Let me start with what I mean by pivot because if you are non mathematical like me you are already dreading numerical analysis or Excel pivot tables. Don’t worry not even close.

The dictionary meaning of Pivot is : a central point around which something turns.To pivot is to turn or spin around a centre point.

In its simplest form to pivot is to change direction. A couple of blog posts ago, I talked about how the end of the first half of the year tends to be a wake up call for a lot of us. We blink and January becomes July. You think ‘wow 7 months gone and what have I achieved?’. I am still a long way from meeting my goals All my plans don’t seem to be working‘ etc.

Goals are meant to spur us to a growth and progress mindset and I am a firm believer in measuring progress.

A saying by Peter Drucker that I learnt at work and  have since also applied to other areas of my life goes thus ‘ What gets measured gets managed’.Having a metric or indices that one can measure against allows us to have an idea of what needs to be improved, changed, or stopped.

So goals,targets,plans or whatever you choose to call them are not a bad thing.

Unfortunately though a lot of times, we measure or set ourselves up with arbitrary targets to reach our goals and never question if they are the actually the right metrics for us.

We live in such target,yard stick,benchmark driven society that a lot of times we measure our progress or lack of it by the road widely travelled.

I believe that we need to learn from others and a lot of times we need the wisdom of mentors,peers,coaches or even our parents to guide us on our chosen paths.

The chosen path though is something that we tend to get fixated on. It also ties into the fear that a lot of us of being perceived as flakey because we changed our mind or course.

My friend,Sarah lost 20 kg in 6 months by totally cutting out carbs& going to the gym every evening 5 times a week. Sarah tells me how she made progress and I make up my mind in January to do the whole ‘New year new me’ thing as I also need to lose 20 kg as well.So I sign up to the gym with Sarah’s trainer and stop eating carbs.

By the end of March , I am struggling to get to the gym every evening and I am really missing bread. I struggle to get to the gym every evening because at the end of February I got a new job that added 45 mins to my commute each way.

It’s June and I have only lost 5kg. I am not eating bread but I am scoffing down chocolates due to the stress of trying to fit it all in. I haven’t been to gym AT All in May.(even though I am still paying membership and trainer fees).

At this point it’s obvious that this plan is not working. But I set a goal and I had a plan! Sarah did it so why can’t I?What will Sarah’s trainer (now my trainer) think?

At this point I am crippled with the thoughts of why I can’t change course rather than the most important thing that I set out to achieve which is to lose 20kg.

At this point it is noble that I am not contemplating ditching my goal like most people would. However nothing says I cant change direction. My measurement tells me that I still have a way to go in achieving my goal.The plan might have worked for Sarah or even me in January but it’s clearly not working for the me in June.

What i need to do is pause and consider other ways that could still get me to my goal even if it might mean that I don’t lose 20kg in 6 months.

Maybe I can’t get to the gym 5 evenings a week but maybe I could twice a week consistently on Tuesday and Thursday as I leave the office at 4pm on those days.

Or I could consider AM training sessions and go to work from there. Maybe the gym is just not possible so I could try incorporating some activity into my commute.

Walk to the office.

Cycle to work.

Generally look for ways to make it work with my current situation. I miss bread (hypothetical me & I love bread by the way )so maybe I can have wholemeal bread twice a week and ditch the chocolates.

 I know,I know me and my fitness analogies. But this principle can be applied to so many other areas of our lives.

As we come to end of the month of July rather than despair at the goals or things that you might not have achieved,maybe the thing to do is change direction.

Maybe it’s time to look at the plan and tweak it. Tweaking it might not work and you might have to ditch it all together.

You might have to tweak so many times than you wish but at least you are not giving up.

You can change course. Life does happen and the most successful people tend to be the ones who are able to adapt and change to the situations around them.

Thank you so much for reading and hope you have a lovely Tuesday and week ahead.

Much love

Oyindamola

Quote Picture credits- Pinterest

I am going to admit that there times I am not a good friend.I don’t call, I don’t text, I cancel meet ups at short notice, I don’t even do WhatsApp’s groups well LOL etc. I was talking to someone the other day and I categorised myself as an extroverted introvert(if that’s even a word).

Everyone automatically assumes that I would be the life of the party cos I talk a lot (yup I know) and I am very friendly. I make friends very very easily. But even with the facade and appearance I am not the best at keeping relationships going. I had to apologise to a friend last week about this no calling thing. I am trying but still not great at it.A lot of times I can just get caught up in myself that I forget about my friends.

I was also recently reading through the story of David and Jonathan in the Bible and the dynamics of that friendship. It’s such an interesting one. I mean David was meant to be King which in the normal sense should have been Jonathan’s birthright as he was Saul’s heir. He should have automatically hated someone trying to usurp what was rightfully his.But Jonathan still loved David.

This got me thinking about ‘what sort of friend am I ?’ I thought about what yardsticks I would want to judge friendship by. Don’t get me wrong all of the above are things that friends,should and need to do to keep the relationship going(yes friendships are relationships). Contact and checking up on each other is an investment that we should seek to make to keep our friendships.

However my introspection and self reflection caused me to go a bit deeper on what sort friend that I am. I came up with the following questions;

1. Do I wish my friends what I wish myself?
2. Do I want to see my friends grow and be as excellent if not more excellent than I am? Would my friendship still thrive if my friend was significantly wealthier than I was?
3. Am I happy or sort of resentful at their progress or successes? Do I view their success as my failure?
4. Do I pray for them (if you are a person of faith)?
5. Do I tell them the truth about their shortcomings and weaknesses with love and grace? Or would I rather not face confrontation?
6. Do I celebrate their strengths and understand their weaknesses? Plainly speaking,do I understand the frailty of their humanity or do I hold them to a standard higher than I hold myself?
7. Are there undercurrents of tension/competition in our relationship? Is there a constant need to check off lists against where we all are in our lives?
8. Can I just be myself when I am with my friend (s) or do I have to ‘keep up appearances’?
9. Do I go out of my way to share opportunities or things that I think I could benefit them? Or is my default ‘every man for himself in this world’?
10. Do I love my friend for who they are or do I love them for what they are? Is it about what they can do for me? Am I keeping in contact just as a ‘hook'( so I can say I know this person)?

Now I know that there are no absolute yes or no’s to some of these questions.And some of them might not even be totally dependent on you . There would be some of them that could be perception vs reality. And there are some that could even be dependent on the friends countenance to you.

I know that a lot of people (you only need to read social media) have things to say about friendships and what they expect from their friends. But like a lot of things in life,I would always want to start with myself.

Am I the friend that I would like to have?

Now I am not asking these questions in a tick box capacity but there are 1 or 2 in there that could get us thinking about ways that we could do better. Please don’t take these questions as some sort of analysis to define what a ‘good’ or ‘bad’ friend you or your friend are. This is just me thinking aloud and sharing my thoughts on the issue .

As always thank you for reading. Please do like,share with others. And please do leave a comment either here or social media.I really appreciate the time you take out to read and even share with others.

Have a lovely Tuesday and week ahead

Much love

Oyindamola

Photo credit: Pinterest and the Bible App

I can’t believe it’s already the second half of the year.It feels like barely a month since we all ushered in the year 2019 with all the cheer and hope that a new year tends to bring with it.

And then we get into the swing of every day life. Work,school, chores and tick tock ,tick tock, the time just flies by. The saying ‘the days are long but the years are short’ really puts this concept into context.The days seem packed and long but you find yourself suddenly on the other side of what should otherwise still feel like a new year. And nothing makes you feel the time lapse more than those goals or resolutions or visions (whatever you want to call them) made at the beginning of the year that have still not been met or fulfilled.

I was(and in a lot of ways still am) a procrastinator. My mum always used to always tell me off as a teenager and it followed me into adult life .My default setting was ‘I’ll do it later’. Yup and I am sure you have guessed it my ‘later’ almost always became ‘never’. My homework or project that could have been done on Friday or Saturday always ended up being done late Sunday night or early on Monday morning.And sometimes not even done at all. For my first few years of secondary school I am sure my grades would have been much better if I had done most of my homework (called continuous assessment in Nigeria) which often made up 30% of your final grade.

I share this because I know the feeling of putting off what needs to be done especially if you feel ‘what’s the point?’

Why start saving now? Half the year is gone already. My answer to this, who says savings goals can only be made in January? Besides saving something from now definitely means something at the end of the year.Saving nothing now means nothing at the end of the year.

What’s the point of trying to lose body fat/ weight now?!Its summer already so if I can’t flaunt my summer body now I might as well just wait till next year and next summer ?My answer to this,who says trying to get fit and eat healthy is meant for just one season in the year?

Why take that online course now? I might as well just wait till the new school year in September and have a fresh start? My answer to this,except for courses in a set calendar year(which online courses rarely are )starting now means you will be halfway done by the end of the year.Not starting now means you won’t have started at all.

I wanted to read 12 books this year and I have not even read one yet so I might as well just start next year? My answer to this is starting just one book from now means you could have read one or two,or three books by the end of the year,not starting now would have meant you would have read zero books by the end of the year.

These and so many more are those things that we ponder on in our minds as we get to this time of the year when we look at all those ‘ I want to lose weight, read 100 books , learn a new skill ‘ lists that people scramble to write at the beginning of the year .

All of a sudden,reality dawns and it just doesn’t seem like the right time right now.Things will seem more favourable in September,the 1st of the next month,next January,next Monday etc.

What even got me thinking as highlighted in my answers are; Who sets and determines this arbitrary timelines and targets we set ourselves? Why 12 books? Why must financial goals be set only at the beginning of the year ? Why a summer body?

Now don’t get me wrong I totally get SMART( Specific,Measurable Attainable,Realistic and Time bound) goals. One of the key elements of what I do for a living is getting people to measure and get better at performance.And you need tangible quantifiable outcomes to measure progress.I would never knock having short long and medium goals.

What I learnt though as a recovering procrastinator and perfectionist ( yup recovering as I am still a work in progress) is that nothing works for me like DOING (well most things) NOW. All my planning,journals,to do lists,online courses etc were often another excuse to defer taking action. I was always searching for ‘perfect’ conditions.

After writing so many failed ‘start exercising’ at the beginning of every year, I decided to start walking at least 20 mins, 3 to 4 X a week in June 2015. I didn’t for about a week and stared at it every morning.I woke up one morning and decided ‘Oyinda just walk NOW’ today not tomorrow NOW’.And then I did .And the next day. And the next. And I wanted to stop because it was hard but I had started so I couldn’t stop. Then I started running. And then I started strength training.Its July 2019 and since that day in June 2015, i have built up the exercising habit to at least 5 times a week 90% of the time.All because I decided to do it NOW.

I would say ‘I’ll pray or be praying for you’ when you someone shared something with me.Sometimes I would and a lot of times I wouldn’t . This is because again I was waiting for that ‘perfect’ time you know when the all prayer paraphernalia is complete . Like God is not omnipresent and omniscient.And one day I read an article that talked about flipping ‘I will pray for you’ to ‘Can we pray now’ where possible (I know it’s not always possible to pray immediately ). A 5 minute prayer uttered now is always better than a 1 hour prayer that never happened.

I could go on and on.This principle has worked for so many other things in my life. You are reading this blog because I woke up one day in April this year and wrote a blog post. I had been writing ‘start writing regularly’ for 2 years consecutively in my planner and never actually did until one day I said,NOW.

I tend to be quite good at keeping my word both to people and to myself so if I start something, I would most likely continue or finish. My biggest issue was and still continues to be STARTING.

Now is always a good time to start for most of us.Not just to say yes but also to say no. No more(or less) fizzy drinks, no sugar,less tv etc . Just stop or start it NOW.

The person we are going to become is always as a result of the things that we say yes or no to NOW. So yes it’s the 7th month of the year,but nothing says you can’t start NOW. The 1st of January is the same 24 hours as the 16th of July.

I hope reading this has challenged you to start or stop something that you might have been postponing for a while. Start with 10 mins, 1 mile,1 page, one less tea spoon etc . You just might be surprised at the progress you would have made in the next couple of months.

Thank you for reading as always and please do comment and share.

Have a lovely Tuesday and week ahead.

Much love

Oyindamola

Photo credit : Pinterest

Radio is and was my thing.Growing up in Nigeria,I remember falling asleep listening to Cool FM,Rhythm FM as radio was the one medium of entertainment that you could always count on (let’s not go into why). Discovering podcasts on my iPod was such a natural progression as it felt like I got to choose what radio programmes I wanted to listen to with just a tap. Initially it was just sermons and then I discovered that there were so many other educational and entertainment podcasts out there.

If you follow my Instagram page you would notice that I have highlights with podcast recommendations . These are episodes of podcasts that I have listened to and rate highly. I have a lot of podcasts in my library and listen to them on 2 platforms -Apple podcasts and Spotify. There are select ones that I tend to listen to quite regularly and thought to share some of them and why. They are not listed in any particular order as they cover a wide range of topics.

I love this podcast as the discussions & interviews are around some of my favourite subjects which are faith,theology,social justice,politics,inequality and social mobility. It’s always very hard to find platforms that want to discuss all these issues and how they intersect (social justice & faith especially )so I can’t tell you how refreshing it to have discovered this podcast.

This podcast discusses socioeconomic issues from a slightly different slant and perspective. It is a spin-off of the book ‘Freakonomics’ .I love how it challenges you to question to question some of those widely held beliefs that we tend to assume are always right.A particular episode on Parenting was both hilarious and very insightful.

This podcast is such an easy way to listen to Ted Talks. They are bite sized and can last from between 5 to 20 mins. TED talks are ideas driven powerful talks that cover a wide range of topics from science,technology,entertainment,business& global issues.I really love how engaging the speakers are and how they are able to pass across their ideas in ways that are relatable to everyday life. I love it so much that one of my best books last year was ‘Talk like Ted’ by Carmine Gallo. I used to be so terrified of public speaking so watching Ted speakers do it effortlessly is something I really admire.

What makes this even more enjoyable is the fact that I know the host,Olawunmi Brigue in real life. She is such an amazing bible teacher . I love this podcast as she often uses bible stories or bible characters to teach practical life lessons that anyone can apply to their lives.

This podcast by Todd Henry is also another one that is a spin off from a book with the same name (yeah I can see the trend but I am also a book lover LOL). I love this podcast as it shares practical, everyday tips on how to get better especially for people who are in creative spaces/industries. And if you read my blog,We can all be creative you know I think that everyone can be creative.

These two naija Goats(they actually call themselves that LOL) are my friends in my head. Hilarious,serious,insightful, relatable,scripture,proverbs and doses of the awesome naija accent are all the things you get when listening to Jesus & Jollof. I love the vibe and camaraderie that these two exemplify as they defy the stereotype that women (esp black women) can’t work together and be good friends.

Another one by a Nigerian.Yes I am biased lol.Jokes apart though,this podcast by Nigerian rapper Eldee is one that dissect wide range of issues that are so relatable for those of us brought up in Nigeria but now live in the diaspora. He did a series on Cognitive Biases that i absolutely recommend .

This is another regular by Christian blogger, Lisa Hensley. It’s a favourite as it talks about practical day to day issues and topics from the Bible on how we can become better disciples of Jesus Christ. The earlier episodes were co hosted by Phylicia Masonheimer another bible blogger whose core ministry is making theology and bible study attractive for and to women.

The above listed podcasts are in no way the only podcasts that i listen to or recommend. I am trying to make my blog posts shorter, and would need so much space to write about all of them . Maybe I’ll do a ‘Podcasts 2 or 3’ blog post sometime in the future.

As always thank you for reading,please do read share and comment and also recommend any podcasts as I am always curious to listen to new ones.

Have a lovely Tuesday and week everyone.

Much love

Oyindamola

Podcast Image credits- Apple podcasts and Spotify

Until recently, I had always mixed up sympathy and empathy. I am a Nigerian and we have very emotive ways of showing our emotions and sorrow for others.You only need to see someone a funeral ( who hardly knew the person who died) wailing at the loudest decibel to understand what I am talking about. We even have accepted sounds like ‘eeyah’ to convey the sorrow we are feeling.

In the last couple of years though I began to observe that pity or sympathy can be detached . I started being more intentional both as a result of my faith and also general introspection and realised that both emotions (though similar) are not the same.

The dictionary definition of sympathy I found states that it is feeling compassion, sorrow, or pity for the hardships that another person encounters

Empathy on the other hand  is the capacity to understand or feel what another person is experiencing from within their frame of reference, that is, the capacity to place oneself in another’s position.

So while having pity is great, the ability to go further to picture yourself in that person’s actual position is one that we all struggle with. We can be sad at the washed up or malnourished child on the TV, but the emotion begins to take on a different dimension, if you could see either yourself or your child in a similar situation.

I  love learning/reading about Martin Luther King ( currently reading one of his books) and this saying really resonated with me regarding this subject;

“Pity may represent little more than the impersonal concern which prompts the mailing of a check, but true sympathy is the personal concern which demands the giving of one’s soul.” – Martin Luther King Jr.

I think MLK was referring to the fact that can pity can sometimes be impersonal or perfunctory.I am very passionate about giving back as I believe that the resources,gifts, privileges, talents, skills  that we have  are not just for us. 

I know that we are all called  to give back and make our little corner or the world at large a better place. Sometimes though, I find that giving back motivated by solely pity allows for charity or altruism that is paternalistic. In simpler words, sometimes the charity or giving back is from a place of superiority with a dose of condescension. It allows us have a saviour/hero complex and sometimes makes us believe that we have the best answers and know what is best for whoever it is we are helping.

A practical example I can think of is when people automatically assume that the only thing/help that a homeless person needs is food. You find people saying with authority that the only  thing that they can ever give a homeless person is food. And I get it because I also used to say that. My main concern always used to be ‘ I don’t want them using my money to buy drugs or alcohol’. But as a human being just like me, I started asking myself if the only form of sustenance I need in life is food? Man shall not live by bread alone and all. 

Yes I might be privileged not to be/ have been homeless but what right do I have to think that the only help that the man/woman on the street  corner deserves is food? What if no one has actually held a conversation or noticed him/her in weeks? Or even just smiled and acknowledged his/her humanity? And this is not in anyway denying that some homeless people are alcoholics or drug addicts.

It just means that despite that struggle, there still is a human being in there somewhere. So even  though my motivation is compassion when I insist that the only thing I can give is food, I have decided that I am better( since I am not an addict) and because of that I definitely know what their needs are.

So as MLK said earlier just writing a check,dropping a coin often helps us feel better about ourselves.Empathy requires going a bit further, as its not often not possible to be detached from the object or person we are empathising with. To effectively empathise with another human being , I need to have at least some insight into who he/she is,what he is doing or trying to do and sometimes why they are doing it. Their struggles might be different from mine but ultimately we are all Gods image bearers.

Below are a couple of tips that can help with practising empathy:

1. Your knowledge is not always the first thing to share– This saying (don’t know who by)  brought this home for me- ‘No one wants to know how much you know until they know how much you care’. A lot of times especially for over sharers like me( I  know that I can be a know it all sometimes,I am working on it) the impulse is to automatically jump to letting that person know what they can do to get out of their situation.  Just STOP and let the first thing you do be letting them know that you care. Sometimes that is worth more than all the knowledge in the world. You can share knowledge later and this is often better received as they know that it is coming from a genuine desire to help.
2. Just Listen-  This seems so easy, but it so hard. Again it is similar to tip 1 as sometimes you just want to share how much are agonising over what the person is going through. Sometimes, though, not listening means that you jump to solutions or say things that could even further add to the hurt when all the person needed at the time was just someone who would listen to them without judgement.
3. Please don’t say ‘What about’–  Ok you can guess from my tone here that is probably a pet peeve. There are no ‘struggles Olympics’ so I don’t get why people always feel the need to pull up another type of struggle/suffering when one is being discussed/shared. Its often sense a need to rank struggles on a gold, silver and bronze scale. Now don’t get me wrong, I understand why people feel the need to do this. Some struggles have more dire consequences than some and there are some issues that are definitely more complex when compared with others. That said, I still feel that showing empathy means allowing a person to share and talk about their struggles without diminishing or projecting how you feel they should feel to them. I have really had to preach this to myself especially when my daughter is relating the issues from her school day ( I roll my eyes  as some children are thinking about how to get food and this one is upset about friends LOL) .I try to remember though that those issues seem small to me but mean a lot to her.This allows me pause, understand her emotions and acknowledge that she is also a person even if she is my child. So when next someone talks to you about their struggles,pls try not to say ‘ ‘but what about’. We know men also struggle but we are talking how a woman’s struggle here ( sorry I could not help it).
4. Involve the person/people you are helping( where possible)- Sometimes we treat recipients of our charitable deeds as subjects/objects rather than human beings like us. I really believe that help or charity should always be collaborative and extended with a dose of dignity. I added the clause where possible as I am aware  that this is not always possible. There are times when  issues surrounding vulnerability, capacity, costs, type of help required might mean that consultation is not always possible. However in instances where all or none of these extraneous factors are present, I think its always good to allow people have a say in how and where they can be helped. A lot of people want to empower less privileged people and automatically assume that they know HOW. Sometimes the HOW you propose might nor be where the strength’s of the person or community lies. 

An example of this; when I was growing up in Nigeria,people often decided to up-skill their domestic help. This was such a noble thing and lends itself to the teach a man to fish theory. However some of them automatically assumed what skills they felt would be best .These were often a tailor, hair dresser etc for the females, a mechanic, plumber or electrician for the males. The assumption being that as they are domestic help, the only skills that they could possibly be good at are the vocational skills.

Now this is not to say that these skills are not important ( they really are) but my point was more about the assumption that these skills were always the right fit. Maybe if asked, some could have said, I would rather learn how to bake as I have an interest in cooking. Or I want to learn building.

For this reason I think that charities should ALWAYS work with people who are already in the community ( living, working, schooling) as they better understand what is needed and what would work best for the beneficiaries.  I think recognising a persons ability to know themselves is a way you can show that you see them and accord them the dignity that all humans deserve.

I hope that this somehow resonates with you .The world definitely requires more empathy. I am thankful that you have taken the time to read my  random musings.Please do comment, share and like.

Have a lovely Tuesday and week ahead.

Much love

Oyindamola

 Quotes/Picture credits- Pinterest