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The power of silence in a world of noise.

Studies have found low level noise in the home, work or school to often disrupt people's concentration.

Ambient noise is known to increase stress levels and worsen stress related conditions such as high blood pressure, peptic ulcer and migraine headaches.

In the light of the negative effects of noise on health,  silence comes in as a true friend who never betrays in a world of noise.

“Silence is a true friend who never betrays." – Confucius.

Also, silence according to studies, is known to activate the brain's default mode network. 

This activation results in memory consolidation, introspection and self-referential mental processes that encourage original thought and give the mind some rest.

This proves that silence, as Francis Bacon claimed, is the sleep that nourishes wisdom.

It’s clear that the power of silence in a world of noise can’t be underestimated.

So embrace the transformative power of silence today and improve your emotional well-being and physical health.

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How to generate great ideas.

To have ideas is to gather flowers; to think is to weave them into garlands.- Sophie Swetchine

Having ideas is like gathering flowers.

To gather flowers, you have to leave your comfort zone and go out into the floral garden to pick them.

To generate great ideas, you have to pull yourself away from distractions, create the time to be alone and have the self discipline to focus on the goals.

To weave a raw idea into a great one, you would have to overcome two obstacles.

You would have to overcome the urge to discard them on face value.

The urge often comes when you first begin to think about them.

The urge to do away with a new raw idea in is usually rooted in the belief that the goal can’t be achieved.

“Why don’t you stick to the old ways, your old ideas?” Your mind would advise.

But don’t listen to it.

You remove the first barrier when you begin the hard work of weaving a raw idea into a garland of finished idea. 

As the garland begins to take shape, you start to develop confidence in your abilities to think things through and arrive at a great idea.

You have to be very careful at this point because it may suddenly dawn on you that you’re wasting time and resources on something worthless. But don’t give up at this point!

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Ayietim Blog turned 10 today!

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4 simple ways intelligent people overcome fear of confrontation.

overcoming fear of confrontation.

First published here.

How to Get Over Your Fear of Confrontation.

Effective communications begin human relationships anywhere and everywhere you find them, then keep them going on smoothly

Effective communications tell you what to do and what not to do to someone to maintain a smooth relationship at home and work.

Conflicts between two people often arise when there’s a breakdown in communication. When one between the two is courageous to take the initiative to tell the other about how they feel about something, they assert themselves and are happier for it.

On the opposite side, is a timid fellow, a conflict avoidant person that chooses to go through the discomfort of being victim of a negative attitude.

This choice is often made for them by what a force they could have a control of .

What’s that? The fear of confrontation.

Conflict avoidant persons have a phobia for confrontation because they don’t want to experience the intense emotions that come with it.

There are many reasons behind this fear.

The primary reason is inadequate preparation of what to say. This automatically causes lack of confidence in presenting a strong argument.

Other reasons that cause fear of confrontation are;

The fear of failure, another direct consequence of lack of adequate preparations.

Lacking in active listening skills, especially at the workplace.

Listening to understand first, accept and analyze opposing point of view better, share perspective easily, assess concerns or fears of others more deeply and appreciate that it wasn’t something personal.

This awareness is likely to make the conversation less confrontational.

At this point, It’s important to know that the attempt to avoid confrontation is not always borne out of fear.

Some people find arguments that come with confrontations as distractions that have possibilities of affecting their productivity negatively.

So what do this group of people do?

They try to delay confrontation until a time that it’s absolutely necessary to have one for the sake of their mental health and productivity.

But in a workplace setting where the productivity of the whole is held higher than productivity of the sum, it’s necessary to resolve every conflict as it arises.

Here are ways you can overcome your fear of confrontation.

Start by always weighing costs and benefits of having that confrontation.

Weigh what the costs of the confrontation would be and what your personal benefits would be.

The costs may include;

a. Loss of valuable time, b. Having one more member added to the list of detractors in the office, c. Risking being regarded as intolerant or even toxic.

The benefits may include;

a. A happier you and an improved mental health, b. You may win a true friend and a supportive team member, c. It may lead to a brainstorming session that births a great idea that creates a win-win situation for all, d. It can also be a stepping stone to a career progression. You can never tell.

Stop procrastinating.

Start with the next opportunity that requires you to step forward and assert yourself.

Don’t wait until it’s a big one. Use the small ones to build confidence, master your listening skills and the presentation of your argument.

Prepare and prepare.

“The best preparation for tomorrow is doing your best today” — H. Jackson Brown, Jr.

So before you have the confrontation, take time out to plan what you want to say.

Adequate preparation is the only sure way to increase your confidence.

Know how to say NO.

Knowing how to say separates winners from losers.

“The difference between successful people and really successful people is that re- ally successful people say no to almost everything.”- Warren Buffett.

Know when to say No. And when you have to say it, say it loud and clear in a way that leaves no one in doubt.

Finally, let the following words be your companion as make your best efforts to overcome the fear of confrontation.

“Staying silent is like a slow growing cancer to the soul and a trait of a true coward. There is nothing intelligent about not standing up for yourself. You may not win every battle. However, everyone will at least know what you stood for—YOU.”- Shannon L. Alder.

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What is turning towards each other in a relationship?

Every relationship is started and sustained by a bid for connection that kindles the fire of affection, affirmation, attention and other positive emotions that enriches life.

We ask for this connection in a relationship in verbal and non-verbal ways.

And when we do, we are simply hoping that our partner turns towards us.

What is the meaning of turning towards each other in a relationship?

How to have the best relationship.

When your partner in a relationship turns towards, what they’re hoping for is that respond in a way that satisfies and supports their emotional needs.

In the moment your partner turns towards you, they may be hoping for a listening ear or an empathetic soul, who sincerely and deeply shares their need for closeness and intimacy.

What happens when you turn away?

When you turn away because you’re too absorbed in your personal pursuit, you ignore your partner’s strong bid for connection.

This withdrawal of emotional support would cause an emotional disconnection.

An emotional disconnection creates a hostile ground for partners in a relationship to turn against each other. 

Then they begin to be driven apart by a never ending occurrence of  conflicts that leads to a loss of emotional intimacy between them.

The loss of emotional intimacy could be avoided by partners in a relationship.

By turning towards each other, partners learn about each other's emotional needs quickly and respond to them on time.

Time response would stop disagreements, unmet needs and festering conflicts that could destroy the relationship.

Turn towards each other in a relationship promotes effective communication that deepens the bond and engenders trust between partners.

Do you what the trust would do for partners?

It would create a sense of oneness between them. This sense of oneness enhances the feeling of safety by partners.

According to research, partners who regularly turn towards each other in their relationship, tend to have stable relationships and lower divorce rate.

Why is this so?

When couples or partners turn towards each other, they gift themselves conflict resolution skills. They develop effective communication skills which include active listening and empathy.

Where these communication skills are absent, couples tend to allow a little disagreement grow to conflagration that consumes the relationship.

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7 Best Tips To Balance A Side Hustle With A Full-Time Job.

7 Best Tips To Balance A Side Hustle With A Full-Time Job.

Are you a full time worker that desires financial freedom?

Yes? Then you need to have a side hustle to reach that goal.

There’s another question, “How are you going to run a side hustle successfully and be at your highest level productivity on your full time job?

It's going to very tough, right? But it can be done .

Here are very valuable tips to help you strike a balance between the two and get great results from your side hustle and a full time job. https://ayipost.com/blog/f/7-best-tips-to-balance-a-side-hustle-with-a-full-time-job

Develop a great time management strategy:

Design an effective time management strategy by creating a work schedule that assign fixed hours to your side hustle.

Time block and dedicate clearly defined block of time each job.

Hours reserved for your side gig shouldn’t conflict with your full time work schedule.

You can begin by making your side gig your weekend, evening or morning job.

For both full time job and side hustle, make a priority list.

Outline and attend to the most important tasks first at your most productive hours.

This is a useful performance Management skill that steers you away from distractions and keeps your focus on your goals.

Aim for efficiency in both full time work and side gig.

This could be achieved by grouping similar tasks. Task batching is known to improve efficiency by decreasing distractions that come with multitasking and increasing uninterrupted work time.

Task batching should naturally make the setting of limits easier.

The setting of boundaries is another important way to balance side hustle and full time work and avoid overlapping of unrelated tasks.

The setting of boundaries should also stop conflict of interests from arising. Now, it is very important to avoid your side hustle conflicting with your full time job as it may go against the policy of your company.

Avoid burn out.

Don’t sacrifice good health for the goal of achieving financial freedom by juggling a side gig and a full time work.

Take breaks sometimes and avoid burnout. Give your brain and body enough time to rest.

Use tools and apps to handle repetitive tasks.

By embracing automation, you save time, improve your productivity and free up energy for other important things.

As your side hustle begins to take shape and grow, consider outsourcing some aspects of it.

Outsourcing will increase efficiency, productivity and save time.

Final words, as you set out to juggle a side hustle and a full time work, keep in mind that the achieving the right balance, setting of realistic goal and time management are the most important considerations.

First published on Ayi Post

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The only safe thing is to take a chance.- Elaine May.

Life is short, life is beautiful,

the whirlwind that breaks the timid ripples only the surface of the pool

on the surface the beauty of life can’t be seen,

because the beauty of life is found in the deep,

So play safe, refuse to take the leap and miss life,

take the leap and grab your chance to live a great life.

First published on Ayi Post.

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8 Simple Tips To Help You Find A Perfect Partner For Marriage.

At a certain point in your life, you become aware of the need to have a partner to share your life with you.

When you become aware of this need and come face to face with the urgency of filling it, you make up your mind to get married to someone.

After making up your mind to marry someone, the problem of finding the right partner for marriage comes alive.

To help you find the right person to marry, you must be armed with some helpful tips.

Below are 8 simple tips to help you find the perfect partner for marriage.

Know who you are.

Knowing who you are is a door to discover the kind of life you need to live to be happy. And by extension, the quality of the partner that’s is going to help you live a happy life.

So before you begin to search for the perfect partner, you have to understand and accept your strengths and your weaknesses.

Having the humility to accept your weaknesses should be enough to cause you to accept the need to seek out someone with qualities similar and dissimilar to yours, to complement you.

Know who you need.

There is no all size fit all formula to help you seek out someone to share your life, complete you and make your journey to a happy life easier. It comes down to your personality and, compatibility.

You and the perfect partner you seek for marriage should have compatibility in many areas of life . Take note, many areas of life and not all areas of life.

You need your opposite in some areas of life to always give you that holistic perception and understanding that’s required to live a happy life.

For instance, you should have around, someone to make living fun when you’re too serious about life and, someone to let you know that a better day is coming when things aren’t going your way today.

Forget about looks.

Looks alone shouldn’t be a completely dependable guide in the search for a perfect partner.

Looks fade but character doesn’t . So, when you’re searching for a perfect partner for marriage, look beyond looks to the totality of the person.

Study the personality, search areas of compatibility, assess areas of difference and weigh the mental acuity.

Also, take a look at little things like how your would be life partner responds to jokes, their temperament, their cuisine taste, ..

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We've moved to Ayi Post.

Hi, We’re now at Ayi Post . We would love to have you there. Thank you.

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7 Stages of effortless decision making process.

7 Stages of effortless decision making process.

It's certain that everyone at one point in life has been in a situation where they couldn't make the right choices. The consequence of that was a state of confusion.

Decision making is not supposed to be a difficult task. By knowing the right decision making process, decisions could be reached effectively and effortlessly every time there is a need for it. https://bit.ly/3Y3zgk8

Below are 7 the stages of decision making process:

Define the problem.

"If I had an hour to solve a problem I'd spend 55 minutes thinking about the problem and 5 minutes thinking about solutions." - Albert Einstein.

Everytime a situation calls for a decision, take the time to identify the real problem.

Without identifying the real problem, it would be very hard to reach a decision on the real solutions.

The best way to identify the real problem is to carry out a research.

Carry out a research.

Carry out a research, ask questions, go back in time, search the present and make projections into the future to gather enough data and information that would reveal the problem.

Leave no stone unturned, it's a research. If you knew what the problem was and the right decision to make, you wouldn't be carrying out the research?

Albert Einstein said, 'If we knew what it was we were doing, it would not be called research, would it?"

What are the alternatives?

The research should present you with alternative answers to your questions.

Consider each alternative course of action on its merits and prune them down until you're left with the best options.

Don't pick anyone yet.

Seek advice.

Seek the advice of those you wouldn't hesitate to trade places with.

You shouldn't be surprised to know that people are often willing to share their success stories with enthusiastic listeners

Which is best among the alternatives?

Armed with your best alternatives and the advice of your role models, analyze all options, this time, to pick the best alternative.

Develop your plan of action?

Develop a plan of action around the best alternative you picked in stage 5. Then move on to stage 7.

Implement your plan, assess results as they come in and make adjustments where necessary.

Execute your plan of action and put it on your daily schedule as a priority.

Protect this priority and let nothing else steal time and effort from it.

Be ruthless in your implementation by removing from your schedule, all other conflicting priorities.

As results begin to come in, assess them.

There's no guarantee that your plan will succeed at the first attempt of implementation.

What should you do when it fails?

Ronald Reagan answered, ""The more the plans fail the more the planner’s plan.”

So when the first plan fails, find out why, adjust, make more plans and implement them. https://bit.ly/3Y3zgk8

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What are dividend growth stocks?

What are dividend growth stocks? Which are the best today?

"Returns matter a lot. It's our capital." — Abigail Johnson

The accumulation of wealth from investments in stocks is determined by the long run rate of return on investments.

Many investors find companies that pay regular and increasing dividends attractive. https://bit.ly/3wTkeBw

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The Climate Change Story.

Photo by Pixabay on Pexels.com When you refuse to change with changing times.times pass you by and leave you behindand you become a witness, that is, if you’re luckyto still be alive and not be swept away by the floodthat reaches everywhere and everyone who never thought it would knock on their doors,This is already happening and many who never believed sea levels would riseabove where many are…

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I Love My Abuser.

Photo by Keira Burton on Pexels.com Lydia pushed herself away from her work table, got up and walked to window. Her office was on the fourteenth floor. As it should be expected at 5 p.m, wednesday evening, the traffic was beginning to build up in mainland street. Vehicles and pedestrians were in a mad rush to go home. “Go home to their loved ones.” Lydia sighed, turned away from the window and…

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My Husband Stares At Other Women - Should I be worried?

My Husband Stares At Other Women – Should I be worried?

My husband and I have been married for over 20 years, but he keeps staring at ladies every time we go out together. And you are afraid he does worse when you are not there with him, right? This attitude is natural and it may mean nothing, because if it did mean anything, you would have lost him long ago to another woman. Staring at other ladies without minding the fact that you are there with…

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Why Does My Ex Want Me Back?

Photo by vjapratama on Pexels.com At the beginning of the rains,A sigh of relief welcomes its blessings,Many days into the rains, overburdened by the wetness,We wish for the sun and it appears;The heat grows by the day and then becomes too intense to bear,We pray and long for the rainy days to come and rescue us from the heat;Haven’t we realized that we receive everything in its…

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You can't possibly make a difference! - Loren Eiseley.

You can’t possibly make a difference! – Loren Eiseley.

Photo by Vincent Gerbouin on Pexels.com Are they saying that your little drop-in-the-ocean effort can’t possibly make a difference? Share with your doubters, the little story below by Loren Eiseley. Once upon a time, there was a wise man who used to go to the ocean to do his writing. He had a habit of walking on the beach before he began his work. One day, as he was walking along the shore, he…