11 POWERS.

As committed, hoping to keep up with this pace. New mini book is UP. And I think I love the title. 11 POWERS.. As I was enlisting them down, I was looking to see how I can maintain an odd number, funny right. I just thought of how the number 11 would be striking and attention worthy.

The views and opinions of this narrative have been collected over a period, the content gathered is majorly from my own interactions, my own life’s experiences, interviews from other people, friends, colleagues, family members and the internet.

Lastly, I am dedicating this beautiful narrative to my two favourite humans, my Sons Ivan and Keith. My dears, as you grow up, try as much as you can to live your life by these powers if you can, because there are things that are never taught in school that only the world can teach. And as your mum, I would be more than happy to write down something for you that you can keep referring to as a guide even as you face life.

1. POWER OF FEEDBACK.

Do we ask for feedback? Do we give feedback? Do we receive feedback? That is how I am introducing this piece. I read somewhere that “feedback is not advice, praise or an evaluation, but rather information about how one is doing in an effort to reach a goal”.

Feedback is information, and this information can come from anyone and given to any person at any time. In structured places like offices, feedback is given to employees on how they performed in their tasks, either on a defined schedule like monthly, quarterly or even yearly. People in leadership also receive feedback on their leadership styles, their approach to leading and how they offer support to their team. In other unstructured set ups too, there are channels of how feedback is given. For example, in a home setting, parents can give feedback to their children on how they behaved, equally children can give feedback to their parents on how they behaved. Teachers and students too can give each other feedback as well as people in relationships too.

People are accustomed to expecting feedback from superiors, forgetting that the reverse can happen where they can give feedback back to them too. Just because they could be of higher ranking doesn’t mean that they should not receive feedback from their juniors. In fact any leader looking to grow themselves and others should be open to receiving feedback even more.

Feedback may be in different types, from:

• Positive feedback
• Negative feedback
• Immediate feedback
• Delayed feedback
• No feedback
  All these are types of feedbacks that we either give or receive from time to time.

Positive feedback is constructive feedback, or constructive information given to someone or received, and it’s mostly given for the purposes of encouragement and improvement.
Negative feedback takes the form of criticism, which at times may not be taken kindly by the one receiving it. It may carry with it emotions that if not addressed promptly, it may result into resentment from the recipient. However, mostly those who take negative feedback as constructive criticism learn even better than those who don’t.
Delayed feedback, may come after some time, maybe after some evaluation has been done, or after some investigation or assessment so as to give the correct outcome. No feedback, is also feedback. If nothing was communicated or if no information was received after putting in some effort towards something then it means that maybe there was just nothing spectacular about what you did, or the person might have forgotten to communicate.

What is the importance of feedback?

It’s important to give feedback or to receive feedback always because feedback is what everyone expects after they have done something so that they may know their areas of progress or challenges. Feedback helps to motivate, to encourage someone like a pat on their back, to make them keep going. Constructive feedback also helps one to make major improvements at something too because it highlights what needs to be done or amended to get a future quality outcome. Feedback is also a tool that is important to encourage continuous learning. It helps one to get an assurance that they are doing the right thing or highlights to them what changes they need to make in order to achieve a better result.

When do we give feedback?

We give feedback at any time all the time because feedback is always around us every day. Of great importance is noting that before giving feedback one needs to ask permission to give it out. Asking for permission gives the one receiving the feedback an opportunity of having an open mind of accommodating the message giving them a chance to work on how to act as opposed to reacting on it especially if its negative feedback.

One great lesson about giving feedback is that for it to be effective it should be given to the intended person directly. We don’t give feedback through a third party but rather to the person who is meant to receive it that way it becomes effective. Have you ever been in a situation where you could be passing over feedback through someone and they end up telling you why don’t you tell them yourself? It’s because of that, whoever gets to give the feedback is as important as the feedback itself because that way, it becomes more impactful to both the one giving and the one receiving and may not be perceived as just gossip. Lastly to ensure the effectiveness of that feedback, give it as it is without sugar coating, because sugar coating will be doing a disservice to the person receiving as they may not be able to improve the way they should since it lacked proper information.

Application:

At a personal level, I receive feedback from time to time especially with my creative work from both my cake work and my writing work. I usually get feedbacks of all nature from the cake was very nice keep up the great job to, there was too much cream on the cake or too much sugar next time reduce the amount of sugar for me. I take all of it as it comes both the positive and the negative. Negative feedback will come in as a form of criticism and how I take it is usually for the purposes of learning and improving. For example, there was a client who once told me about reducing the amount of frosting on the cream cakes, so with this feedback whenever I am decorating a cake I am conscious to not overdo it. Another one also advised me on how I should work on my writing in terms of shortening my sentences to make them readable friendly and I promised to work on that. Whenever I receive a negative feedback I usually take some time to read through the feedback given and ask myself , from this feedback what do I intend to achieve and then from there I make the necessary changes and ensure that the application of those changes improve my skills.

2. POWER OF COMMUNICATION

Communication means, passing of a message from one person to another. For any effective communication, there must be the giver of information and the receiver of the information. Once the message is received by the recipient and understood, it therefore means that the message was clear and hence the parties involved can be said to be communicating. Communication also means how do you dispense information from yourself to another person. Also, communication can mean the expression of feelings, or ideas to another person in a clear and understandable manner. It is simply a way of saying what is in your mind or heart to the intended recipient.

Communication and feedback stem from the same tree. These two-work hand in hand because they are used together or one could be as a result of the other e.g., you communicate to give feedback, or you give feedback as a way of passing information. Giving feedback is the end chain of any communication channel meaning when you are giving someone feedback about something, then you are communicating and if you don’t give it when you ought to, you are not communicating. In the previous power we discussed about the importance of giving feedback or obtaining feedback and here we get to see why feedback plays an important role in the communication channel.

Importance of Communication

Communication is important everywhere, right from any formal setting to informal. By formal I mean anything work related like the office or a company setting whereas informal is anywhere that has a social set up like family, couple relationships, church etcetera. What communication does is that it:

• Brings people together, by making them tolerable towards each other
• Bridges the gap between people, by embracing diversity
• Promotes peace because people can reach an understanding.
• Communication also encourages preparation. As we discuss communication and its importance, it’s also worth noting that communication may not be as easy as it ought to be because often people also fail to communicate. This can be due to reasons known to themselves, or by them not knowing that they should communicate. Failing to communicate when you should many a times may lead to uncertainties. For example if your boss does not communicate that you will be expecting salary cuts what happens when you now receive your salary less the expected income, what happens to your bills, at least that could have prepared you for the next step of action. Failure to communicate also causes several issues including;
• Uncertainties.
• Inconveniences.
• Being in the dark.
• Unable to make decisions.
• Lack of respect.
• Anger.
• Insubordination.

Who communicates?

Anyone and everyone should learn how to communicate regardless of who they are. In fact, I believe we are just mandated by laws of nature to communicate clearly to anyone deserving information. A friend wrote this somewhere, “what lies between you and what you want is your mouth” I will interpret it this way ” what lies between you and what you want is COMMUNICATION. What this means is that no one will know what you want if you don’t say it and this is because ninety nine percent of the human race is not wired to be mind readers. Neither are they wired to be emotion interpreters. But they can act accordingly if they are aware of what they need to act on, and this can only happen if we communicate.

In our homes, as parents, children and partners, we can only get closer to one another if we are able to communicate well with each other. Talking to one another freely. And this communication is not only talking but by expression of our feelings, our interests or our needs. Children need to know what goes on in their homes and as parents it’s our duties to ensure that we communicate to our children often the way we would with fellow adults. As children we also need to learn how to communicate with our parents, and our teachers because it’s the only way they would know what it’s like to be in your shoes by telling them what you need.

How do we communicate?

How we communicate is also important just as the message being passed. For example, in our homes, if one spouse needs to communicate to their partner, they should do this directly with one another as opposed to say using their children as channels of communication. You can communicate through talking, by commenting, writing back, or giving response and this can only be effective if we choose to be open to sharing information. It can be as simple as telling the other person how they wronged you and this can only happen if you choose to use words to express your cries as opposed to choosing to get physical.

In the end, it’s also important to know that for communication to be complete, we must all complete the communication cycle where there must be the one passing the message, the message itself and the recipient of that message. At all times it’s important to ensure that as we communicate, this cycle gets completed for it to be fruitful. It’s like a circuit of communication. Also, communication also needs to be clear at all times implying that whatever message you are passing it needs to be understandable so as to avoid miscommunication or misinterpretations.

Application

As a young child, my mum always told me the importance of communication. She always insisted on knowing where I was going and if by any chance, I would foresee getting back home late I needed to communicate. It felt like tough rules and she could get offended when I didn’t and I would always tell her, but I was going to tell you. She always said it’s important to let someone know where you are such that even if something happens to you at that place people can come look for you because they knew you were there. Freaky but true. This made sense when I grew older because I understood why it was important to communicate. As an adult I have appreciated that clear communication reduces anxiety and uncertainties. this is because when you are in the know of something, it makes you feel important and acknowledged. On the other hand, lack of communication as I have come to learn, increases unnecessary insecurities that could be avoided if clear communication was done.

3. POWER OF GRATITUDE

What is gratitude?

What I had on my list as I was writing down the powers was appreciation instead, but then I felt like gratitude is much wider than appreciation. Also, by learning that appreciation is a part of gratitude so why not talk about gratitude instead.

Gratitude can be defined as many things, from my own individual understanding, “gratitude is the act of being grateful”

From the few reads I did prior to writing this down; I came across a few definitions.

• “Gratitude is a positive emotion or an affirmation of something,
• “ Gratitude is the small acts of acknowledging what and for whom you are grateful for“
• “Gratitude is an emotion that is evoked when one receives something”
• “Gratitude is a social emotion that signals our recognition of the things that have been done to us”
• “Gratitude comes from acknowledging that good things in our life come from external sources“

From the above descriptions, my understanding about gratitude and even explanations given by other authors is that, gratitude is not just an action, but rather an emotion or a feeling. That emotional feeling of being thankful is what is referred to as gratitude. When you show happiness or have this feeling of being grateful that you are alive, you are not ailing from any disease, you still have your sources of income amidst the pandemic, your businesses are still up and running despite the looming pandemic, then that is gratitude. Gratitude is a feeling that is evoked from happiness, or from being thankful or just being grateful.

Benefits of Gratitude

Sometimes we may find ourselves in situations where we ask what exactly do I have to be grateful for? How do I express gratitude? What is the importance of gratitude? Just because you may not have the most paying job or driving the most expensive of cars does not mean that you cannot express gratitude. In the little daily blessings, you may have that you experience each day, you can still express gratitude. Gratitude is being happy and content with your achievements, your possessions and not looking at what someone else has but just being thankful for the miles you have come. When you learn to be grateful:

• You become the happiest person.
• You can form new social relations and even strengthen the already existing ones.
• Your general physical health and wellbeing improves.
• Your Psychological health improves.
• You become more empathetic
• You get to sleep better.

How do you Practice Gratitude?

There are several ways of expressing gratitude and different studies have come up with these simple methods that can help us practice gratitude;

• You can start a gratitude journal where you can be writing down the things you are grateful for, a journal that you can write frequently either daily, weekly, or monthly that you can be reviewing from time to time to remind you of the beautiful things life has offered you.
• You can make a gratitude jar, whereby you can get an empty jar, write down notes of gratitude, throw those notes into the jar and you can open this jar maybe end of the year, or beginning of the year to see the things that you were grateful for the previous year.
• The other way to practice gratitude is by writing letters to yourself, letters of thankfulness, letters of appreciation, letters of gratitude, and these letters you can even write them to someone else and tell them that you are grateful for their being around, or how they helped you out of a situation.
• You can also try to imagine a different life from what you have. Say a life of deprivation. You can do this by putting yourself in the shoes of people who may be lacking something. Or simply ask yourself what if I didn’t have the job I have today, the house I live in today, the children you have or even the family you have how would my life be? When you imagine this deprivation, it can be a reminder to you that all you own today, you really ought to be very grateful for. There are several ways of practicing gratitude and you can only find what works for you. I came across some nice gratitude quotes:

• Feeling gratitude and not expressing it is like wrapping a present and not giving it.
• Gratitude turns what we have into enough.
• You can either be angry for what you don’t have or be thankful for what you have.

You can use the below links to read more on gratitude as it is a wide and a diverse topic and while at it take the gratitude quiz to check yourself and see if you are indeed a grateful person or you maybe need to work on that.

https://www.lifehack.org/873297/what-is-gratitude

https://positivepsychology.com/gratitude-appreciation/

https://greatergood.berkeley.edu/quizzes/take_quiz/gratitude

Application

There was a time my son was being fussy, he needed to watch the television and he was being extra needy with it instead of focussing on his eating. At that time my husband was feeding him, and the boy was somehow dictating what he needed to watch and how he should do both activities knowing very well that wouldn’t work. It was a bit of a tussle and my husband snapped and he angrily told him ” hey listen this is not an entitlement but a privilege” From where I was listening , I felt like the boy needed to have some gratitude lessons , that he is even living in a home that has that television to watch some kids of his age don’t. I admit we own it to make our lives comfortable but that shouldn’t act as an entitlement to warrant that tussle, they were having. So I purposed to train him even as he grows older that he always needs to be grateful and thankful for what he has and to embrace the power of gratitude.

4 POWER OF ADAPTING

In my understanding, adapting is agreeing to change. Being flexible to fit into new ways of doing things or conforming into new ways of living too. Mostly we adapt into situations brought about by change, or we adapt because we cannot change our situations. Adapting is simply being flexible enough to change from doing things the way we have been doing and picking up new ways of doing the same things. Adapting can also mean fitting in, or ways of coping with new situation.

Due to life’s uncertainties, we may be forced to conform into new ways of doing things. A very good relatable example is the current pandemic. We are all exposed to it and its effects and as a result of that we have been forced to live in ways that we never did before. Who would have thought that masks would turn out to be life saviours, and that they are not just meant to be used by medics but even commoners like you and me for the purposes of protection. Being seen without a mask in open places these times is like one trying to hand themselves over for a suicide mission. We have gotten used to it, we wear the masks diligently because we know and understand the implications of not wearing one. Also, we have accepted the fact that masks reduce our chances of contacting covid amongst the other precautions.
Equally in matters adapting, people have been accustomed to working from home as it is now accepted to be the new norm where both employers and their employees have found ways of working around it. We have also witnessed the risen usage of technology which has helped people conduct online meetings and even online classes. We have learnt that it’s not necessary to have physical meetings we can always do then virtually, and that technology is actually not as bad because that is what has enhanced this new life. Through this adaption, people have also devised ways of working whereby people have learnt about acquiring skills on getting new sources of income because in one way or the other their main incomes were affected with either companies shutting or downsizing, businesses shutting down etcetera.

Adapting to change is not as easy as it may sound. In a bid to adapting, we may face lots of resistance, both internally and externally because we just don’t want to change. In the process of adapting we need to flexible, have a lot of acceptance to the current changes and at the same time be open minded. When you are open minded, you leave a lot of room to battle the fears that may come with the change, we are able to battle the resistance that may hinder us from accepting the changes happening around us. When we refuse to accept and adapt, this resistance may eventually see us batting even bigger negative things that may arise from the change, like depression.

There are circumstances that call for adaptation and these may happen to anyone at any time or where we may find ourselves in situations, we think we cannot recover from. These situations could be either internally caused or externally inflicted. With covid happening, we have seen a lot of people we know looking for new ways of getting incomes especially those whose incomes was directly impacted. Some even fell into merciless arms of depression where it resulted them into doing things that they never thought they would just to get them by. People were beaten to their knees and the only thing that would matter at that time is just choosing to rise up. Just as the saying goes, it doesn’t matter how you fall, what matters is how you rise up and how you rise up is what is called adapting.

• Ways of Adapting
  Talking about your problems often instead of bottling things up because you may never know who has the solution.
• Focusing more on your values rather than your fears this helps you to easily navigate through to your new way of living.
  Accepting the past that it actually happened, but also choose to fight for the future, and a better one for that matter.
• Not expecting stability immediately as things may take a while before they normalize
• Changing your mindset and viewing things from a different perspective.
• Letting go of regrets simply let by gone be by gone.
• Stay positive.
• Set new goals.
• Staying connected being in touch.
• Talk more.

Places where one may be required to adapt, may vary. One can adapt to changes happening in their homes, their family situation, where if there are changes in the family’s sources of income it may require them to adapt into living differently from the norm. This can be either by cutting down expenses or reduce unnecessary luxuries. We can also adapt to changes in our workplaces where there could be the imposition of new rules that may require people to work differently. Also, there may be a new management that may bring along with them a new set of rules that people may be required to conform to. The bottom line should be always how do we quickly adapt to these changes, the easier it is for us to bounce back up the easier it is to move on. Even though some changes may be uncomfortable somehow life has its ways of giving us the strength to quickly fit into that new norm. The quicker we can adapt to any change, the quicker we are able to move on and forge forward without reminiscing how things used to be but rather how they will be.

Application.

Growing up, we lived in the city but because of life’s circumstances we had to move to a place much further from it, and unfortunately that move was not welcomed by me. I remember how I found solace in staying in school, how I would skip going home for mid-term breaks just because of that move. It was difficult to understand why we moved and as a teenager at that time it was not easy adapting to a new environment. I was affected by it and I didn’t know, my grades even dropped at that time, one of my teachers who noticed that something was amiss, and she called my mum to find out if there was any change at home. Indeed, we admitted that the move was quite a significant change and when I opened, I was able to get help through counselling. I was made to see how important that move was, not just for my mum but even for me and the rest of the family and I think from there things changed for the better for me. It was a bit uncomfortable at first, but I had to adapt to the changes and as soon as I accepted the change, things continued to get better and I grew to love my new home even made new friends.

5. POWER OF CONSISTENCY

This power happens to be my best power yet, even as I write about it, I am all smiles. What exactly does it mean to be consistent? In my own definition I can say that:

Consistency is the discipline of doing the same thing over and over to achieve a certain desired result.

How you define consistency may vary from person to person but overall, the meaning of it is that there has to be some repetitive effort of doing something in order to maintain a certain standard or record, or in order to get a certain desired result. There are things that we choose to do deliberately in order to meet certain standards and these things in the long run add up to making one become consistent. When you are consistent at something it’s even easy to predict the outcome of your effort because even the result is expected.

Why you should be consistent

At this point I may not be fully certain whether consistency is a value that everyone lives by, but I believe that to be consistent at something indicates that you are disciplined. When you are consistent it means that you live by certain principles of life year in year out, or even in the application of how you do things, they are done in a certain defined manner. An example is if a child has been performing well, right from their lower years all through to their upper years it implies that they have been consistent in their performance. That consistency gives the child at an upper hand at being handpicked for opportunities like awards or even scholarships. Being consistent at their schoolwork makes them even get picked for leadership opportunities. Consistency in a way also allows for good favouritism because after all the outcome is somehow predicted. So, whenever you see kids being recommended for certain opportunities it only implies that their consistent good behaviour has been observed over time.

Consistency applies in different areas of our lives, in our businesses or our offices. How we often communicate with one another can show whether there is consistency or erratic. People will feel much better or comfortable when they know that there are systems in place that applaud consistency. Consistency could be in the way we give feedback; do we always follow a certain rhythm or do we give feedback as and when we remember. Consistency in areas of work show dedication and love for the work you do, because you are trying to maintain certain levels of standards. People are also happy wanting to work with you because your work has over the time shown elements of consistencies that can be accounted for. Being consistent is as simple as being in a commitment at something. A Commitment that you will continue offering the same services for as a long as you do the business.

Consistency also enables one to keep working even harder to ensure that the same standards are maintained throughout. It does not have room for compromising on the quality of services or goods produced because that could be the reason people have opted to engage in business with you.

Application

I have always been a firm believer that there are things that speak greatly about someone, and one of them is consistency. Consistency breeds originality which always make you to stay accountable. I always enjoy writing and I purposed to create a certain rhythm for it in terms of how I do my articles. A weekly short article, a monthly long blog and a quarterly mini book. At times I usually wonder whether I am capable of keeping up with that commitment, but then I remind myself that this commitment is not just mine to keep but rather for the people who are always anticipating reading. The same methodology applies to my chefing work. I have tried to maintain a weekly brunch update, ensuring my confectionery signature style is evident in all my cakes and maintain the uniqueness in my flavours. This consistency always keeps me on my toes to ensure that I don’t go below what I have been able to create for myself and to keep delivering as per expectation.

6 POWER OF POSITIVE ATTITUDE

In my list, what I had quoted was just attitude, but I ended up thinking that attitude can either be positive or negative and what I would wish to discuss more was the positive attitude.

What is a positive Attitude?

In my own understanding, I would define positive attitude as;

The mindset of choosing to believe that everything will always work out for the better”

What it means by having a positive attitude is, believing that everything will be fine, or everything will be okay. Positive attitude is choosing to believe that all will turn out just fine. You may have realised that I used the word choice. Because it must be a choice to always choose things on a positive light, a good light that nothing could go wrong. Attitude is a perception, an opinion or simply your view about life in general. Sometimes not everything would lean towards the good side, but you just must make the choice to believe that everything will work out as planned.

A positive attitude is a symbol of hope. At times, hope is just what we need to enable us face through tough times. A positive attitude will remind you to always be grateful for the small successes that come your way. A positive attitude will equally influence your successes, because you have chosen to believe that good things will come your way. Having a positive attitude is what you need in order to pass through certain storms with the assurance and peace that the storm is soon going to clear.

A positive attitude always gives you peace. Peace in the knowledge that no matter what happens you are still going to emerge successful. A positive attitude is literally choosing to believe that there is light at the end of the tunnel. A person who has a positive attitude is always optimistic and when you are optimistic, you are always looking forward to things working without anything going wrong . I came across this quote that:

“The only disability of life is a bad attitude”

A bad attitude is as good as a disability meaning that it cripples you out of your abilities to function normally. A bad attitude will always throw you off balance, making you unable to pay attention, making your mind and focus to drift away. You are always living on the edge with the constant worry that something will always go wrong. You are always worried that no good may come out of what you are doing. A negative attitude weighs you down because you are always constantly thinking of negative outcomes supposedly coming your way. Imagine you are driving your car through a storm or heavy rain and all you are thinking about is how that car will be washed away by the waters as opposed to thinking that the storm will clear and you will arrive safely to your destination, that is what a negative attitude does to us.

Another example I came across is people who respond to things like this; Let’s say you greet someone good morning , and all they could respond is by saying, what is so good about this morning? clearly even the rest of their day may end up being as crappy as that response. They have already seen the worst of that day even before it began. Such people are constantly oozing bad energies and surrounding yourself with them will make you lose your own sense of positivity and hope.

I found these links very insightful about ways of developing positive attitude either at work or life in general that you can read along try and see whether you can apply the lessons outlined by the various authors in your day to day.

https://wheniwork.com/blog/18-simple-ways-to-keep-a-positive-attitude-at-work

21 Ways to Create and Maintain a Positive Attitude

Application.

I remember two scenarios, one was when growing up, my mum always taught me to always choose to see the good light in people even when they didn’t deserve it. Why, because it keeps your heart at peace. Having a bad attitude towards people makes you not enjoy your God given time with them. A negative attitude makes you to be suspicious all the time and when you are always suspicious about someone it reduces your honest interactions with them. Another scenario was, when I first joined a sales consultant role about five years ago, during the coaching sessions my manager told me one thing that I have always remembered to date, and he said to me, Faith if you need to do this job well, if you need to survive in this role and excel, all you need to have is just a positive attitude. In a way that is the only statement I needed to hear at that time and I carried it with me throughout the years, the only statement that kept me going such that even as the month moved on and my sales numbers were not anywhere near target, I would still remain optimistic that something will come through and somehow it certainly just did.

7. POWER OF HONESTY.

Honesty is one of the virtues that we grew up knowing either by being told that we needed to be honest, or that we shouldn’t be dishonest. Honesty is simply telling the truth. Or the art of being truthful. When someone is honest, it means that they are simply straight forward, they are not corrupt, they don’t cut corners, they are people who believe in being straight at everything they do. Honest people have nothing to hide.

Everyone needs to be honest at everything they do, because honesty builds into reputation, reputation builds into self-esteem and character. People will also accord you respect when they know that you are an honest person. They will believe in what you are telling them because honest people always tell the truth and who wouldn’t want to have such an aura around them.

What happens when you are honest? You become more reliable. A reliable person is someone who can be accountable. They can work on their tasks diligently. An honest person will always vouch for truths. They will always want to speak highly of what they believe to be as true. Even so, at times it’s also not easy being honest especially when the people around you are busy cutting corners. Cutting corners could be providing substandard goods, selling fake items, being involved in fraudulent activities, taking sides with wrongdoing or even telling lies. Being honest helps you to stay truthful because, learning to be truthful gives one piece of mind in knowing that you are not at any crossroads with anyone.

Application

For me honesty speaks more about an individual more than their physique or their tone. When one is honest people will always want to come to you because you are a man of your word. Take a look at some people who operate shops, how do they weigh their items. Have you ever been in a situation where items are packed less than what they should, or say someone claiming to offer a service and then they don’t even show up for it imagine attending a wedding and the cake person doesn’t deliver the cake how would that event turn out to be? Another example would also be the online businesses where you get to see pictures of what was ordered Vs what was delivered implying that what was delivered is totally unworthy from what was displayed. Or situations where people pay up for services or goods and they end up not being delivered, so many examples where people are either being honest or dishonest in this world we live if. Being honest is generally living up to your word.

8 POWER OF PASSION.

What exactly does it mean to be passionate about something? Let alone someone. Being passionate about something is simply just being in love with something. True love. When you are in love with what you are doing, you can execute it with passion. And how you execute with passion will be revealed in the end results of whether the outcome is lovable or not.

Even though not everything can be executed passionately, it’s worth noting that passion is the game changer at achieving any good result. When you are passionate about something you are willing to devote not just time but emotion as well into ensuring that it gets done properly.

People aren’t always passionate about everything but for certain things and it’s those things that you find yourself being passionate about end up being executed effortlessly. You can be passionate about a subject in school maybe because it’s easy for you to understand and you are able to devote your time in ensuring that you give it your best and perform even better. You could also be passionate about your job where you find yourself always going the extra mile in ensuring that you give it your hundred and one percent to achieve the desired results. This can be observed in the way you handle your assignments, how you deliver on your targets or even how quick you complete your work. People who are passionate at certain projects in their lives end up performing even better at them compared to those things that they are not passionate about.

Passion also calls for devotion. If you are passionate at something, then you become devoted and committed at it. This is by ensuring that with everything you do, is done with complete dedication of achieving some visible results. The things that you do with passion you can even push yourself to do them even better than before because passion always goes the extra mile.

All said and done, when following your passion, there could be all manner of obstacles that may come your way to hinder you from pushing to deliver on your goals. All that is important knowing is that those obstacles shouldn’t hinder one from achieving what they set out their minds and hearts to, if anything, they should be the hurdles that you cross to get to the next step.

This power speaks to that individual who is looking to follow what their heart dictates or desires and to that person who puts their heart at something simply because they love doing it. Following your passion is following your dreams, following your dreams is following what your heart is after, and what your heart is after, is the comfort and peace in knowing that where your heart is where you are home and at home is where you are happiest the most.

Application

Personally, I am passionate about my hobbies. My cooking and my writing. Anyone who knows me personally and has had interactions with me, would know my love for these passions. There are those who know me from my baking, my brunch series and menu creation where I put in all my time and energy in. I am passionate about cooking because cooking speaks more of me than anything else hence my embedded name #chefsidi people ask whether I am truly a chef, I get those who even ask me where is my restaurant located et al.. I love creating recipes that don’t just dazzle me but my family and fans as well. I love exploring different things and even though they do back fire at times, I still explore or use that as a learning experience .My passion for writing too has been cropping up over the couple of years to recent months and weeks, hence even my devotion to writing this article.

9. POWER OF COURTESY.

While conducting research to put up this read, one of my friends defined courtesy for me as simply a PEST. PEST is an acronym that describes elements of courtesy;

• P-Please
• E– Excuse me
• S-Sorry
• T-Thank you

What it means by being courteous is simply your ability to apply PEST in your day to day interactions. Someone who is courteous is labelled as well-mannered or well behaved. Someone who lives by certain defined principles of life. Principles of being a cultured being. Courtesy can be learned but there are not taught in school like how to be a courteous version of yourself, however some of the elements in it are, especially right from a young age. For instance;

When you need to borrow something or ask for something, using the word please says that you are humble. Humble enough to seek something kindly and not being aggressive about it with the feeling of being entitled.

When you need to interrupt someone or something in between a conversation, you need to be kind enough to excuse yourself to seek the other person’s audience in order to not seem as manner less or intrusive.

When you realise that you have done something wrong to someone by offending them in one way or the other, the best thing to do is simply say sorry. Sorry is a polite way of saying I didn’t mean to do it, I didn’t mean to offend you and by saying sorry also means you acknowledge the other person’s feelings that you have indeed done them wrong. Saying sorry doesn’t make anyone less of a person in fact what it does it makes you be the bigger sensible and responsible person.

When someone does something to you in kindness or gifts you something or even does a favour for you, the best thing you can do is appreciate them by saying thank you. Telling someone thank you means that you have acknowledged their gesture of goodwill and are happy with their token of kindness towards you.

Just like charity which begins at home, courtesy is something that one grows up knowing at an early age, as values instilled to us by our parents, our guardians or our teachers. These values help us into becoming better individuals which eventually help us grow into admirable adults. When we grow up we interact with people of different kinds, different worlds but the only thing that can make us interact better is when we are courteous with each other. A courteous person is a respectful person. Someone who is well behaved and full of mannerisms and these diverse interactions with other people can only count if we do them courteously and respectfully.

Application

As a parent I am always in awe whenever I encounter a well-behaved child. It not only speaks a lot about them but also their surrounding of upbringing. I ensure I train my children to practise even the simplest elements of being courteous like saying please when they need to request for something, saying thank you when they receive something or whenever something is done for them, like they can tell me ,mum please help me find my toy and I find it, they will always say thank you even the young one will say tenkyou😄.. Equally if they hurt someone, they need to learn to tell them sorry. Many a times when they even do things to piss me off, they will often say sorry as well. And that is just courtesy. When they keep growing older, I will also teach them to be respectful and obedient. My husband too always reminds me of how I need to be courteous especially on the road because you never know when you will need someone to express a similar gesture to you.

10 POWER OF AMBITION

What is ambition? Or what exactly does it mean to be ambitious?

In my own understanding, ambition is desire. The desire to achieve something great. Ambition also means having the drive to do something in order to achieve a certain desired outcome. Ambition is also determination. Determination to achieve a certain goal. Being ambitious also means being eager, being purposeful to achieve an objective or it can mean going the extra mile in order to see the results. There are so many ways of describing what ambition is.

Ambition is what sets people apart by differentiating them from the rest of the park. When you have a crowd of people working towards something, you are often most likely to pick out those who are ambitious from those who aren’t. They would either want to finish a task earlier than others, they would want to execute it even better than everyone, some may even go and ask for extra work just to get extra credits. However, there are people who don’t have the drive or desire of doing something extra. They are just there. They have nothing to work hard for or they probably are not in the business of overworking themselves because you know with ambition, you need to work extra harder than usual. They don’t have the desire to go the extra mile and are just okay being where they are. If you have such people in a crowd working together, you are also likely to pick out the non-ambitious, they would do just substandard work, complain even or not finish as per the deadline.

When you are ambitious, you are always looking out for opportunities of growth, excellence and reward. People who are ambitious are also self-reliant, confident, go getters. They believe in getting what their heart is after. Sometime too much ambition may also have negative effects which may create instances of over committal or greed. People who are over ambitious are people who want it all, and at times, they may end up doing things that are not so desirable to get what they are after. So, it’s important to be on the watch so as not to get too ambitious. As the saying goes; “Too much ambition killed man, and little ambition got him nowhere”. It’s important to strike a balance, have ambition but not too much and not too little.

Application.

From my own perspective, there are people who lack ambition, and they may lack it because they don’t have any goals they are working towards.
If you have set aside goals to see yourself achieve something of great desire to you, then with each strategy that you lay for yourself , that will be the ambition you will have to see you achieve that goal. Am I ambitious? Well, when I was listing down the 11 powers, a part of me thought that I may never come this far, I even thought of stopping at 5, but i kept going and going maybe because I also needed to prove to myself that I could write such a long read. There were those days I never felt like writing, or my mind was blocked, but somehow my ambition of seeing this 11 powers come to live, kept me going…now I have the desire to write a full book not one but several, and that’s where my ambition will lead me. So yes, I am ambitious.

11. POWER OF PRAYER

Application.

Finally, almost the end. I think I saved the best for last. Don’t you think so too. When I was working on this write up, I never believed I would get past the third power. But one thing I said quietly was, He who that started this work in me, will let me finish. And by His Grace, writing this power just gives me the assurance that indeed He truly heard my prayer. Almost two months later, as I draft this I can only give thanks to God for enabling me get here, for being able to pick up the story each time from where I left without losing track . That was His doing. I saved it for last because I believed that every power enlisted here can only be meaningful if you believe in prayer. If you believe that through God all things are possible then everything will work out for the best. You cannot follow through any of these powers without being prayerful.

Many a times, we put a lot of our faith in man, and we forget to put it in God. We do this at times unknowingly. We seek answers to our worldly problems from man and we forget to involve God in them. I have grown into being a believer of the power of prayer because as a young child that is what my Dad taught me. He told me one thing that I always remember each time, IF YOU NEED TO SEE THINGS WORK OUT FOR YOU, PRAY. That is what he taught me that is all he taught me. Even growing up, I have carried this too, believing that God is the overall, he blesses us all individually, and learning that one can get everything working out for them if they pray. Praying is asking and seeking. If things are not going right in my life, I always ask myself that one single thing, Have I prayed about it.

So much has been written about the power of prayer, lots of scriptures, books from many authors all over the continent ,whichever your religion, we all believe there is someone higher, someone Almighty who answers whenever we pray and after all Prayers answer everything.

One of my very good friends shared the below scriptures with me that I am putting down for you to reflect on:

Psalms 106 :1

Praise the Lord! Oh, give thanks to the Lord, for He is good! For His mercy endures forever.

Psalms 69:30

I will praise the name of God with a song And will magnify Him with thanksgiving.

1 Chronicles 16:8

Oh, give thanks to the Lord! Call upon His name; Make known His deeds among the peoples!
: 1 Thessalonians 3:1

For what thanks can we render to God for you, for all the joy with which we rejoice for your sake before our God,

Psalms 20:1

May the Lord answer you in the day of trouble; May the name of the God of Jacob defend you;

Psalms 20:2

May He send you help from the sanctuary, and strengthen you out of Zion;

Prov. 11:25
A generous person will prosper; whoever refreshes others will be refreshed.

THE BIBLE

I am happy to have written this. I purpose to keep on preaching these powers as simple basics of life. Hope someone learns a thing or two from this read.

Special dedication to my Family, Friends of Sidi, whom I constantly run to whenever I needed information to gather this material together. Feel loved, feel appreciated.

Gathered and compiled by Faith Sidi Mwangudza.

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