Take Control of your Self-Control, Willpower and Habit !!!!

If you want to succeed –Take Control of your Self Control!

There is a direct key connection between Self-Control and Success, research prove.

In the ’60s, Mischel, a sociologist, conducted an experiment to see if young children could resist instant gratification. He offered them the choice of having one marshmallow now, or two marshmallows if they could wait 15 minutes. Many chose instant gratification rather than exerting the willpower to wait. Years later, he tracked down some of the children, and discovered something startling. 

Where are you good at exerting self-control?
Where - or when - does your willpower fail you?

Here are 4 ideas to help boost your understanding and practice of Self-Control, Willpower and Habit - and therefore take your success to another level:

1. Treat Willpower Like a Muscle
Willpower - the ability to resist temptation and restrain our impulses - is the most important factor in achieving a successful and happy life. It is more significant than money, intelligence, looks, or background. It helps to consider that willpower is like a muscle that can be trained and strengthened with practice and improved over time. Even exercising small acts of willpower, like sitting up straight, can pay off by reinforcing longer-term self-control in other activities.

Also like a muscle, willpower can get tired if you overuse it. Exercising willpower, making choices or decisions and taking the initiative, all use up the same sort of energy. The more decisions we make, the weaker our willpower can become.

Willpower is also similar to a muscle, in that when its strength depletes, it can be revived with glucose - as has been evidenced in research. As we all know, a sugar rush is not a good option, so it’s best to eat healthy food regularly to maintain blood sugar levels. Sleeping and eating well - planning for the slow-release burning of healthy calories - are most important.

The impact of this phenomenon can have extreme consequences. A famous Israeli study in 2011, discovered that judges making decisions whether or not to grant parole did so early in the morning, in roughly 65% of cases after lunch, and hardly ever just before.

Research shows that self-control has a physical basis and is affected by eating and sleeping - and that significant decisions you make can vary depending on whether they’re made in the morning or evening, and before or after a snack.

What changes will you make to develop your willpower muscle?
What changes do you need to make, to prevent your willpower muscle from tiring?

2. Be Aware of Decision Fatigue
Making decisions can actually exhaust your ‘stores’ of willpower. Psychologist Roy F Baumeister’s practical experiments asked people to make small decisions, followed by tests of willpower (which proved to be weakened). 

This demonstrated that there is a finite store of mental energy for exerting self-control. In essence, making choices saps willpower - a condition termed ‘decision fatigue’. Use this knowledge to help you conserve your own self-control and use it most effectively.

Resistance to making decisions arises from a fear of reducing options. To those decision-weary judges in the Israeli research, denying parole is easier - it maintains the status quo and prevents a potentially risky parolee committing crime again - but it also leaves more options open: the judge can still release the prisoner at a future date. This is not necessarily the best option - just the easiest and safest. Better to make good decisions with a fresh mind, now that we know the effects.

Where there are fewer decisions to be made, there is less decision fatigue. These days, there are so many choices to make, especially in the working day. It’s easy to underestimate just how tiring it is to make any kind of decision - whether big or small, they all add up. Choosing what to have for breakfast, which task to do first, how much to spend - all deplete willpower. The cumulative effect can pay its toll. When willpower weakens (or is used up) our impulses to drink, eat, spend, and say silly things are stronger. And like the depleted parole judges, we become inclined to take the easiest option, even though that may not be the best choice.

“The best decision makers,” Baumeister says, “are the ones who know when not to trust themselves.”

Baumeister’s studies show that people with the best self-control are those who structure their lives in order to conserve their willpower. They don’t fill their days with back-to-back meetings. They maintain habits that eliminate too many choices. Zuckerberg, inventor of Facebook, wears the same outfit every day. President Obama wears either a blue or grey suit. Instead of making a decision each morning whether or not to exercise, successful people make ongoing arrangements to exercise with somebody else. Instead of using up their willpower on trivial choices, they conserve it for important decisions and emergencies.

Planning for all decisions in advance - or eliminating the need to make any - is a great way to keep things - and yourself - under control. So think and plan ahead, and set up systems that will make things easy for you.

What changes will you make to reduce decision fatigue?
How far can you go in creating a personal system to eliminate decision making and to automate all aspects of your life?

3. Understand The Power of Habit
Willpower alone is not enough. It’s hard to maintain, because it can become exhausted, especially when the pressure is on. Habits, however, are automatic and come as naturally as breathing.

 

We need to make changes that are long-lasting - and establish good habits that become a way of life. Most choices we make might feel like the result of thoughtful decision-making, but they're not: they're habits. In time, each of our decisions - about the food we eat, what we say to our children each evening, and how frequently we exercise - all have a huge impact on our health, productivity, wealth, and happiness in the longer term.

Establishing good habits in these areas will help you to operate well in all conditions - dispensing with the need to resort to willpower, while still succeeding in maintaining self-control.

If we can lower the barriers to taking action on positive things, we can begin to form good habits. If we put up barriers to negative activities, we can break any bad habits.

At the core of every habit is a neurological loop with three parts: a cue, a routine, and a reward. Let’s use the example of developing a habit to go running each morning. Choose a simple cue (eg - getting out of bed), establish a routine that is triggered by that cue (lacing up your trainers or always going for a 3 mile run at 5am) and think of the reward (endorphin rush).

Apply this principle to other behaviours and habits in your life, and use them to create better ones. Once you're aware of how your habit works, and can recognize the cues and rewards, you're on the way to changing it - for the better.

What good habits will you establish?
How will you put them into action?

4. Use The 20 second rule
Because our willpower is limited, lasting change might seem impossible to achieve. And when it fails, we fall back into old habits and take the path of least resistance. Achor lists a very powerful tool in his book The Happiness Advantage called the 20-second rule. This principle shows how we can re-route the path of least resistance and replace bad habits with good ones. It is very easy to use: identify the habits that you want to lose and make it 20 seconds more difficult to do them.

Addicted to cigarettes? Leave them upstairs or in the car, where they’re not so easily accessed. Lock up the alcohol and add an additional 20 seconds to the task by keeping the keys at the other side of the house (or don’t buy any, turning it into the 20-minute rule, by the time you’ve nipped to the off-licence). Want to escape work in the evening? Leave the smartphone and laptop in the furthest room (or at the office!).

The 20-second rule also works in developing new, good habits. If you want to exercise, make it 20 seconds easier: lay out your clothes the night before. Even better – go to sleep in your gym clothes! If you want to make a habit of prioritising your to-do list each day, keep it clearly visible on your desktop, rather than having to pull it up or look for it. Making things easier reduces the amount of willpower it takes to do it, thereby increasing your success.

When you make your bad habit harder to do while making the good habit easier, you are much more likely to take the easy route. It’s been proven by research that we will even do things that are less satisfying if it’s easier. Just because we know the right thing to do, we don’t automatically do it. Plan ahead, anticipating your needs, and aim to make things accessible and easy to do.

Always make your vice at least 20 seconds away, while making your virtue immediately available.

So use the 20-Second Rule. Create barriers to habits you want to resist, and make it easy for the desired ones.

By   Paulo Coelho

Charly Boy Rebrands With New Look

Popular Nigerian musician, Charles Oputa, otherwise known as Charly Boy, who is also an inspirational writer, has always been known for being a man who doesn't care about what anyone says about him.

 

For a long time, the husband and father had kept dreadlocks, but he recently changed his look. From the latest picture of him, the ‘Area Fada’ now has a bald head. He has also retained his younger look and with fixed eyelashes. 

Top 12 AMVCA’s Beauty And Makeup Look

Seeing glamorously dressed ladies go on the red carpet looking effortlessly chic can be overwhelming, the most irresistible is when we see the perfect finishing of their beauty looks that add to their appealing outfits.

The recently concluded Africa Magic Viewers Choice Awards was the perfect opportunity for makeup artists to spring out their wizard brushes and transform already beautifully endowed princesses into even more enchanting ones.

In this list, shows the 12 best looks that rocked on that night in no particular order:
1) Vimbai Mutinhiri: Vimbai shone with lovely and bold red lips with shimmer gold eye shadow that made her eyes pop. The Zimbabwean actress, model and television personality had her makeup done by Tomi Imoteda Aladeokomo.
2) Genevieve Nnaji: Genevieve dazzled with her smokey eyes look and matte red lipstick. The beautiful Nollywood actress wore a jewel by Lisa dress and was styled by Veronica Ebie-Odeka of Vane style.
3) Eku Edewor: Eku went subtle for the night with nude makeup and beautiful dramatic lashes that were not only eye-catchy but alluring. The Nigerian TV personality and actress had her makeup done by Debola Falana.
4) Rita Dominic: Rita, who looked very stunning in a Lanre Da-Silva Ajayi dress, wore an elegant smokey eyes and red lipstick makeup. The Nollywood pretty actress, with this look for her AMVCA pre-party outfit and the lovely shimmer gold set off by black, a rather fabulous look for that night. Rita was styled by Chayla.
5) Sika Osei: Television Presenter studio 53 Extra on DStv 151, Sika Osei pink pout is perfection. The budding Ghanaian actress choice of blue eye shadow over a green shimmer dress isn’t bad either. Her makeup was done by Debola Falana.
6) Biola Alabi: Managing Director of M-Net Africa, Biola Alabi, is a timeless beauty and her flawless makeup for the night only goes to prove that. Soft on the eyes and bold on the lips is how she chose to go. Her lovely makeup was done by Banke Meshida Lawal.
8) Yvonne Okoro: sexy Ghanaian actress of Nigerian and Ghanaian origin was a lovely sight to behold on the AMVCA red carpet. The beautiful actress was dabbed in a sizzling blue gown and her makeup was stylishly adorned by Joyce Jacob. Ghanaian-Nigerian beauty Yvonne Okoro was a dazzling sight in her dress, made even lovelier with her makeup.
9) Kate Henshaw: Nollywood actress with irresistible beauty, Kate Henshaw wore a smokey eyes and pink lipstick makeup look, looking fabulous in red dress and gold accessories stylishly crafted by needle point.
10) Uche Jombo:beautiful and endowed Nigerian Actress, Uche looked astonishing in her smokey eyes and magneta lipstick makeup. The beautiful actress quite stunned the red carpet in a BCBG Max Azria Grace’s peplum gown.
11) Mercy Johnson-Okojie: the talented and endowed actress stunned in a purple gown with minimal makeup and luscious pink lipstick.
12) Osas Ighodaro: Since she arrived on the African entertainment scene, Osas, has done nothing less than nails all her red carpet appearances. She always brings the heat. A stunning beauty!
 
 7) Monalisa Chinda: Nollywood’s delectable gorgeous screen diva, Monalisa, appeared in an April by Kunbi dress and an alluring red pout.

The beautiful actress, who co-hosted the AMVCA alongside Vimbai and Ik Osakioduwa, dazzled in a smokey eye and soft pink lipstick makeup.

I NEVER cheated on my ex hubby.

 

It’s not who I am, it will never be who I am.-9ice ex-wife Toni Payne Speaks Out.

 

The PR Exec and former reality TV Toni Payne and Nigeria pop singer 9ice, got marriage in January 2010, and they had a son together, but things fall apart form each others that lead to them to break their vows and rumours went viral saying 9ice caught her cheating with one of his closest friends, mouths have been sealed about this for long but now Toni Payne has finally come out to defend herself from the allegation against her for so many years.

"I don dey talk long but to the initial point i wish to address, to those who still believe I cheated on my ex. I am sorry to disappoint you, I NEVER cheated on my ex hubby. It’s not who I am, it will never be who I am. Tell yourself 1 million times, Toni Payne cheated, it will never make it true. Nobody caught me in any lie, or in any bad situation, nobody slept with anyone he was close to. Yall need to put a full stop to that bullshit. Its old!. Sometimes, men want their freedom, and the fact is you cant force them to stay. Same goes for women.

Everyone wont have a perfect relationship, not everyone will stay married forever, we can only aspire to. Even those that have been married 10 years and are busy judging others, do you know your tomorrow? naaaa you sure don’t so curb it abeg. We can only pray, work, and hope for a good union. Anyways To address this my ex said this or that issue. Let me just say He has NEVER for once opened his mouth to accuse me of cheating. He has NEVER for once opened his mouth to accuse me of sleeping with anyone he knows. If awon alaiye baje wanna use our situation then to sell their crap, how is that my fault? The same media controlling the remote to say I think cheating is ok, are the same who controlled the remote back then to say his song was about me. Nobody ever called him to verify or ask before publishing.

I’ll admit that we both did not handle the situation well back then, It was the first time we would experience such. The tension was plenty and emotions were everywhere. We should have sorted it privately. which we did try to do but one rubbish headline and emotions go buckwild again. I don’t wanna sounding like I am defending him, cos he is responsible for himself, but in all fairness to him, and because I have a conscience that serves me well, not for once did he tweet, fb, email, interview anything of the sort. Our issues had absolutely nothing to do with what the media were speculating. People took a song he did and turned it upside down.

My crew MIXED AND MASTERED the song. If it was about me, why would I allow him release it. God gave all of us sense naa.. Some just chose not to use theirs and chose to believe anything they read even when the facts are there to sort through. The only thing I have blamed him for, was not coming out on time to refute the claims and allowing it to escalate to that level, he has since apologised SEVERALLY, we have discussed it privately as we should have from the jump. I have accepted and moved on. I have also apologized for losing my cool on twitter, he has since accepted and moved on. Really, what more is there. I am not sure what people want from me. Should I hate him forever? Should I tie him to a post and flog him mercilessly? Should I be a wicked person and deprive him of his son? If I remain bitter and upset, please what value will it add to my life? Wo, my life is much more simpler than all this. Those who know me well, know this.

Those that dont understand me are the ones who will be forever outside looking in, speculating crap. I am truly tired of this topic but since it seems to keep popping up, i felt it is best to finally address it properly. If anyone decides to hang on to the lie after this, that is their own cup of tea. I have a talk show to record, poetry to write and a child to raise. I don talk my own. FIN!.. If you catch any typos or errors.. take it like that. I wrote it as is…straight from the heart.. I know most who carried the headline have no conscience and wont bother appending but if anyone choses to take my post and misconstrue that one too, I leave you to God.. no be chere kambia..Se Fini"

OJB Jezreel Survives Surgery In India, To Arrive Nigeria On December 7th

God be praised! It has been months of waiting for a successful kidney transplant for OJB Jezreel and months of suspense for the legendary producer to get better. And now, Jezreel is set to return home to the waiting arms of his happy fans and friends!

According to reports available to us now, Jezreel will be touching down in Nigeria on Saturday, 7th December with Mabel Okungbowa, his dear wife who donated one of her kidneys to save him.

This good news is being spread by Nomoreloss, who was the front man of the Save OJB cause, and ahead of their return, their Surulere home is undergoing total renovation; the Duplex is being converted to a Bungalow to suit the producer’s new health status.

For his fans, indeed, this news just came at the right time as his return coincides with the festive period. Did we hear you say ‘double celebrations?

The Lost Generation: “To whom much is Given and from whom much is Expected”

The kids brought up to feel as if they're failing - from school to TV shows like The Apprentice and The X Factor

Privilege, it seems, is not all it’s cracked up to be. As depression besets middle-class youth,  where’s society going wrong?

On one side of the Atlantic, an academic survey reveals the pain of privilege for the children of moneyed families. Here, a former Prime Minister, who once promised to deliver a genuinely classless society, has described the continuing – indeed, growing – power of the affluent and privately educated in this country as "truly shocking".

Oddly, the findings of researchers at Arizona State University and the speech this week by John Major lead to a similar conclusion. To become a happier society, and one less wasteful of its citizens' talent, we need to become less divided by class. The sons and daughters of the relatively rich, to whom much is given and from whom much is expected, tend to buckle under the pressure. According to the American survey, published in Psychology Today, the children of families which earn the equivalent of £100,000 or more are twice as likely as their peers to suffer from anxiety, depression and mental illness leading to addiction and self-harm.

It is not just the usual pushy parents who are to blame, the report says. "Impossibly high expectations are transmitted by the entire community – teachers, schools, coaches and peers." Those at the other end of the social scale, whose problem is precisely the opposite, are hardly likely to be models of contentment either.

Fantasies of achievement and wealth may be presented in the media, but the idea that a child from a modest background can today break the cycle of generational under-achievement is as absurd as it ever has been for decades. As Alan Milburn has repeatedly pointed out, low expectations by schools and parents is a curse that continues to blight lives in classrooms and beyond all over the country. The words of the New Testament, "To whomsoever hath, to him shall be given, and he shall have more abundance" continue to echo down the corridors of Westminster, in the City and in the courts.

It is a depressing and morale-sapping message that is being handed down to the generation now reaching adulthood, with too much expectation on those from a certain background and not enough for many of the rest.

The education of the past, for all its faults, had at its core the idea that a person should do his or her best in life, that not everyone can be top. Today, children deemed to have ability find themselves under increasing pressure to pass exams as their education progresses. The anxious competitiveness of schools allows less and less time for learning as play and curiosity, for developing the whole person. Such is the importance of exams, that a child who has been predicted A* grades in her exams is being set up for disappointment. When future success is assumed, there is only one way to go. It is the worst, most stressful kind of pressure.

Our fretful culture, in which achievement is only real if it is visible on a league table or a salary slip, often fails to pass on the knack of happiness, of growing into your own capabilities and strengths in your own time, without having to deal with impossible hopes or crushing limitations.

Never has that strong sense of self been more necessary for professional survival. The model of business success presented through the media is both ugly and unrealistic. It starts with a group of unpleasant young people on The Apprentice trying to do each other down and curry favour with the sour-faced business guru Alan Sugar. It continues with people trying to set up their own businesses being humiliated on Dragons' Den. It ends, by a miraculous process that no one will be able to explain, in the annual wet dream of financial triumph that is the Sunday Times Rich List.

Away from business, the traditional middle-class professions – politics, the law, medicine – are seen increasingly as bastions of privilege, while the media is an ever-shrinking shark-pool.

There are, of course, endless entertainment possibilities in the strivings, and more often than not the failures, of those outside the circle of advantage. At the showbusiness end of the scale, the trick is to present success not as something which is the result of work, application, even passing exams, but as a bolt of good fortune, or a sudden flash of talent, which can descend on a lucky person as if they were in a film or story.

Dermot O'Leary with Hannah Barrett and Abi Alton, who was voted off 'The X Factor'

 
It might be competing on The X Factor. It could be the overnight stardom of a teenage footballer. Or a young cook discovered by a TV chef or a pretty face that appeals to a model agency. These dramatic changes of fortune play very well in schools where other, more conventional routes to achievement are scarcely considered.

Anyone who has visited a school in a relatively poor area will know that not only do the children dream of fame and instant public success, but their parents play along with the fantasy. After a children's book event at a literary festival, a sweet, slightly plump reader of about 11 told me that her ambition was one day to be an author or a lawyer. Her only problem was her parents; they were determined that she should be a model.

Meanwhile, the world of the unprivileged has become a regular staple of entertainment – sometimes a source of guilty humour – for those more fortunate. On any night of the week, you will find a programme exploring, in the usual tone of concern, some horror story from the underclass. It might be obesity, or youth crime, or drunkenness, or teenage pregnancy. The trap of class remains, as John Major points out, but all the same those entering the job market become consumers. Television commercials by banks, insurance agencies, or large retail outlets, have an increasingly childish vibe, and have taken to presenting a gentle, escapist view of the world, with dogs and balloons and smiling grannies.

Down the years, the lottery has exploited the despair of those stuck in their lives, with its form of gambling being promoted as a jolly, family activity. Unsurprisingly, bookmakers and casino websites, beneficiaries of the one boom area of the British economy, place their zany, jolly commercials where they are most likely to attract the young and vulnerable – on comedy and sports channels.

In this year's Christmas commercials for Marks & Spencer and John Lewis, the products being sold remain unseen and even the idea of giving presents to others is only hinted at. We are in a fairy-tale world of Alice in Wonderland or Disney's Fantasia. Society may give more to the privileged, and professional life might be more brutally selfish than ever, but the image of our society provided by big business is infantilised, a sort of paradise of perfect generosity.

Back in the 1990s, John Major claimed that his government would herald a new Britain that was confident and at ease with itself. Many of those born when that promise was made have grown up to be neither confident nor at ease with themselves, and that should be a source of shame.