GREAT THINGS START LITTLE

Though thy beginning was small, yet thy latter end should greatly increase. Job 8:7

It is in the nature of God to start great things in a very small way. This most times is contrary to the quick fix culture of our age. Nothing great today actually started big but in a little form; the account of creation and every day experience attests to this.
In God’s dream to fill the whole earth with man who is to subdue and replenish the earth, created only a man – Adam and much later a woman – Eve; He did not create all the nations, tribes, race, and languages in a day. God chose to make only one man in His image and likeness and out of him created all nations, tribes, race, and languages.
A seed is a very small part of a tree, but inside that tiny seed is not just a tree but trees. When the seed is sown, it do not turn to a tree overnight but goes through a process of time to transform to a tree and then a forest.
Even the human life, it starts little in fertilization, pregnancy and then birth; but the birth is in form of a little fragile and tiny life which grows over a process of time to become adult.
A small beginning has a promised greatness but the lesson of patience must be learned, for the city of Rome was not built in a day. Whatever is not started cannot become great; this should be a learning point for procrastinators.

EXPERIENCE BEGETS SUCCESS

Life is a great teacher; it teaches through the experiences that it brings our way as we daily live our lives. Those that shy away from life experiences, unknowingly denies themselves the opportunity to learn. The things you went through leave lasting impressions that cannot be easily erased and to a large extinct form your character and skill.

It is natural for like to beget like; so successful people should have successful children or protégé but the contrary had almost always been the case -The children of the most successful people end up being the failures of all time. The question had always been why? Why this aberrations? What’s the disconnect?

The simply explanation to that is that most successful people shield their children from the things that made them successful and great – their experiences; the things they went through in life. So common we hear parents say I suffered so much and as such would not want my children to suffer. Words like these are only excusing such children from being great and successful.

In my days in the university, I went to the students’ affairs office for an inquiry and I saw a wall poster that got me thinking, and what was it in this poster: a picture of a very tall old man and a small child with the writing “your grandfather may be the tallest man but you need to grow yourself”. But how does one grow? It is by eating the right diets.

Until one gets the right experiences and information, it’s very impossible to truly be a success; your success do not translate to automatic success for your children but like the little boy in the write up they need their own growth to become the tall adult they have the potential to become. So each time you shield them from having the required experience for their development you are actually starving them of the food needful for their growth.

Wealth can be transferred, riches can be willed out but none can transfer or will out experiences. Instead each one build up his/her wealth of experience by what they have gone through in life over time. Before you share your wealth to your children, share your life and your experiences with them. How much of your story do your children have access to or have you forgotten that the success of men are in their story.

BENEFITS OF PERSONAL EXPERIENCES IN LIFE

1. PATIENCE is having hope of a better tomorrow, showing love to humanity, and having faith in God. Experience has a way of building our patience.
2. CHARACTER is a show of sound behavior and discipline. I have not seen someone lacking character becoming a success; if for any reason they become one, give it little time the success will be told as story. Durable success rides on the wheel of character.
3. SKILL AND EXPERTISE. Today’s failure immune you to tomorrow’s failure.

Please make comment, let's know how this have inspired you.

Understanding Patience

5 Ways to Stay Focused on Your Most Important Goals

By Obaro E Aziza

The essence of setting goals is to help us live our lives properly and achieve the things we desire in life. There are different areas of our lives we need to set goals like our finances, relationships, career and others. Setting goals is important but more important is our ability to maintain our focus until we achieve these goals.

In this article I will expose you to some very vital tips on how you can stay focused on your goals until you have achieved them. I strongly advice that you digest this article several times and share it with people you know who have a challenge staying focused on their goals.

The simple ways you can stay focused on your goals include:

1. Be clear about your goals
Are you very clear on the things you want to achieve in your life? Are your goals clear of are they vague? The very first step in staying focused on your goals is to ensure that you are clear about what you want to achieve. You must define the expected outcomes that you desire, precision is very important in this step. The major reason you need clarity when setting your goals is because being clear about your goals makes you remember them easily. The clearer your goals are the easier it is for you to stay focused on them.

2. Document your goals
Are you in the habit of writing down your goals and plans? Can you easily reach you goals when you need to remind yourself of them? Documenting your goals is very important, make sure you write them down or type if you prefer to use an electronic device, and store them in places where you can easily reach them. You need to document your goals is so that you can easily review them when the need arises, you also need to constantly check them to keep yourself aware.

3. Continuously review your goals
How often do you review your goals? Do you just write them somewhere and never go back to check them? You need to continuously review your goals to know how well you are doing and identify the areas where you need improvement. Reviewing your goals regularly makes them stick in your mind, cultivate the habit of reviewing your goals as often as you can.

4. Have accountability partners
Do you have people you trust and you can share your goals with? Accountability partners help to make you responsible for your goals, they help to keep you in check. They help you to stay committed to your goals by constantly checking on your progress. They also help you to be disciplined. Ensure that your accountability partners are people who can tell you the truth and who have your interest at heart.

5. Ensure your environment supports your goals
Do you work in an organization or role that is aligned with your personal goals? Do you have friends and acquaintances who share like passions and who are moving in the same direction as you? If you are in an environment that doesn't support your goals, you may find it very difficult to achieve your goals. If you move with people who do not support your goals, it may be very challenging for you to achieve them. Therefore, be careful before you choose jobs and watch the kind of people you surround yourself with.

To achieve your best in life, you must learn to keep your eye on the target. This article has highlighted five simple steps you can take to stay focused on your most important goals in life.

I hope you found this article useful? Please share with your friends and anyone you know who may need to read this.

I would love to read your comments and suggestions on this article, please leave your comment(s) below.

4 Simple Ways to Maximize Your Day

By Obaro E Aziza
Our lives are an aggregation of the things we do daily. It is therefore very important that you deliberately spend your time on the most productive activities. The most productive people are those who have been able to identify those activities that give them great results and spend most of their time on such activities.

In this article, I have written on ways you can make the best use of your time daily. These tips will help you become a more effective person and get results faster. Some effective ways to maximize your day include:

1. Start with a plan

Before you step out of your house in the morning, make sure you have a to-do list for that day. The major reason a lot of people feel they have wasted their time during the day is because most of them did not have a plan for that day. You must have your daily goals written down and stored where you can retrieve easily during the day.
You can write your plans on a notepad, dairy or use your computer or other mobile devices. Plans give you a sense of direction during the day, you need to put them down for easy recall. Never live a day without a plan.

2. Make every minute count

You must discipline yourself to ensure that every minute of your day counts. This is not to say you must be working every time, of course there would be times when you have to take breaks, attend to the needs or requests of others, however you must ensure that such activities do not disturb your plan adversely. Making every minute count means that you must have allotted time for every activity on your to-do list. You should also make provision for disturbances and distractions in your plans, unless you live in a totally controlled environment. Make the best use of every minute you have. Remember that time lost can never be regained.

3. Learn something new every day

There is no better way to make the best your day than to learn something you do not already know. Imagine if you were committed to this kind of daily learning, how much better would you be by now? There are several areas in everyone's life where they need one form of improvement or another. Be dedicated to a life of daily improvement and you will be amazed at the kind of person you will become in a short while.
You know those areas of your life where you need improvement, include personal development activities in your daily plans. You don't have to spend hours, a few minutes well spent is good enough. Just ensure that you are consistent.

4. Do a review at the end of the day

Spend the last minutes before you go to bed reflecting on the activities of the day, review your plans for the day and see how well you managed your time. The essence of the review is to help you identify the areas you need to improve, the activities you need to do more or less of. Take time daily before you go to bed to reflect and work on your observations.

To achieve greatness in life you must be a good time manager and you must constantly improve yourself. If you practice the ideas shared in this article daily, you are on the right track to achieving great things in life.
If you found this article helpful, please share with your friends, family, colleagues and anyone you know who may need to read it.

BE ABOVE BOARD

5 Things To Do Instead of Blaming Others

It is impossible to be left out with no option on what to do; life is always fair enough to leave us with alternatives. But the challenge had always been that we often treat the alternatives with contempt and pretend to have no option.
Naturally, the flow is in the direction of least resistance and passing the bulk is easier thing to do than taking ownership and responsibility; we blame everyone and everything thereby show how immature we are. For a few, they put themselves in the list of who to blame but blame do not in any way help.
It is very likely to blame others and even yourself when ones interest is to get off the hook and not to address the matter; when you only think of escape route rather than a perpetual solution or the intention is to create an impression rather than make an impact.
What alternatives do I have other than blaming other?
1. Admit your wrongs. Admitting your wrongs do not in any way make you less human rather it makes you the real human you are. It is a hard thing to do but very noble when done. We all make mistakes, denial and blaming others are the reaction of children to their mistakes but admittance is adults’ response to mistakes and errors. You may look stupid at point of admission but latter your strength of character shows.
2. Accept the consequences. This shows how responsible you are.
3. Seek another opportunity to do better and promise yourself I will do better.
4. Talk less, stay calm and hold your peace. Resist every urge to advise others, you may end up telling them what they failed to do that made you do what you have done that you ought to have done. It is not your time to offer advice.
5. Take it as a learning point. Ask yourself relevant questions as you analyze the situation.

How to Stop the Blame Game

One major reason we live is to have opportunities to have experiences and learn from them; once we learn we move on to the next one. However, if we fail to learn, we keep finding opportunities to learn it again and again; it is an endless cycle of adventure.
Many people fail in life because the experiences that came their way end up being an event because no lesson was learnt from them. They blame everyone but themselves for these events and so become much blinded to the lesson the experiences have presented to them. No wonder they never cease to have repeat of similar experiences.
Life will continue to throw at us the same lessons until we learn from them for there are no shortcut to life and more so no carryover. Here are some ways to start learning from life experiences, you must push a stop button to blame game to able to make progress in life.
1. Look out for a lesson to learn from whatever experience you pass through especially the negative experiences.
2. Make a personal commitment to asking the question “what lesson is this experience presenting to me?”
3. Take a personal responsibility and admit that the challenge may be my creation. Don’t think of who to blame.
4. Take a personal root cause analysis to certain what happened and how you may have contributed to what happened. Ask question like what should I have done differently?
5. Make a promise to yourself that the past errors will not be repeated.
6. Detach yourself from the experience. Failure is an event not your identity, so don’t nurse your wound longer than needful.
7. Assure yourself there will be another opportunity to get it right and prepare for it.

5 Areas for a Healthy Relationship

5 Major Ways You Can Cook Beans To Avoid Farting After Eating.

Before talking or explaining the methods that you can use to cook beans to prevent farting after, you should first understand what causes this flatulence. Beans contain a class of carbohydrates called Oligosaccharides (e.g. raffinose and stachyose), some of which cannot be processed by our digestive system.

When we eat beans and they get to our intestine, the Oligosaccharides remain there as we do not have the enzymes or any other thing whatsoever to digest them. After the Oligosaccharides pass into our large intestine, the bacteria present there start to break them down. During this process, the bacteria release several different types of gases, mainly hydrogen, nitrogen and carbon dioxide. About 33% of these bacteria also end up producing methane and this is the one that smells.

Methods for Cooking Beans To Prevent Farting

1. Soaking your Beans in Water
Scientists and even pro chefs have recommended soaking your beans in water for hours before cooking will remove most of these Oligosaccharides before you cook them. Many people said this works but I know not many people have the patience to soak beans before cooking. But it sure works! More so soaking your beans in water increases the amounts of vitamins, especially B vitamins.
2. Adding Mound to the Beans
The reason why we have problems digesting beans is that we lack the alpha-galactosidase enzyme in our digestive tract. There is a mound called Aspergillums Niger that contains the Alpha-Galactosidase enzyme. After gently sprinkling this on your food, it works by breaking down Oligosaccharides and preventing your large intestinal bacteria from creating gases. It is now being sold as a product and people that use it said they usually by from Amazon online under the brand name Beano.
3. Soaking Beans with Baking Soda
This baking soda has many uses that will be listed soon. One of them is what it does to help reduce or eliminate flatulence after eating beans. Adding baking soda to the soak water of dried beans before cooking (about 1/16 teaspoon per quart) significantly decreases the content of the raffinose and other Oligosaccharide family members.
4. Changing the boiled water
This method has worked with great success. It’s simple, what do you do? Cook your beans with a lot of water for about 15 minutes, then throw away the water and add fresh boiling water. In this first boiling, do not add any cooking ingredients yet, because it’ll cause it to wash away. It is believed that most of these saccharides must have been removed by the first boiling although there’s no scientific backing for this.
5. Don’t Consume Beans Late At Night
This is not part of the cooking process, but it was always going to come in. Now we are done listing the methods to consider during preparation. We should also remember how to consume after cooking. Beans require longer time to digest so eat early enough so that the digest progresses long before you retire to sleep. Sleep slows down digesting process.