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Twisted in a Positive Way

~ A regular source of motivation through personal experiences interpreted to inspire the reader.

Twisted in a Positive Way

Tag Archives: motivation

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Return to Innocence 

08 Saturday Jul 2017

Posted by Chika Efobi in Motivation

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Tags

Amazon, Boss Bible, business, Doxa Publishing, enigma, entrepreneur, Entrepreneurship, excellence, inspiration, life, mindfulness, motivation, music, peace, Return to Innocence, TwistedinaPositiveWay, wisdom, writing


​Okay it is 5.24am here and I have been awake since 3am(ish). I woke up feeling a bit uneasy so I turned on one of my favourite songs “Return to Innocence” by Enigma. I remember it was my friend Okey who introduced me to the song back then in Nigeria when I used to sell customised  CDs and Laptops to “office people”. I must have been in my Undergrad Year 4 then (This “hustle” life has been me since time immemorial). Anyway, so I turned on the music and even though I have listened to this song countless of times, I was still struck by this part, “Don’t be afraid to be weak, don’t be too proud to be strong , just look into your heart my friend, that would be the return to yourself, a return to Innocence” and I sat back for a second or two and pondered.
A return to Innocence is a return to yourself, a return to who you have always wanted to be, a return to what you have always wanted to do with your life. I don’t have enough words to explain the lack of peace I felt throughout those years when I listened to noise from various sources including society about who I’m supposed to be or what I’m supposed to do, but my friends, if you are in anything or endeavour (I don’t care what it is) that does not give you peace you need to start the process of returning to yourself because life is too short to be living someone else’s life.
I actually told myself I wasn’t going to do a long post today but maybe someone out there needs this extra push to finally take that leap of faith to return to themselves.
I wish you a fulfilling weekend. Be good people 😘😘😘
Love,

Chika.
Ps: my new Book, Boss Bible is out if you are needing a bit more motivation, the link is in my bio or just type “Boss Bible” into Amazon. There is more where this came from. 😊😊😊😊

Update:

Jumia: https://goo.gl/4oDvSD.
Amazon US: https://goo.gl/tZIXEw.
Amazon UK: https://goo.gl/D1NXPc

Image credit: Quotefancy

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Out and About

02 Sunday Jul 2017

Posted by Chika Efobi in Motivation

≈ 2 Comments

Tags

author, Boss Bible, businesswoman, consciousness, Entrepreneurship, ideas, inspiration, life, motivation, paperweights, positivevibesonly, Quotes, sharedearth, tourist, TwistedinaPositiveWay, wisdom, writing, york, zen

IMG_20170702_060956_411

Okay…so yesterday, I was out and about with my friend discussing my new book Boss Bible (also type “Boss Bible” into Amazon)and you know…checking out the sights and sounds of York and I stumbled on to this store called @sharedearthuk which happened to come into my consciousness through someone i met earlier in the week. So I went in (of course) and saw the most amazing and inspiring pieces. I was just going “ohhhh”, “ahhh” throughout 😂😂😂😂🙄🙄🙄. I took pictures of some of the paperweights and let’s just say I will definitely be going back there (as an aspiring zen person) . Funny how The Principle of Recognition works because I have lived in this city for years and I have never seen this shop even though I must have walked past it a number of times. It was only after I met someone last week that I recognised and walked into it. Talk about good omens.

Ps: they didn’t have the paperweight I liked in my favourite colour purple, so I’m low-key pissed but hey. 😊😊😊😊

Have a fulfilling new week ahead.

Love,

Chika

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I Started with Water

05 Friday May 2017

Posted by Chika Efobi in Motivation

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Tags

author, fridaymotivation, ideas, inspiration, life, motivation, plant, thoughts, Twisted in a Positive Way, writing

i started with waterI was sitting at my desk this morning, about to start my day when I glanced at my gorgeous plant. It was given to me about 2 years when we were rounding off a project for a company I worked for.

I remember when Jane, my Manager gave me the plant. I was super clueless regarding what to do with it. I had very little experience with plants and till now, I don’t even know what it is called. Also, I was commuting to work so I wasn’t sure if I could handle the responsibility of taking care of another living thing (taking care of myself is difficult enough lol!).

However, I took it on. What was the worst that could happen? The plant would die and I would feel like a terrible person for a period of time. Right? Maybe. But, as time passed by, I kept caring for it (mainly watering it) but I didn’t feed it with food cos come on, I don’t even know the name of the plant so how would I know what plant food to use?

I have an orchid plant food for my orchid which I posted about some time ago, but I suspected that it may not work for “Plant Unknown”. Also, as a typical naija girl…emmm, we typically don’t have time to care for plants.

Long story short, the plant is still alive and thriving. I eventually started feeding it with an all purpose plant food from #wilko just 2 months ago and I think it is doing alright **raises shoulders**.

The point of this post is this: sometimes, you may be thrown into endeavours or have an idea which you fully don’t understand how to tackle or implement, don’t wait till you have all the information or you may starve the #idea or bin it or worse, reject it. Start with what you have, stay conscious and as time goes on, more ideas will come to your consciousness and hopefully, you will recognise and implement them and then be blessed every morning with something as gorgeous as this little plant.
I started with water, what will you start with?

Have a brilliant and fulfilling day.

Continue reading →

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[Video] Interview with Nigerian Author Chikamso Efobi

05 Sunday Jun 2016

Posted by Chika Efobi in Motivation

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Tags

author, author chat, interview, motivation, Twisted in a Positive Way, wisdom, youtube

Hi Everyone,
I had the privilege to be interviewed by Jamie Timmons from Matters of My Heart. It was a lovely chat and I hope you enjoy it as much as I did.

Video is on my Amazon author page below:

https://www.amazon.co.uk/Chikamso-C-Efobi/e/B019FXIWNE/ref=ntt_dp_epwbk_0

 

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A Lesson from my orchid

13 Sunday Mar 2016

Posted by Chika Efobi in Motivation

≈ 4 Comments

Tags

determination, hard work, life lessons, motivation, orchid, success

image

I hope you are having a restful weekend.
Today’s post was inspired by my little orchid. (Read another lesson from the orchid here)

6 weeks ago, I was wondering what was happening to my orchid plant. A bit of background info: i have very little experience with orchids and growing plants in general. So to me, this little plant looked dry and dead (picture on the left). Looking at it, I contemplated throwing it in the bin because to my untrained eye, the plant was simply done.

However, I followed my gut to keep feeding and watering, just to see what would happen. Two weeks ago, to my surprise and relief, the first sign of a flower appeared. Now it looks beautiful (picture on the right).

I believe that this same principle could apply to life as we know it. You may be reading this and wondering when your efforts towards a particular venture or job would start paying off. You may have sunk in a lot of money, made so many calls…with nothing to show for it.

If you are convinced that you are on the right path, follow your convictions and continue to push and who knows, with time, just like my little orchid, your efforts could pay off.

Now, in hindsight, I can now see that in the picture on the left, there were little bubs which to someone who had more experience with plants, would have meant that the orchid really was not dead (or dying). But, isn’t this the whole point? Sometimes what you see does not necessarily reflect reality.

If you enjoyed reading this, and you know someone who may benefit from reading this message, please feel free to share this with them.

Peace and love to you and yours 🙂

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The Guest House – a poem by Rumi

09 Wednesday Mar 2016

Posted by Chika Efobi in Motivation

≈ 2 Comments

Tags

attitude, coldplay, depression, inspiration, kaleidoscope, living, lyrics, mind, motivation, music, poetry, President Barack Obama, rumi, shazam, spotify, success, thoughts, wisdom

The guest house

Happy “hump day” to every one. I hope everyone has had a good week so far.

For people who know me or have been following my personal posts on this blog, you would know that in addition to being a book addict, I am also a bit of a music junkie.

On Sunday night, I came across a Facebook video which was posted by a pilot friend of mine, who has a habit of posting videos of himself driving to work. So I played this particular video and there was this song playing in the background which I instantly liked. I started to type a comment to find out what the title of the song was, when I remembered that I could “Shazam it”.

I instantly opened the app, and found out that the song was, “A Head Full Of Dreams” from Coldplay’s new album. Within five minutes, I had downloaded the entire album on Spotify and I haven’t stopped playing the album since then. Now, I listen to it every chance I get.

One of my favorite songs from the album is a short song titled, “Kaleidoscope” which begins with the voice of a man reciting some words, and is then followed by the voice of another man singing “Amazing Grace”. Naturally, I became curious and wanted to find out what the man was saying, so I consulted Google. To my utmost surprise, the man singing was none other, than President Barack Obama.

I also found out that the words were an excerpt from a beautiful poem by Rumi (above). I hope you find it as insightful as I did.

Enjoy the rest of your week.

Love,

Chika

Image credit: http://genius.com/Coldplay-colour-spectrum-lyrics

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What do you see in the mirror?

03 Wednesday Feb 2016

Posted by Chika Efobi in Motivation

≈ 2 Comments

Tags

career, enthusiasm, life lessons, motivation, reflection, soul, thankfulness, Tunji Shittu

image

On Monday morning, a dear friend of mine sent me a message that resonated with me. I excitedly asked him if he wrote the message and he revealed to me that even though he would like to be able to take credit for the writing, it was written by one of his colleagues, Tunji Shittu.

I hope this message touches you as it did me.
See below:

Think about looking in a mirror. How many of us get depressed when we notice a new gray hair or a new wrinkle in our forehead? Now, take a moment to think about what you can’t see in a mirror…are you allowing wrinkles to appear in your soul?

There are many ways that this can happen from worrying too much, to not pursuing a life of purpose.

One of the most common ways to wrinkle the soul is to give up enthusiasm. We should always try to show and feel enthusiasm for whatever we do. Sometimes this is difficult…we might not like our job or we might be having difficulties in our personal lives.

When there is a bump in the road, one of the easiest ways to get back on track is to show and feel enthusiasm and gratitude for what we do have, knowing that whatever show gratitude for, multiplies with time.

Have a fulfilling new week and keep keeping on.

Love,
Chika

Image credit: laizaking.com

53.959965 -1.087298

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2015: closing cycles

31 Thursday Dec 2015

Posted by Chika Efobi in Motivation

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Tags

2015, 2016, happiness, letting go, living, motivation, moving forward, New Year, progress, wisdom

2015 ending

Hello everyone,

With today being the last day of 2015, I thought to share with you a profound and pertinent message, written by one of my favorite authors, Paul Coelho. I found it both insightful and I hope you do too.

Read below and have a pleasant New Year in advance:

One always has to know when a stage comes to an end. If we insist on staying longer than the necessary time, we lose the happiness and the meaning of the other stages we have to go through.
Closing cycles, shutting doors, ending chapters – whatever name we give it, what matters is to leave in the past the moments of life that have finished.

Did you lose your job? Has a loving relationship come to an end? Did you leave your parents’ house? Gone to live abroad? Has a long-lasting friendship ended all of a sudden?
You can spend a long time wondering why this has happened.

You can tell yourself you won’t take another step until you find out why certain things that were so important and so solid in your life have turned into dust, just like that.
But such an attitude will be awfully stressing for everyone involved: your parents, your husband or wife, your friends, your children, your sister.
Everyone is finishing chapters, turning over new leaves, getting on with life, and they will all feel bad seeing you at a standstill.

Things pass, and the best we can do is to let them really go away.

That is why it is so important (however painful it may be!) to destroy souvenirs, move, give lots of things away to orphanages, sell or donate the books you have at home.

Everything in this visible world is a manifestation of the invisible world, of what is going on in our hearts – and getting rid of certain memories also means making some room for other memories to take their place.
Let things go. Release them. Detach yourself from them.

Nobody plays this life with marked cards, so sometimes we win and sometimes we lose.
Do not expect anything in return, do not expect your efforts to be appreciated, your genius to be discovered, your love to be understood.

Stop turning on your emotional television to watch the same program over and over again, the one that shows how much you suffered from a certain loss: that is only poisoning you, nothing else.

Nothing is more dangerous than not accepting love relationships that are broken off, work that is promised but there is no starting date, decisions that are always put off waiting for the “ideal moment.”

Before a new chapter is begun, the old one has to be finished: tell yourself that what has passed will never come back.
Remember that there was a time when you could live without that thing or that person – nothing is irreplaceable, a habit is not a need.
This may sound so obvious, it may even be difficult, but it is very important.

Closing cycles. Not because of pride, incapacity or arrogance, but simply because that no longer fits your life.

Shut the door, change the record, clean the house, shake off the dust.

Stop being who you were, and change into who you are.

Culled from Paul Coelho’s Blog: http://paulocoelhoblog.com/2015/12/27/closing-cycles/

Image credit: www.interstaff.com

51.744449 -1.229394

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Addicted to Perfection

03 Thursday Dec 2015

Posted by Chika Efobi in Motivation, Quotes

≈ 1 Comment

Tags

2015, addiction, attitude, happiness, inspiration, leo tolstoy, mindfulness, motivation, novel, perfection, publishing, social media, success, wisdom

perfection
December is finally here! I can’t believe that it has been almost 5 months since I wrote my last blog post. “Where has all the time gone?” I keep asking myself.
You would remember in my last post I wrote about the crowdfunding campaign for my new novel, “Twisted in a Positive Way”. The campaign was successful and even though I didn’t hit my funding target, through the campaign, I was able to generate a lot of publicity and interest for it. It was finally published and is available for purchase on Amazon in both kindle and paperback format in the UK click here to buy, and the US click here to buy .

I would like to use this opportunity to say thank you once again to everyone who pre-ordered and spread the word on the campaign. I am humbled by all the feedback I have received so far. One of the funniest feedback I received was from a reader who said that she was quite cross with herself for leaving the book at home for one day and couldn’t wait to get home to continue from where she stopped.
If you have read the novel, please feel free to leave a review on Amazon website stating that you purchased the book through the crowdfunding campaign by clicking here.
Moving away from the subject of my novel, I had a discussion earlier this week with my friend who I would call John. Let me tell you a little bit about John.

John is a nice guy, has a good job working in one of the essential services here in England. He earns a very decent salary, has a nice two bedroom house and drives a good car. To everyone, John lives a comfortable life.
In reality, John is not a happy man because he feels he is overweight. This feeling has affected his ability to speak to women and has caused him to lose his confidence because he feels that they would not find him attractive on account of his weight.
Now, in the time I have known John, I have never really noticed the extra pounds. All I see is a nice, funny, hardworking and blessed young man.

When I got home that night, after my meeting with my friend, I pondered how we humans seem to constantly be obsessed with our idea of perfection. Like John, we think about the things we feel are not perfect in our lives and end up forgetting all the wonderful things we have going for us.

The TV and print media have not helped with this, every day we are bombarded with photo shopped bodies and filtered images subtly telling us what we should look like. Even when we are not are not trying to look like the models and characters on TV, we find ourselves sometimes comparing ourselves to our friends and colleagues.

Thinking about this reminded me of a story I heard years ago. A young man had sought a job for months and finally he got his dream job with the exact pay he wanted and was so happy. He called all his friends and told them of his news and they all congratulated him. He continued in this state of happiness until he spoke to one particular friend. This friend like others, congratulated him and asked him how much he was to be paid. Out of curiousity, he too asked his friend what his salary was. After the phone call, his mood changed because he realised that his friend was making more than him. The fact that he had sought this job for months did not seem to matter. He was no longer happy about it.

Perhaps it is time to stop this neurosis and start recognising all the numerous blessings we have. Whenever you find yourself thinking those gloomy thoughts, consciously stop yourself and instead, think of three things in your life which you are thankful for and dwell on those things instead. They may not be massive things. You could even be thankful for the nice cup of tea you just had, knowing that someone out there is craving for just that and cannot get it. Perhaps you could be thankful for the fact that you just had a nice hot meal knowing that someone out there would gladly swap places with you if they had the opportunity.
Now, I am not saying that you should adopt a lackadaisical attitude to life and not seek self-development and improvement, what I am saying is that it is better to take these steps towards improvement from a place of gratitude having it at the back of your mind that there is no such a thing as perfection.

Thank you for reading and please feel free to leave your comments. I look forward to reading them.
Love,
Chika

Image credit: jarofquotes.com

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Take that first step

08 Wednesday Jul 2015

Posted by Chika Efobi in Motivation

≈ 5 Comments

Tags

2015, courage, daring, dreams, fear, inspiration, motivation, success

The law of thought

No matter what burden we carry or how rough the terrain, we always discover that we are stronger than we think. It all begins with the courage to take that first step – Cheryl Strayed

It has been more than a month since I last posted anything new on my blog. In this period I have posted motivational and inspiring quotes on the blog Facebook page. (Please like my Facebook page here).

Another reason behind my month long absence is that I have been in the process of finishing the manuscript of my first book also titled Twisted In a Positive Way which is scheduled to be published in roughly 10 weeks’ time.

Now that the manuscript is with my editor, I have taken some time to reflect on why it has taken this long (about 8 years long years) to complete this book project.

I first had the idea to write a book 8 years ago. As at then, I was not quite sure of what I was going to write about so instead I set up a blog, Living and Learning to develop some comfort in my writing abilities. I later took down the blog about 3 years ago and started my current one which you are now reading.

In those 8 years, I found myself dismissing the idea, I battled with it, fought with myself, procrastinated. A number of evenings, I told myself I was too tired, I would do it tomorrow but tomorrow never quite came.

It was not until the beginning of this year, 2015 that I sat myself down and tried to find answers to my seeming reluctance to start my book project. I found out that my delay was not for want of a title to give the book, I already knew what the title would be 3 years ago. Neither was it from my lack equipment to type with – I had a laptop and even got a Microsoft Surface in 2013 specifically for this purpose. Even if I didn’t have any laptop or mobile device, I had my hands and writing materials and I could also string a few words together to make a bit of sense. So why did I delay?

In my sober reflection, I was able to establish 3 major reasons behind my delay. The first one was pure and simple laziness. I would get home from work and convince myself that I was too tired to do anything other than to sit in front of the television until sleep claimed me. Then I would rinse and repeat the same process the following day.

The second reason was inertia – I was unwilling to change my state at the time, I had become very comfortable with just coming back from work and relaxing. I was happy and content with my life just the way it was.

The third, perhaps most important reason was FEAR. I was afraid I would write a really rubbish book so I did not want to even try. I did not want to have wasted my time and energy doing something that may not work. So I squashed the idea and did not bother about it until January this year.

I have found out that the fear of failure is one of the main reasons why most people do not pursue their dreams nor embark on some personal projects they really want to do. They are afraid of what people would say if they launched out and failed. They are afraid to lose money, afraid to lose their sense of security, afraid to be mocked by friends and perhaps enemies.

Sometimes some people are even afraid to succeed because when they succeed, they may even lose friends. So they seek comfort in what they know, squash their dreams and settle for what they have until the dream becomes nothing but a distant memory.

Perhaps it is time to replace the thought of “What if I fail?” with “What if I succeed?”

The truth is there is no way to know if you would fail until you actually take that step and try. The people you are worried about that would laugh at you if you failed have their own failures to think and worry about.

Even if you do eventually fail, at least you have the comfort and the peace that comes in the knowledge that you at least tried. You gave it your best. That in itself puts you in a better place than a vast majority of people in this world who are too afraid to start anything.

You may be worried that you don’t have access to sufficient information to embark on pursuing your dreams. If that is your fear, do not worry. Just take the first step and it would amaze you how the right people with the right information would show up when you need it the most and because you have started, you would be quick to recognise the opportunities as they show up.

For me, I don’t know if my book Twisted In a Positive Way would be successful. Only time would tell but at least I can rest in the knowledge that I have gone out to finish something I have been wanting to do for a very long time.

The knowledge that you have stepped out and followed that dream of yours despite all your fears to me is success in itself.

I hope this motivates you to take that step that you have always wanted to.

Love,

Chika

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