Category: Minute Motivation

Minute Motivation with Doyin are short and sharp nuggets of wisdom to keep motivated and focused.

  • Remember

    Remember

    Before you make a goal poster #Remember

    It’s that time of the year when we give thanks, countdown to Christmas, significantly reduce the world turkey count and begin to make plans for the new year. Plans such as: how much weight we’ll lose, how much money we’ll save, what new heights we’ll achieve etc. 

    I love setting goals and more importantly achieving them; that’s why I wrote GROW with Goals!

    As I began making my preparations for 2019 however, I asked myself if there was a right way to kickstart the process of goal setting and if there is a pre-process?

    My research led me to the studies of Prof Donna Rose Addis of University of Auckland and her study on the importance of episodic memory. Episodic memory simply means a recount of previous life experiences. 

    Her studies found that:

    • When imagining future events, the brain network that is active is strikingly similar to the network that is activated by remembering our past
    • Studies on individuals with some degree of memory loss have revealed that when access to episodic memory details is compromised, there is a corresponding loss of details in the future events they imagine.

    And she concluded that “episodic memory not only allows us to remember the past but imagine our future”

    What does this mean? I remember having a conversation with my daughters about this time last year prior to them writing their 2018 goals and creating their vision board. I encouraged them to recollect times they came out of situations knowing it could only have been God and use this as a yardstick for the stretch they put on their vision board.
    The result of this was two very audacious boards from the girls.

    Referring to my past experiences and Donna Addis studies, I realise that the strengths you draw from your past can provide inspiration for your future … and vision is simply an imagined future!
    So what next?

    I have a November assignment for you – create a remember board. 
    This is a sample of one I created before recording this vlog 

    • Show board
    • Explain 3 items- what happened and what it propels you to imagine/believe
    • GCSE result – no matter how close I am to disaster, something will snatch me
    • Are – integrity prevails
    • Miscarriage – don’t reminisce over what I lost but expect better
    • Tewa – a moment of obedience can change the course of my life forever

    Did you like my Remember board? Now it’s time to create yours!
    You can make it a collage on your computer or phone, it doesn’t matter…. just create one. 

    Also, don’t forget to get your copy of GROW With Goals, it is definitely the best tool out there for not just setting goals but actually achieving the goals you set.

  • GROW with Goals

    GROW with Goals

    You may remember that 2 months ago, I casually mentioned that I wanted to finish off my new book “GROW with Goals”. I’m pleased to say GROW with Goals is now on the book shelves and on Amazon (https://amzn.to/2Rtfqw0) and doing well too!

    As we end this month, I would like to share a few things about the book with you. I wrote the book because I was starting to question the whole concept of goal-setting and the processes that lead to us achieving these set goals, that is, if we achieve them. I concluded that ‘Yes, goals are worth setting if they GROW us‘. While growing in the natural sense implies getting better, in the book, I also used GROW as an acronym to demonstrate the steps that make the achievement of goals happen.

    The first step is ‘G for Goals‘ – and I teach on how to set goals that have a strong why. It also elaborates on how goals are more likely to be realised when they utilize most or all of our senses. After fine-tuning our goals, we then need to ask the ‘what’ question and detail all that is needed to achieve these set goals. That’s why the next letter is ‘‘R for Resource‘. Resourcing yourself is the process of knowing what is needed to achieve your goals and equipping yourself with it/them. Once these two processes are complete, we need to get our lives organised around the accomplishment of the goals we set. ‘O therefore represents Organisation‘. Your life, your activities must be in synergy with your goals. It has been said that ‘Those who changed the world started by mastering the art of making their bed’. An organised person will also find that they are blessed with the unique gift of realised goals. The acronym concludes with the letter ‘W for Work‘. Yes, to realise the dreams you set goals to achieve, you need to DO THE WORK! Every day, go to bed, knowing you gave it your best shot, knowing you moved closer to your goals because you did something about it.

    I believe once we follow through with GROW instead of merely setting goals, we will ease the frustration from goal-setting and begin to thrive on the benefits.

  • Platform

    Platform

    Thanks for all your congratulatory messages and good wishes following last month’s detailing of my productivity journey. I really do hope you’ve had the opportunity to try out the LIST method and are enjoying the benefits. Please share your stories – I love to hear them!

    This month, I want to continue with another train of thought I had, post MAP 2018. At MAP, we announced registration for MAP 2019, with the theme ‘Significant Me’ because I believe the theme is particularly apt for this season. Many of the women I interact with, whether at MAPMe sessions or in my day-to-day grind, have a desire to leave a legacy and footprints in this world. It lends to my #LiveWell #LiveFull #LiveOut platform where we do not stop at making a sustainable living, but go beyond it to extending our purpose and giftings to the world around us. The questions then arise –
    How do we go about living out?
    How do we make an impact in a world that is so alive with ideas?
    How do we become a VOICE in a world full of noise?

    Recently I have been thinking about this a lot and the word PLATFORM comes to mind. Why you might ask? A platform is defined as a raised surface on which people or things can stand. It gives leverage and a better opportunity to be seen in the midst of a crowd. Just imagine trying to get heard with a big crowd around you, a platform could give you the much-needed visibility. Of course, if you shout loud enough, you will still be heard, but there is definitely a correlation between visibility and getting an audience, so, where necessary, make yourself visible to be heard.

    I believe that as we make the effort to be seen, heard, and make an impact, we are that much more effective when we stand on our platform. The next question then is – ‘How do you discover and make use of your platform?’

    To get started, lets work through together, the four Ds to maximising your platform.

    1. What do you currently DO? What are your daily DUTIES? These are often a clue to your platform as continuously doing the tasks have made you an expert of some sort and people associate the duty with you. Are you a student, fulltime mum, career woman? What are you known for and what is the first thing people think about when they hear you name?
    2. What is your DREAM? What needs do you DESIRE to fulfil? Even if it you are far from it right now, writing it down might help you understand the steps needed to someday make the dream a reality
    3. Connect the DOTS! How can your current position enable where you hope to be? What can you do with what you already have, to make you edge closer to your dream?
    4. DESIGN – After doing the three tasks above, you would need to make a next steps plan, knowing that taking those steps will lead you to where you eventually want to go.

    Essentially, I believe that when you seek out what you do effortlessly, and what increases your credibility, you need to perfect it and use it as leverage to other new pursuits – this is the platform way! Remember your platform could be a job, an association, a business you are involved in or a skill you have. To get your message across to your world, consider using this platform as a leverage to your dreams.

    On a personal note, I have always been passionate about developing Africa through innovative entrepreneurship. However, 2 years ago, that seemed impossible – I was simply known as a Mary Kay sales director. I didn’t give up, but kept my dream alive and started to connect the dots… I saw how being successful in an entrepreneurship venture gave me credibility to become an entrepreneurship expert, and therefore have a voice in Africa. Well I designed my path and today, I am back in school to add academia to my experience and begin the journey of influencing Africa.

    I hope sharing my personal experience has given you a clue to finding and building your platform. If you need help doing the essential step of CONNECTING THE DOTS, you could book a MAPMe session with me and I would be delighted to help.

    Remember, your voice needs to be heard so start speaking today!

  • Beyond the LIST

    Beyond the LIST

    The theme of MAP 2018 was #Maximise Me. The speakers were amazing in helping us decipher who we are as a springboard to being maximised. The book club has also been brilliant in following up this thought process. However, as I pondered this subject more, I couldn’t help but wonder if there is any correlation between being maximised and being productive.

    As is typical of me, I went straight to my go-to book, AKA The Oxford dictionary, for definitions and found that to Maximise means to make the best use of or make as large as possible while it defines being productive achieving a significant amount or result. I’m sure you agree with me that the two are almost synonyms and a productive person is definitely one who is maximising his/her gifts, talents and resources.

    Being Doyin, this of course made me ask myself the question – ‘are you a productive person?’ and if yes ‘how do you ensure productivity in your life?’ I smile as I write because I know I am very productive and it was good to force myself to detail my process of productivity.

    April marked the beginning of my 3rd semester in my MSc program and I decided to take ‘Entrepreneurial Finance’ as one of my modules. You see, I’ve always wanted to understand how venture capitalists work and how ventures are valued for external financing, so the module was a natural choice. After the 1st lesson, I realised I had under-estimated the pre-requisite accounting knowledge needed to do well in this module and knew the only way I could pass was to invest at least 10hours weekly to get up to speed with pre-requisites as well as the course content. Normally, I wouldn’t have minded this but April – July was already going to be a busy period for me with MAP 2018 around the corner, Daughter 1 preparing for her GCSE, Daughter 2 having her 13th birthday, a May 31st deadline for my new book in addition to running my business, taking other modules in school, and my family responsibilities. Just thinking of all I had to do in such a short time made me feel soooooooo overwhelmed.

    After days of wallowing in self pity and even considering quitting on some of my goals and the finance course, I remember choosing to take charge and achieving significant result aka be productive by using my tried and tested method – LIST! My LIST method goes beyond just writing a LIST and incorporates 4 steps, where the word, LIST is an acronym and not just an individual process. Let me share this with you…

    1. List everything you need to accomplish. For me it was
      1. Organise Daughter 2 birthday
      2. Coach and assist Daughter 2 in GCSE subject
      3. Complete ‘Grow with Goals’
      4. Organise and host MAP 2018
      5. Cope with EF etc.

    2. Itemise what needs to be done for each of the tasks you’ve written on your list. For instance, the first item on that list above – ‘organise Daughter 2’s birthday’ was further broken into
      1. Order snacks
      2. Create & send out invites
      3. Book venue

    3. Schedule EVERYTHING you wrote down in Step 2. Start with the non-negotiables and time dependent tasks. For example, in my organising MAP, I had to have the handouts ready by a certain date, so they could be printed on time. You don’t have to spend money on a fancy organiser. For me I just wrote all the dates down on a spreadsheet and divided each day into morning-afternoon-evening before plugging in tasks.

    4. Tick Off: Can I just say that this is the most important part of this process. Ticking off the tasks daily not only fills you with a sense of accomplishment, it fuels you by giving you the energy to take on the next day. I can’t explain it but I felt my stress level diminish daily and my optimism increase with every item I ticked off

    Hey friends, I know you’ve heard the blurb about LIST many times but simply writing a list without following it with the other 3 steps will not get the work of productivity done. To actually be productive in the midst of overwhelm, you must employ LIST as a method, not a singular task.

    By the way, lets end the story on some good news – I passed EVERY module and coursework with distinction, Daughter 2’s party was awesome, MAP 2018, judging by the reviews was all I hoped for and more, Grow with Goals was completed and is now my best selling book and of course Daughter 1 excelled in her GCSEs. Looking back now, I am pleased that I didn’t quit on myself, but employed the LIST method to maximise myself in a season that could well have been difficult and overwhelming! I hope you can have the same experience…

  • 4 Quadrants

    4 Quadrants

    I have just completed The Element by Sir Ken Robinson. I love books, which is the reason I started a book club. We have read a number of books and while each one is exciting, some of the books force you to address unfounded notions and make you undergo a paradigm shift. This was one such books, challenging the way we and our children are educated and introducing the idea of ‘the element’. (more…)

  • Conception to Completion!

    Conception to Completion!

    On Monday 23rd of April 2018, a new royal was born. Congratulations to the Duke and Duchess of Cambridge on the birth of their new bundle of joy. Celebrating this new arrival made me remember the birth process of my own adorable daughters; I remember the process of conception till birth and that’s what I want us to talk about today.
    (more…)

  • Resource

    Resource

    R is for Resource

    Think about these 3 questions –
    1. Who do you want to be?
    2. What do you need to do to become that person?
    3. What steps are you taking today?

    I have heard people talk about goals and they often include a desire to ‘be the best in their field’, ‘be the best mum/dad’, ‘become an entrepreneur’, ‘become very rich and influential’… the common thread in these goals is to attain a status indicative of growth in an area mostly familiar.

    (more…)

  • Gratitude

    Gratitude

    What if I told you that developing 1 single habit can give you the following benefits:

    1. Better health – this was discovered after a study by ‘Personality And Individual Differences – PAID’, where people who practised this were able to overcome health challenges and heal faster.

    2. Better sleep – another research by ‘Applied Psychology of Health’ monitored sleep patterns of people that did this before going to bed at night and found they slept better.

    3. Better relationships – because people who practised this had learnt to shelve entitlement for appreciation, they were more positive to be around and attracted, and kept, more friends.

    4. Enhanced productivity – because these people had unknowingly trained their subconscious to be more positive, this transpired to all other aspects of their life and they were able to apply this optimism to their work, with the benefit of increased productivity.

    5. Resilience – because these people were not broken by negative events but rather grew through them…

    (more…)

  • Welcome to 2018! Your Year of “I Can” #ICan

    Welcome to 2018! Your Year of “I Can” #ICan

     

    This was recorded for a campus fellowship as part of the #ALTMD2017 tour.

    For some reason, it keeps coming to mind as I put finishing touches to our year and prepare us for 2018. I guess we can only really be maximised when we recognise the strength we get from our knees. As a famous song writer put it ‘I touch the sky when my knees hit the ground..’.

    Grab a cup of coffee/tea and enjoy.

    Have a blessed start to 2018 #ICAN

  • Affirmation

    Affirmation

    A good friend of mine once said to me “your words create or destroy!”

    Once words are spoken, two things happen, it reinforces a belief you hold (could be positive or negative) and it gives the listener an impression of you (again positive or negative). People generally avoid individuals who are downbeat and speak negatively because negative words are weighty and can shape a life’s course. Belief systems and a ‘can do’ attitude can be threatened by your words. It is therefore essential to guard our words and ensure that they are building up those who listen to us and even us. (more…)