Truth Be Told

I've missed a number of days on this challenge but I'm still going to catch up and write either way.  Day 6 was about finding one's tribe. Your tribe will consist of people that support you and your made-to-fit cheerleaders that will always be there even when life isn't rosy. My current tribe consists of my ever supportive family and genuine friends that I've been blessed to meet along the way.

How do you know who to add to your tribe? Like I already mentioned, the person must have been there for you especially at times when you did not ask for it. They always show up for you and ride the waves with you. Someone that is a straight talker and will correct you when you are wrong. We aren't looking for a "kiss-as*" here.

The other part of this challenge was to pick and write about one or two people we aspire to be like. Honestly, I do not aspire to be like anyone. In this age of "packaging", one won't really know what happens behind closed doors of the person we've put on a pedestal. All I want from this life is to be
the greatest version of myself. If I aspire to be like someone, and in turn use that person's achievements as my goal, peradventure I fail miserably, it will be a disaster.

Mind you, I'm not saying we should not admire other's achievements but please don't use their journey as a mark for your own journey. I know everyone that knows Dangote want to be like him but I'm almost certain it's only for the "riches" part and not necessarily his person. Don't forget that character is more important than riches. So if you must have someone you aspire to be like, let it be because of the person's character and integrity.

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This blog post is in response to Natalie’s 10 Day Freedom Plan Blog Challenge Day 6

Hey guys, there comes a time in life when you have to accept defeat. LOOL no no nothing that deep. I'm really sorry I've been MIA. Life got too hectic, it was too overwhelming for me. I will be back by Monday or Tomorrow evening. oh and my Grad day's today. yaaay God's blessings.

I felt a rush of cold air all through my body. My face was still literally on fire.
I was shouting in pains.
In panic, Bukky covered my mouth, helped me up and together we both made our way through the back door into the distance.
Soon, we all got into the vehicle and drove off
'This has never happened before. Ever!'

Bukky was terribly disturbed
"There would be a lot of questioning in school tomorrow." 
It didn't take long for me to recall I forgot my broken glasses on the floor. I was also quiet certain  Bukky didn't lock up Mr Maxwell's office.
I became disturbed too

"I don't want anyone of you to betray anyone of us. We must all take an oath" She announced
Everyone seemed fine with it. I wasn't, but I pretended to be.
Soon, the vehicle came to a halt.
It was Bukky's apartment. She went in. The rest of us waited outside.
From the look on my face one could tell I was already tired from the entire adventure.

Bukky emerged with a strange looking object. My vision was poor. I couldn't really tell what exactly she was holding.
Does she really expect me to swear with that? I asked myself
Really?
She instructed everyone of us to form a circle. We all did.
She also brought out a calabash. I watched in awe as everyone took a sip from its content.
I was terrified.

For some reason, I felt it was like an initiation ground. Even if it wasn't, my mind was made up. I wasn't going to swear with that object, neither was I going to drink from the content in the calabash.
I made up an excuse to leave the group. It worked out as planned
"Can I go get something from my bag. Its in the car" I lied.
They all decided to wait for me.
I made my way towards the car and from there I took to my heels. I desperately wanted to be home.
***
I got home, went straight to my room quietly to avoid waking anyone up.

On my bed, I reflected on all that took place.
I still was relieved I never swore or drank whatever was in that calabash.
***

I woke up in the morning feeling like I had a really bad dream.
My vision even seemed worst than the previous day
'This is the day I'd wear my less fashionable one'
I was referring to my other glasses.

It was 09:12 AM
I had a class by 10:00 AM
I rushed my entire morning routine, had my breakfast on the go.
When I got to school, I felt really weird.
I deliberately passed through the hallway leading to Mr. Maxwell's office.
I met Bukky leaving the office. She had that malicious grin on her face.

"Miss Igwe" she politely addressed me by my last name.
I was shocked
I swallowed my saliva
She still had that grin. "Report at Mr. Maxwell's office now"

I swallowed my saliva again
Quietly, I entered the office like a widow mourning her dead husband.

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Part 1 here
If you are in Debrecen, you can still register for my event here. 

This post will be simple and short because my today has been a rollercoaster. Would've let Day 5 pass by but I have to stay committed. I chose to partake in the challenge after all.

My daily Success plan will include

• Get the day's work done which includes writing the daily blog post, attending to orders/clients.
• Visit my life's goals and think of ways to correct anything or add to it.
• Study if I have to.
• Keep up with Social Media (in terms of my businesses).

Another Pep Talk Wednesday is upon us and we are still on the Self Growth Topic. Part of Self Change and Growth is one's attitude towards life and it's happenings. One's attitude projects an outcome. If it's a positive attitude, you'd get a positive outcome and if it's negative, negative outcome. You can't harbor a negative attitude and expect things to work out for good. Negative energy ruins positive energy, they can't thrive in the same environment. What's your attitude towards life? Have you given up and just going with the flow or do you have the "can-do" attitude in any circumstance whatsoever?

If you look at the quote above it says "most people never reach their goals because they don't consider them as achievable..."  When I saw this quote, I thought 'why would you set a goal and still have the impossible mindset?' The purpose of setting a goal is to aim for more than you can imagine, for you to have a blueprint you can work with. My goal right now is to be at a certain level in every phase of my life at Thirty. I'm six years away from that goal and you can bet I don't see it as impossible or unachievable. Setting a goal challenges you away from the norm, away from the possible, so if you set a goal and your attitude towards that goal is "whatever" or non-chalant, then you can't achieve it. You might as well not set any goal then, make it easier for yourself and go with the flow of life.

Your attitude is controlled by your mind, it is a reflection of what is truly inside. If your mind is not rightly placed, your attitude won't be rightly placed too. If you want to change your attitude for good, you will have to start from the foundation and change your mindset towards people, life and everything that concerns you. If your mind is zigzag and confused, you will jam every bad thing possible on your road to the goal you probably care less about. Yes that's actually true, get rid of "I don't care" attitude! It will get you absolutely no where. You will be labeled by that and no one will take you serious.

To the students reading this, have a positive mindset towards that difficult course. If you keep saying it's difficult, you can't pass it because in your mind, it's unachievable. Treat it like it's easy and put your mind at rest knowing that you will definitely pass that course. Once you put on a positive attitude towards that course, you will definitely use it to challenge yourself to look for every possible means to understand the course. That's just how it works. Nothing will ever be easy if you think everything is difficult, everything is "overachieving".

Your attitude is your worth. It defines you. Your identity is placed in your attitude, it's specific to you. People will define your individuality based on your attitude because that is what they can see outside. It doesn't matter if there's a positive side to you, if the bad vibes overthrow the positive, that is what people will see. Like I mentioned earlier, positive and negative attitude can't thrive together. Your aim now should be to get rid of the negative attitude and focus on the positive, change your mindset and don't limit your abilities. You can read books that help with that, be friends with positive people and not people that look down on everything or think small. Have a set target/goal, trust and believe in the plan and aim for it no matter how impossible it looks to the mere mortal.


Love,
Dedun

It's Day 4 on This blog challenge and we are talking about Super Powers. Obviously, I'm no SuperWoman with a S tatted on my fat belly but I do have a skill I can perhaps tag a Super Power. Guess what it is. Yeah you probably guessed right, or not! LOL ! It's MultiTasking. Ah I can Multi-Task for Africa!

Have you met someone that is thinking of ideas while sleeping? I do o and that's me. Lmao I can even multi task while sleeping. Don't ask me how ahahah. Actually let me tell you how. You know how you wake up randomly during sleep time? Yup, that's when my brain starts thinking of what I have to get done. In short, prepping me for when I wake up or trying to tell me I've had enough sleep. Anyway that's not the purpose of this post.

How do I multitask? Especially in my case where I had books to study, cakes to bake, hair appointment booked and food to cook because belly needs to filled right? I wrote in details how I balance/multitask here. Multi-tasking is very doable if you can master the art of planning! Allocate time to everything, even the minute things. Planning gives you the solid structure you need to carry out the day's activities. See, people think I don't sleep well since I'm always busy. Let me tell you now that on average, I get eight hours of sleep, if not more. If I have 8am lectures, then maybe six but nothing less than six except on days I have a test or exam then it reduces to four hours.

Example of a day in my life if I have classes till late evening and businesses to attend to. Sometimes the classes are just weirdly spaced out that coming back home won't make sense except it's like four hours kind of gap

8am- max 6pm --  Classes

Get home at 6.30. Look for something to eat.

7.30pm - Make 2 clients hair and finish max 10.30pm. I can listen to educational youtube videos while making the hair. I will apologize for boring them out but they are also students and understand the struggle.  Sometimes, I even use the hairstyling time to relax or catch up on my series. You won't catch me watching a series randomly except I have absolutely nothing to do which is rarely. I do that during "break times" while studying or relaxing time while baking/making hair.

If no cake to bake, I will study for 4 hours/ till 2.30am. It works for me that way because I love studying at night. More over I can study in School in between classes if I want to.

If there's cake to bake, I will mix and put it in the oven, time it and go study. Killing two birds with a stone.

Sleep 3am max and wake up by 9am if my class is at 10am.

On days I have two or less classes, that's even perfect. I milk out the hours in the day by making sure at least 80% of my plans work out the way I wanted them to.

You can't just spend a day doing nothing aside from attending classes and claim you are tired. When you are old and grey, you can rest. You are stronger in your younger years and don't even think it gets easier because it doesn't. If you can train your body and mind to joggle things now, it will be so much easier for you as you get older.

So yeah, you can also get your multitasking super power game on by planning ahead of time!

Do I wish for any other Super Power? Heck yeah! Teleporting! ahahahah 

To find what your Super Power is, look for what you are good at. What I wrote above was just to tell you how to add Multi tasking to your list of Super Powers. Of course you can have more than one.
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This blog post is in response to Natalie’s 10 Day Freedom Plan Blog Challenge Day 4

The tongue is the most poisonous thing. Sure you are wondering why I am calling God's creation poisonous, well the tongue is not poisonous except you make it so. That is where the gift of choice comes in. God has given us the gift to choose between good and evil. The tongue becomes extremely poisonous when you choose to use it for "bad-will". The source of what we say with it is always from the heart. If you are bitter down there, you tend to always say ridiculous and mean things with your tongue. You find it hard to say good things because you feel nobody deserves it at that particular moment of bitterness. You become aggressive and curse out everyone and everything that made you to be in that position of sadness. 

We all have elements of gossips in us. It is unleashed when in a kind of gathering that condones gossiping. I've been there, done that and the outcome is never good. I've always had it in the back of my head that if I can gossip about someone, anybody can gossip about me too. You get what you give out and of course there's that percentage of whether you are a gossip or not, you will still be gossiped about. It's just how life is. So don't have that mentality of "ehn, whether I gossip or not, won't they still talk about me? Might as well speak my mind" Who are the 'they'?   Don't give meaning to the 'they' because when you start thinking about 'they', they will surely appear in your life and make it miserable. The earlier you dissociate yourself from potential 'theys', the better for your sanity. Potential/Ripe theys are those that find any reason to talk about someone else in a demeaning and condescending manner regardless of the purpose of the gathering. It could be at a celebration, study group or even bible study (wonders!).  

As Christians, when we are down, sad and "lifeless" we ought to praise God. Praising God confuses the enemy and it makes God happy. So instead of speaking evil and bad things with our tongues, let's use them to worship God. At the end of the day, you'll end up chasing bitterness away and in return you don't say things you'd regret. I remember quite recently, I heard what someone said about me and I was so mad, thank God for Dedun that is closer to God now because I either would have kept quiet or called the individual to repeat what he/she said but thankfully, I just got on my knees and prayed that this fury will pass over me and it did. I don't have any bad blood in me towards that person and that's the way it should be. 

We can't overcome the anger that boils in us when we hear rumors about us so it's just practical to run to God in prayer, prayer works. Don't dwell on it for way too long. Rebuke every word said with the blood of Jesus Christ immediately. Dwelling on it is like passing chicken pox from one person to another. The person passed bitterness to you and thus, you end up bitter and pass it on to someone else with your tongue. 

From this moment onwards, wish your neighbor good things even when they wish you bad, proclaim good and wondrous things to your life. Don't let the devil ruin you with your tongue, don't let him pull you down because you are meant to be on top! Don't join the bad "gangs" of gossips, they will always make you watch your backs. Once you notice you are in that kind of gathering, if you can't run, don't contribute because if you do, everything said can be traced back to you and those people won't be there to defend you. Lastly, choose your friends wisely. Pass the message on to someone today. God bless you!

Love,
Dedun