BLOOM AND GROW

Your body is the vehicle for your life and the first step to achieving a wholesome life is taking care of your body and mind. I started to take exercise seriously after my mum passed from a heart-related condition likely worsened by her obesity. My grandmother who was also obese died from a heart condition. So, I knew that  I had to embrace a healthier lifestyle if I wanted a different fate from theirs.  Holistic health goes beyond losing weight. It is about taking care of your spirit, mind, and body.  Before you read  my tips for making healthy habits stick, please think over these questions below as a way of examining yourself  1. Am I taking care of my body? 2. Am I getting enough sleep? 3. Am I doing enough exercise?  4. Am I eating healthy? 5. Do I feel good about my body? 6. Do I have joy in my life? To have better answers to these questions, you need to develop healthy habits, and here are my top tips, tried, and tested.  1. Find a Gym Close to Where you Work:  Instead of headin

Discipline is such an important trait to develop. Often times, it is what separates professionals from dilettantes. It really is the currency of super-achievers and without some level of self-discipline, you cannot achieve much in life. Below are my top five tips for developing self-discipline. 1. Do Something You Enjoy. I have learned that it is easier to stay consistent at something you enjoy. There is this idea that humans are always seeking the path of least resistance. So, it might be less difficult to develop self-discipline if you engage in an activity that comes naturally to you. Otherwise, find something meaningful to you, even if you don't like the activity. For example, I am learning French on Duolingo and it is not something I particularly enjoy doing. But I understand the significance of learning a second language to having a global career, so I just keep at it.  2. Be a Part of a Community:  I strongly believe that self-discipline can be fueled by interactions with ot

Like other nights before any big day, I can't fall asleep; excitement and anxiety wouldn't let me. I heave a deep sigh and reach for my transistor radio to tune into a station still playing some music at 3 a.m.  My only sister is fast asleep next to me and, honest to God, she snores like a camel- I fight the urge to poke her, to scold her for sleeping anyhow. I love my sister now but this wasn't always the case growing up.  I called her "BBC" because she was so nosy; always telling our parents what I said or did wrong in their absence.  "Mummy, guess what! Fadekemi's teacher beat her today because she didn't do her homework and she was crying like a baby."  My mum would look at me with piercing eyes and ask if Remi was telling the truth.  No matter what I said, the scene always closed with my mum hitting me with whatever object was within her reach.  I am 50 today and in a few hours, there will be loud music and lots of food. There wi

Nike logo. from Nike.com I recently learned that doing certain things half-heartedly might not be such a bad idea. According to this school of thought, we don't always have to feel like it, to actually do it. Getting things done even when all the conditions of work are not perfect might actually be the thing that makes us become better. As a writer, I love it when I am in the mood to write. I find that in those times, the writing comes with ease and I feel a certain energy that psychologists have termed "the flow".  Being in the perfect mental state to work is great but what happens to our work when we don't feel like working? It suffers. So, perhaps the logic of just doing it might help us in certain areas of our lives. At the end of the day, practice makes perfect and the more we do, the better we become.  If you run a mile twice a week even when you don't feel like running, that's four miles at the end of the week.  If you practice learn

I am starting a series here on achieving personal and academic success. So, in the next 7 episodes, I will be interviewing a few people about how they achieved or are achieving success in their academic or professional lives. These guys are actually close friends and I chose them because there are also very kind people. I dislike successful people who are arrogant, so having a good character was an important criterion for my selection.  Here is my story:  I didn't know that I was not very bright until I got to primary 4. I had a class teacher who was very hard on those of us that were struggling academically. She had a bias for the bright students and hardly ever smiled at those of us that did not do very well. A girl named Lara and I were actually the poorest in her class and we were sort of comrades.  Anyways, my rock bottom was actually being called out for cheating during a class exercise. For some reason, I found myself sitting next to one of the smart

I think it is remarkable that the things we create in our lifetime can be a source of inspiration to others when we are gone.  We are beneficiaries of the efforts of the people who lived and died many decades ago. I think of this as standing on the shoulders of giants; the fact that we can create something bigger out of what is currently available. And this is true for almost every facet of our lives from healthcare to technology, and to entertainment. Think about the extent of innovation in communication that has happened because the internet exists. Now, referring to the arts, my favorite example of this is Sam Smith's soulful version of Whitney Houston's How will I know Know which was featured in an episode of the hit medical drama Grey's Anatomy. Sam Smith was not even born in 1985 when the song was originally recorded by Whitney Houston. In broad terms, the power of creativity is to influence others and a good example is Literature. I have read quite a few b