Tag Archives: social media

Addicted to Perfection

03 Thursday Dec 2015

Posted by in Motivation, Quotes

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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

Unplug

12 Sunday Jul 2015

Posted by in Motivation

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Unplug

An over-indulgence of anything, even something as pure as water, can intoxicate.― Criss Jami

One Saturday, about 4 months ago, I had an idea to embark on a one-day personal experiment to evaluate the impact of social media on my personal productivity. The experiment involved me turning off my phones, closing all the social media tabs on my computer and just focusing on checking off items on my to-do-list for the day.

I decided that from 8am to 8pm on that day, I would not go on Facebook, Twitter, LinkedIn, I would not check emails, and neither would I listen to music on Spotify nor YouTube. I was not actively on Instagram then so that didn’t matter. It would be just me, myself, I and my to-do-list.

Before starting the experiment. I informed my partner that I would be going incognito for the day (just so he would not get worried by my absence or silence) and just switched off.

I thought it was going to be difficult when I started and for the first one hour it was.  I had to consciously stop myself from opening any social media app. I was going to take the cold turkey approach and I was determined to win. Those cute baby pictures and funny videos were going to have to wait.

The result of the experiment was almost mind blowing. I found out that once I got over the initial withdrawal symptoms, it was so easy to focus and complete my tasks. It was also less difficult to get distracted because there was nothing to be distracted by. I had shut off all the sources of distractions.

At the end of the experiment, it dawned on me that in this technological age, we have become addicts to social media. I use the word addict because social media addiction is very similar with the more dramatic addictions such as alcoholism, hard narcotics and even sex addiction.

Just like the drug and alcohol addict is unable to function at an optimum level, he or she is constantly at the mercy of the substance he or she abuses, the same applies with the social media addict . We have become at the mercy of social media such that we are unable to function at our optimum because we are constantly getting distracted from doing what we are actually meant to be doing.

Think about the many times you have opened you laptop to do your work or write something meaningful or perhaps study for your exams and without being aware, you type in facebook.com or perhaps go on Instagram. Before you realise what has happened, you have spent the next hour or two on these platforms. Those hours you have wasted are gone for good.

What alarmed me the more I thought about it was that these platforms we spend our time on are the result of someone else’s vision. Someone else has applied focus and worked really hard to come up with these platforms. We are now essentially paying with our time to help other people become more successful and we are providing this service free of charge.

The time we spend getting distracted from what we are meant to be doing is putting more money into someone’s pocket.

This is not to say that you should completely go off social media. Far from it. The point of this post is to make you aware of how much your productivity is impacted by allowing yourself to get distracted and perhaps urge you to consciously start to balance out how much time you waste on social media.

We all need to stay connected to our family, friends and perhaps enemies (just to see how well they are doing). However, where this becomes a problem is when we start to lose track of our tasks and goals.

I also found out at the end of this experiment that when I went back on social media later that evening, I had not missed much. The difference was that I had completed all my tasks and I felt more fulfilled.

I invite you to try out my experiment for a day or perhaps one week if you are courageous enough. Switch off completely and instead focus on completing those tasks you have been procrastinating on or not just gotten round to finishing. It would amaze you as to how much you could actually get done.

Have a fulfilling new week.

Love,

Chika

Image credit: http://www.theinnerseed.com/