Which of these do you have more in your family?

Fights, Quarrels, Malice, Anger, Hatred, Jealousy, Mistrust, Unforgiveness and Fear?

OR

Peace, Trust, Love, Humour, Happiness, Joy, Forgiveness, Friendship, Care and Togetherness?

There is no perfect family, every family experiences good and bad times. No matter what holds in your family, the bond you share with the people with whom you have gotten a great percentage of your features and attributes from, will always need to be made stronger.

Looking at the family as a support system, it is expedient that we make it stronger so as to stand the test of time. Parents as well as children have a part to play towards strengthening the family ties.

Gaining tips to achieve this will be of great benefit in this month of Love and always. Here are some amazing tips to help strengthen your family ties.

Tip #1

Respect: respect is reciprocal- this old saying is so true even when it comes to family life, having mutual respect for one another in the home is necessary in building a strong family. Children having respect for parents, husband and wife having respect for each other, parents respecting their children and children respecting one another. When there is respect in the home it creates an atmosphere of being thought of as important.

Tip #2

Express Love: actions speak louder than words. A lot of families love each other in their hearts but never express it with actions. Let there be no boundaries when it comes to expressing Love to your family. Saying I love you is important and adding actions to it makes it even better. Deliberately do things for each other and let it become a habit.

Tip #3

Do things together: some call it “family time”, making time to do things together as a family should not be downplayed. Let’s look at it this way, your family is the team you belong to and for you to win or score, you all have to work together. For your family to bond more, you have to do these more often: Laugh together, work together, eat together, play together, pray together, go for walks together, watch TV together etc.

Tip #4

Study each other: you may not have a Degree in Psychology but proximity affords you the opportunity to study your family members, at least the ones close to you. The reason for this is because the more you know about someone, the more you’ll better handle or live with such a person and vice versa.

Tip #5

Forgive easily: forgiving can be difficult sometimes but what unforgiveness does to you is even worse. So learn to forgive each other easily no matter what has happened, it might take a while but don’t let it take forever.

Tip #6

Treat your family specially: you are familiar with your family but that does not mean you should treat them with contempt as this is often the case. It’s sad to see people treat others better than they treat their own family members. this has to stop! Treat your dad, mom, brother, sisters and significant others specially. This will make your family stronger and knitted together.

Tip #7

Use kind words: some call it “magic word” every family has one or more, it may be “please”, “am sorry” “excuse me” or “can you?” these are polite  statements which express something positive to the receiving party. Use these and more kind words with your family, it will grow tenderness and kindness in your hearts.

Families are complicated yet wonderful and implementing these simple tips will help you strengthen your family ties. The beautiful thing is that it gets less complicated when you are knitted together in love.

“What can you do to promote world peace? Go home and love your family.”– Mother Teresa

You can join in our daily Love dare throughout the month of February by following @DrMorayoJimoh for more amazing updates.

It is said that poor planning precedes poor performance while proper planning prevents poor performance. We all want to achieve good results in life but not everybody is ready to do the needful- which is to plan properly. A plan is generally a diagram or list/outline of steps with timing and resources, used to achieve a desired goal. It is the road-map to achieving set goals. Having set your goals, you have to draw up a plan towards achieving each one of them. It’s like this; a goal is “what” you want to achieve while a plan is “how” to get the results! For instance, a student sets a goal to obtain a score of 90-100 % in his exams, he must be able to plan towards it strategically; he may decide to increase time spent studying, join study groups or get study aids so as to hit his target at the end of his exams. If your target is to lose some weight, you may need to draw up a weight loss plan like substituting unhealthy foods for healthier ones, eating more fruits and vegetables adding more physical activities to your daily routine and exercising more often. More specifically, this plan must be drawn step by step.

10 Benefits of planning

• Planning helps to organize your thinking
• It literally tells you how to hit your target
• It keeps you motivated
• It reduces uncertainty
• It allows for better usage of your resources; it prevents wastage
• It highlights your goals and objectives making them clearer and more specific
• It keeps you focused on the desired outcome
• It allows more creativity and increases your effectiveness
• It helps to save time and money
• It eliminates frustrations accompanied with not meeting unrealistic goals

Keep in mind that you always end up wasting a lot of time trying to fix things when they go wrong as a result of failing to plan properly. All that can be avoided with proper planning on how to achieve your set goals. You’ll be amazed at its effectiveness.

Setting goals can be tiring for some especially with a past record of unachieved goals while for others, it may seem rather easy. A goal is simply what you want to achieve within a given time frame; within some hours, days, weeks, months or even within a year. It can be short term which implies that the results will be gotten within a short period of time or long term with a longer period of time to get desired result. Goal setting requires a conscious effort on our part and usually starts by first visualizing the desired results in our minds by seeing ourselves being or having what we desire. For example;

Take a few seconds to visualize how much you would like to have as savings at the end of this year,

or that desired weight you would like to get to, or maybe the level you want to rise to in your career

or that car or house you so desire to have…

Now you see, this makes you want to get there! Of course you can if only you move further to the other steps of breaking down the big picture you see to smaller and more specific goals, then write down each goal making sure it is measurable, attainable, relevant/realistic and time bound.

Here are 5  “more” ways to achieve your desired results

You can make a conscious decision to be:

1. More positive: believing in yourself is necessary to be able to achieve anything. If you are negative towards yourself, how can something positive come out of you? Even if you have failed at a lot of things, there are still positive sides you can focus on. Improve on yourself by being more positive this year and it starts with “I CAN” in this sense, your goals should also be framed in positive terms. Make use of affirmative statements like; “I can achieve this in 3 months”, “I can become more positive” and “I can be more productive in my career”
2. More open: being more open to experience will help you become more imaginative, creative and sensitive to others with new ideas and innovations. No man is an island, therefore we are interdependent on one another. Achieving your goals will definitely require meeting with people that have achieved similar objectives, going to places and maybe even helping others achieve their own goals.
3. More organized: the more dis-organized you are, the more difficult it will be to get your desired results. Being more organized involves putting things in order and putting yourself in order too. Having good time management skills is necessary to becoming more organized. Also, having a daily to-do list which should include short breaks will go a long way to achieving your set goals with every passing day.
4. More self-rewarding: we all like to be rewarded for doing something that is expected of us, however rewarding ourselves is necessary as it helps build self-esteem and more self-confidence. Having set the goals you want to achieve, it is very important you reward yourself once a goal or task is accomplished by simply giving yourself a thumbs-up, praising yourself, taking a short break or even giving yourself a treat!
5. More mindful: mindfulness is being fully aware of the present moment, fully accepting it without judgment. It involves paying attention to your thoughts, feelings and emotions HERE and NOW. It also involves deep breathing and calming techniques. Being more mindful will help filter away distractions and interruptions to enable you focus and achieve calmness. It is a powerful tool in goal setting from start to finish and in every step of the way towards getting your desired results.

To learn more about mindfulness, kindly visit www.mobilehealthconsult.org