ohiwerei, Tayo Aderinokun, Oba Otudeko, Christopher Kolade, Wole Soyinka, Francis Atuche, Otunba Gadaffi etc to let us meet and in a twinkle of an eye they would honor my call.

I told a friend about this and he said I must be dreaming. I was so happy when he said “I must be dreaming” because as long as my dream becomes a reality and not a nightmare, life is good. I told my friend that even if it does not happen with the Femi Otedolas of today, the fact is I want to be a friend to the Femi Otedolas and the Dangotes of my time , it would happen and these people are my friends of today. I have a dream of seeing you my friends of today as the ones going to take control of this country’s economy soon but we all must be prepared so that our children would not ask us that Daddy, Mummy I thought you said Mr Lagbaja and Mrs. Lakasegbe were once your friends but why………….

What I believe is where God can take you to no man can get you there and as such all we need to continue to ask for is God’s revelation which is the secret to success. For some of us who find it difficult to buy and read textbooks but find it easier to read motivational books, underlisted are some of the words I share and believe in.

If you share a dream of being one the stakeholders in this economy in the near future then let me share what I learnt about the under listed with you within this month.

• Commitment
• An Open Mind
• Persistence
• Flexibility
• Faith
• Thankfulness
• Passion

Commitment

What are you doing with your Life: would you say you are living your dream; or are you just making the best of things, just getting to the next week - what we might call: existing rather than living? If you are living your dream, then well done: you are truly on the road to success. If you are not living your dream - or even if you have no dream at present - then do not despair because it is never late than never Try and find your dream, develop it and then move on actually achieve it! Click here to read more

An Open Mind

Simply put, doing unique, random, different, and ridiculous things is a good way to exercise the mind and promote new ways of thinking about the world around us. One hour of increased brain activity via thinking a lot or experiencing new stimuli can make you smarter, more energetic, more creative, more sociable, and more open to new experiences and ways of thinking. Click here to read more

Persistence

Persistence is the ability to maintain action regardless of your feelings. You press on even when you feel like quitting. Nothing in the world can take the place of Persistence. Talent will not; nothing is more common than unsuccessful men with talent. Genius will not; unrewarded genius is almost a proverb. Education will not; the world is full of educated derelicts. Persistence and determination alone are omnipotent. The slogan “Press On” has solved and always will solve the problems of the human race. Click here to read more

Flexibility

Flexibility is an option, not a right. Flexibility is not about saying, "Yes" to every request. Rather, flexible work policies focus both on the benefits to the employee and the impact on the organization.

Faith

Faith is acceptance of what we cannot see but feel deep within our hearts.

Faith is raising the sail of our little boat until it is caught up in the soft winds above and picks up speed, not from anything within itself, but from the vast resources of the universe around us. ~W. Ralph Ward

Passion

Passion is an emotion of feeling very strongly about a person. Passion is an intense emotion compelling feeling, enthusiasm, or desire for anything and often requiring action. Passion often applies to lively or eager interest in or admiration for a proposal, cause, or activity or love. Click here to read more

To live a truly successful life, you do need to first have a dream. As Carl Sandburg, American historian, poet and novelist put it, "nothing happens unless first a dream".

If you think about it, nothing at all that now exists within our experience of physical reality did not first exist in the mind of the person who made it or brought it into being. In all cases, everything is created twice: the physical creation follows the mental creation.

To succeed, you must have a dream, or you may prefer to call it a vision - and you must completely commit yourself to its ultimate fulfillment - that is the essence of the mental creation.

“We make life by what we give and making a living by what we get”