What are your Concerns?

Happy New Week,

I look forward to sharing with you Brilliant and Excellent tips for attaining your goals, fulfilling your Purpose and making the world a better place.

Recently, I came across Nigeria's search history on google and these were the top list of concerns: ‘Soco’, ‘who is the richest musician in Nigeria’ and ‘How to Dance Shaku Shaku’. Some of the other searches include ‘world cup
fixtures’, bbnaija, ‘how to tie gele’, ‘prepare banga soup’  and ‘black panther’. https://acceleratetv.com/nigerians-top-google-searches-for-2018-include-how-to-dance-shaku-shaku-and-wizkids-soco/

A concern is simply an area of marked interest or a matter for consideration. They are what we yearn and show interest in. Concerns cover a wide range of interests that we have such as thoughts, visions, goals, priorities, etc. It can also be downsized to necessities like our health, children, work, etc. When we devote our mind to a particular thing, it becomes a concern. Over the years systematic studies have been made on discovering the relationship between our concerns and actual life.

What do you spend time pondering about? What do you spend your day reminiscing about? What steals your attention?  With time, your concerns become your actual life a man is what he thinks. Tell a wise man your concerns and he can tell your personality even your future.

We can also say that your concerns are soul food, what you feed your mind with. One can even measure his level of achievement with the concerns he/she has. Often times our concerns align with our field and position in life while many times it doesn’t.

It is unapologetically a human behavior to have concerns. These concerns determine our thoughts and actions and also contributes to our future. We can agree that the list of concerns of Nigeria as listed by google search is a mirror of where we are today.

We need to monitor what our concerns are and keep them as positive and productive as possible.
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Hobbies and Interest

                                                 

Good Morning Brilliant and Excellent People,

I look forward to sharing with you Brilliant and Excellent tips for attaining your goals, fulfilling your Purpose and making the world a better place.

Upon graduating with a master’s degree in English during the recession, Mike was offered a position at a venerable renewable-energy consulting firm, but whenever he closed from work for the day, his body ached for creativity and for making a difference in the world—both desires within him were critical for making him feel complete and whole. It was only upon this discovery that he realized he had to make significant time outside of his day job for channeling these desires in a way that he hadn’t done before. After listening to a motivational speaker talk on “Making time for your passion” he started doing a lot of serious self-reflection and began pursuing his passions more seriously.

As a result, he started writing more regularly,  began volunteering at a youth writing group in his city, and also started a coaching business to work with others struggling with some of the challenges that he’s faced. He finally learnt to feed his passion.

Working a 9-5 can be the most exhausting and demanding task of a person’s life. Mike’s story explains it all; Passion and Hobbies are what fuel your fire, what makes your heart pound and flutter when you leave work for the day, what you look forward to achieving wholeheartedly, and what gets you excited when you face a Saturday with no agenda in hand.

 Improving your week by spending some time with your hobbies and passions can make a bad day turn good, and a good day even better. Sometimes you need to stop and remember what makes you happy. Remind yourself who you are and what you want to do outside of your 9-5: your hobbies and passions. Quick question; which is easier? Trying to love what you do OR doing what you love…

Think about something you love and something you are totally passionate about. The list is endless; Sports, music, painting, designing, acting, writing, etc. What do you find yourself doing that you actually enjoy -- and may also productive? Is there something that both your heart and ambition push you toward?

Having hobbies outside of work is a key to professional success. Studies have shown that the most successful individuals in the world create time outside work for hobbies and interests.

         IMPORTANCE OF HOBBIES

·        Develop New Skills: A developed hobby transitions into a skill. Constantly making time for hobbies and interests will eventually make you a master at it. When you devote time to doing something you love, you perfect your skill and open doors of opportunities. Practice they say, makes perfect. Eventually, you will become more skilled in anything that you devote ample time to if you continuously repeat an action and keep an open mind.

·        Boost your confidence/self-esteem: The moment you become good at a hobby, it boosts your self-esteem and confidence, everyone loves appraisal and a little pat on the back; this might even lead one to fame, thus giving one the confidence to try out other interests.

·        It is healthy: Not only are hobbies fun, they can also relieve mental stress and exercise the brain and body. A hobby that makes you physically active can improve your body’s flexibility. Strategic hobbies like playing chess improves your mental reasoning and can benefit your work performance on many levels and is also a natural booster for brain function.

·        Source of income: When you develop a hobby and become good enough at it, it can serve as a platform for extra income. Who doesn’t like some extra cash? You may even decide to turn your hobby into a full-time job! For instance, maybe you really like to paint and you spend time painting all sorts of picture; landscape, still life, portraits, etc- If you discover that you have become really good at it, you may begin to sell your paintings and organize exhibitions, which could turn into a full-time job! I’ve seen people earn abundantly from their hobbies; athletes, musicians, actors, writers, etc. Develop a hobby and start earning!

·        Networking: Constant participation in hobbies and interests, especially those that involve communication with other individuals would increase your network. Physical activities and games and a great way to meet new people and make new friends. One might even organize friendly competitions with others. Your gym partner or chess opponent might be your contact to a business contract or even career opportunities.

However, I’ve heard people say they don’t have hobbies or haven’t discovered their interests. This is not abnormal as people get so engrossed in work that they barely notice “side attractions”. A lot of people spend a lifetime pursuing career success without understanding that it doesn’t necessarily guarantee a happy life, therefore Learning to balance work and passion/hobbies is very essential. Let work be work and fun be fun, don’t make the “9-5” your priority. Always remember that although your job is your source of income, it might not bring you happiness- but your passion will give you a lifetime of happiness and can also be a source of income.

For more details, you can contact the BPE team @ www.solomonempire.com or download BPE tool app on google play store.
To be a member of the BPE team of Solomon’s Empire, kindly send a mail to bpe@solomonempire.com.

Procastination

Good Morning Brilliant and Excellent People,

I look forward to sharing with you Brilliant and Excellent tips for attaining your goals and fulfilling your Purpose.

“I’ll do it later”…… “There’s still time”…… “I don’t have the vibes yet” …… “It’s not that urgent”….. “The boss is not around, I’ll eventually do it before he gets back”….. etc. These are the flimsy excuses of a procrastinator!

Procrastination (from Latin's "procrastinare", that translates as: the prefix pro-, 'forward', with -crastinus, 'till next day' from "cras", 'tomorrow') is the avoidance of doing a task that needs to be accomplished. Sometimes, procrastination takes place until the "last minute" before a deadline. – (Wikipedia).

Procrastination is a trap that many individuals, especially young adults fall into, for as long as humans have been around, we have

 been struggling with delaying, avoiding, and procrastinating on issues that matter to us because they are less enjoyable. Procrastination usually involves ignoring an unpleasant, but likely more important task, in favor of one that is more enjoyable or easier. In actual sense, many people are procrastinators 

without even realizing it. Having this habit for a long period of time can cause demotivation which can lead to depression and lack of focus. It is the clear opposite of productivity; during our more productive moments, we temporarily learn how to stop procrastinating, thereby making us feel fulfilled and accomplished.

Some procrastinators give the general excuse that they perform better under pressure, but that's literally their way of getting away with putting things off or waiting till deadlines. Philosopher William James clearly stated the impact of procrastination when he said, “Nothing is as fatiguing as the eternal hanging on of an unfulfilled goal.” Procrastination comes with anxiety, tension and mental stress. 

The knowledge of having a task unaccomplished constantly haunts you and keeps you uneasy. Why not choose freedom………….. Nothing comes without a price to pay, let’s now look at some dangers of procrastination

DANGERS OF PROCRASTINATION

·         Career set-backs: Since frequent procrastination prevents one from achieving goals, individuals are unable to realize their full professional potential thereby delaying career progress. One might miss out on promotions or worse; one might even be at risk of losing one’s job. You may try to hide it for a while, but don’t doubt that long-term procrastination at work will almost certainly ruin your career.

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      Lowered Self-Esteem: Procrastination eats away confidence. When you have tasks pending and undone, your self-esteem is lowered. There is pride in productivity! A lowered self-esteem is draining and can hold us back, making us feel less than we should.

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     Poor Decision Making: Procrastination does not go well with decision making. Why? Because making decisions from this standpoint will always be ineffective as they will most likely be poor decisions. When you procrastinate, you make decisions based on your comfort zone. Nothing great ever came from a comfort zone.

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     Health Risk: Anxiety and stress are factors or procrastination. If you procrastinate too much, it will most likely begin to stress you physically and mentally and cause anxiety, especially when other people or things are involved or at risk. Stress as we all know is a silent killer and leaves one at a great health risk.

Good News? How to Overcome Procrastination

·         Make plans: Making plans is a great way to focus on the task at hand and find ways to achieve them.

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    Set priorities: Priorities are both urgent and important task that must not be left undone. Setting priorities ensures that you don’t forget or rush over the important things that needs to be done.

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      Avoid delays: Get to work as soon as possible and avoid distractions.

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      Make deadlines: Your deadlines should be a week or few days to the original deadline you have been given. This gives you extra days to go over your finished work and perfect little errors.

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     Commit to the task: Commitment to the task at hand means that no matter what happens, you finish what you have started.

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     Keep someone in check of you: Authorities are another great way to intentionally set yourself on track every time you find yourself erring. Your authority must be someone who can look you in the eye and get your heart racing to finish your projects.

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     Reward yourself: Upon successful completing of an assignment within the speculated time, reward yourself and celebrate!

For more details, you can contact the BPE team @ www.solomonempire.com or download BPE tool app on google play store.

To be a member of the BPE team of Solomon’s Empire, kindly send a mail to bpe@solomonempire.com.