Growth is inevitable. Whether you like it or not, biologically, your body will grow. Synonymous to life is growth; it starts from the beginning of life–the conception in the womb. Growth happens over time, so you see a day-old foetus develop into a nine-month-old baby, a baby becomes a toddler, a toddler becomes an adolescent, an adult, and finally till old age.

Yes, you and I know very well that this biological growth is not within our control; it’s natural, it’s life!

However, there are other sides to us as a being. We not only have our biological part but also the mental, emotional, and spiritual parts of us needing to grow.

Now you know pretty well that there are two sides of growth: growth we have control over and growth that we do not have control over. Imagine that which we do not have control over going about its work, doing what it is supposed to be doing at certain hours, days, months, and years. Why then won’t we allow the other aspects of us that we have control over to grow?

If we do not grow in areas we have control over, there will be some imbalance in our lives. Therefore, it is our responsibility to ensure we grow on all sides, making the intentional effort to ensure we do the work necessary for growth, especially in areas we have 100% control.

Growth connotes increase, advancement, becoming bigger and better. Growing means you are stretching your capacity to do more and achieve more. Increasing your capacity requires that you put more significant effort that moves you out of your comfort zone, from your current position to the next level.

Not all efforts or exerted energy would result in growth; to achieve the result, efforts must be strategically channeled. This means that you need to have clearly defined growth goals for all aspects of your life.

When you have mapped out your growth goals, you know what you want to achieve; the next step is to understand how to accomplish these goals–learning.

One foundational requirement for growing is learning. Your ability to learn reflects your capacity to grow. The more you know, the better equipped you are to perform, the better you grow. If living is to grow, then to grow is to learn—this is just the truth.

Any area requiring growth demands we learn and understand what or what not to do. This will make the growing process a little easier and gentle for us.

For instance, if, as part of my career growth goals, I want to be proficient in MS Office packages, I would have to, first of all, learn how to use the software and then begin to practice to improve proficiency. If I refuse to understand before using that software, I would fumble, struggle, and eventually fail.

The journey of growth is one of being deliberate, conscious, and intentional. These things take a lot of effort and work to do, but the journey becomes a little more interesting when we know what to do and what not to do.

For you to truly see any visible transformational growth in your life, you must learn to decide. You will have to make many decisions in your growth journey, small and big decisions relevant to your growth goals.

You will also learn discipline. Your ability to be disciplined regarding your character, routine, schedules, finances, time, etc., will keep you focused on your journey. Discipline is critical to achieving or seeing visible results in your growth journey.

Meanwhile, having discipline in itself isn’t easy because it will require that you let go of many things, not in line with who you want to become.

You must learn determination, which helps you not give up when confronted with obstacles, challenges and limitations or temptations. In your growth journey, you will surely have to confront issues at different phases.

Imagine the teething pains babies go through to grow teeth to eat other forms of food, the number of times children will fall and hurt themselves before they can walk and move about on their own. Like other areas of our growth life, there will always be ups and downs, but our learning to be determined and not get weary or give up gives us the staying power.

You must learn consistency; nothing grows when it is not consistently done. You cannot achieve good academic results if you aren’t consistent with your study. You cannot reach your business goals if you are not regular or consistent with your business ethics and presence. You cannot climb to the top ladder of your career if you are not consistent with your attendance and productivity at work. You cannot achieve your fitness goal if you are not consistent with your diet or workout routine.

Consistency will produce the result and the outcome you want. So to grow, you must learn to decide, to be disciplined, determined, and consistent.

Friends, don’t ever be deceived; if you desire to experience growth in any area of your life, you must learn, and guess what; learning is continuous just as growth is. It will stretch you, but it will be worth it.

When you need help, please reach out to trusted people; it makes the growth journey a lot easier. Reach out to me if you have to, it is my joy to be part of your growth journey.

Keep growing, dear.
Love is all I have,
Atinuke Odjenima
Transformational Growth Catalyst

When the news of a certain crime breaks, it is usually welcomed with a lot of outrage and with culprits receiving heavy backlash. Everybody is pointing fingers and we all know who is to blame. But enough of all that hypocrisy. That rapist is someone’s friend, brother, neighbour, or family member.

Character is like the smoke from a fire, it cannot be hidden. Someone knows they are aware of the wrong things you do; they know your weakness but they leave you to it even though you are a potential danger to the society. They turn a blind eye until someone becomes a victim of your evil actions.

No more sentiments of “family or friend” what is bad is bad, speak up and speak out against
evil, stop covering up bad behaviour. Speak up and speak out, help this person find help. That kidnapper/fraudster is someone’s husband, neighbour, brother, or friend. You see him living large, he looks good and spends money, and what does he do for a living? Do we even still question people’s source of wealth in this generation or are we all just minding our business?

Why are you minding your business? Is it because you are afraid to be the one to expose this person? Or because you are a beneficiary of this person? Are you just minding your business because you feel you are not and cannot be affected?

Minding your business is evil! It is a sin to mind your business to the detriment of society. We need to be more discerning & observant, those who do evil things are just in our families, streets, offices, why do we pretend like we don’t know them or we do not see the evil they do?

These people need help! Now is the time to cry out, speak up, and report these acts. It is not enough to only resist evil but to also report it. These people need to be helped, not by our silence but by reporting these acts to a doctor, NGOs, or even to the police. Reporting, not because we don’t love & accept them but to keep the society safe.

Stop assuming or thinking that other people or the police will do nothing, just do your part. The bible says evil prevails when the righteous do nothing. When we say change begins with me, it means that we must stand up and speak out against all forms of wrongdoings, injustice, immorality, and corruption going on around us; in our families, communities, workplaces, and everywhere we are. These things we must do with courage and not with sentiments of who they are to us or benefits we get from them but for the interest & love to keep the society saner.

We cannot continue to say I wasn’t part of them, it wasn’t me, it is not my concern, I am minding my own business. These things enable the perpetration of these acts. Your values and words should be questioned if you can’t defend those values and the implications in the lives of others. Here is the time, demanding on us all to uphold our different good values and become the messenger of our essence–Love.

May we all have the courage to stand up for our values and not keep silent over what is dangerous for the society.

Love is all I have
Atinuke Odjenima
Transformational Growth Catalyst

We each have roles to play in whatever institution we find ourselves; home, community, work, church, etc. When there is a collective vision or goal, everyone has a part to play in its actualization. It is pertinent that everyone takes responsibility and performs their duties efficiently; this way, excellent results can be achieved.

However, when parties fail to play their part, the overall progress is affected, but others could compensate for this failure. Although the efficacy may be reduced, the goal could still be achieved when we double our efforts to make up for inadequacies.

For example, the father and mother share responsibility for creating a healthy, happy family on the home front. It is expected that they are both loving, caring, loyal, honest, disciplined, etc. If the man/woman fails in any aspect, it puts a strain on the other to go the extra mile to make up for the lapses. It isn’t necessarily the most efficient way, but to keep the dream alive, one must step up for the other from time to time. When a man cannot provide for his family financially, and the woman does nothing (because it isn’t her duty), they would live in lack. But when the woman steps up to meet up for the inadequacies, they can manage the situation better.

Equally, in an office environment, all staff members are assigned responsibilities and are expected to deliver. When a staff cannot deliver, the onus falls on the supervisor to review, correct, or reassign the job to ensure the organization’s standard is met. Sometimes, department members need to help one another with their tasks not to fail to meet their deadlines or quota.

In governance, both leaders and citizens have shared responsibilities in nation-building. If the citizens fail to do their part, the government would have to put extra measures to compel people to perform their civic duties or punish defaulters to deter others. In the same vein, citizens are to hold leaders accountable and actively participate in governance. Voting out non-performing leaders, being critical in selecting leaders, campaign, and advocating for change as and when necessary.

In these instances, we see that one party checkmates the other to ensure that the goal is achieved. Therefore, whatever setting we find ourselves in, we should keep in mind that making the dream come alive is a collective effort. When others default, it shouldn’t discourage you from doing your part. It should instead propel you to do more.

Love is all I have,
Atinuke Odjenima
Transformational Growth Catalyst

In recent times, there have been many cries; globally and locally, against oppression in various forms; racial oppression, gender oppression, institutionalized oppression, and so on.

There’s been the Black Lives Matter movement on the foreign scene. Here in Nigeria, the #ENDSARScampaign has seen a series of mass protests against police brutality in the country and other forms of institutionalized oppression.

More often than not, when there are cries against oppression, it is usually a case of the government against the people or institutions versus the people. But it is high time we realized that it is the people against the people. What is seen at the top is usually a representation of what is at the bottom.

Leaders are elected from the larger population, and therefore if our crop of leaders exhibits certain traits, they are mirroring who we are. To solve the problem of oppression in our society, we must begin by examining ourselves; how do we behave when we are in positions of power or authority?

As a father, mother, or older sibling in your home, how do you treat the children in the house? Do people in your home fear you and dread your presence, or do you show respect for those you have authority over? How do you treat your domestic staff? Are you condescending and demeaning to them? How do you treat your subordinates at the place of work? In your community, do you consider some people less deserving of respect or other privileges simply because of their gender, social class, job, or tribe?

When we examine our interactions in the home, at work, and in other social settings, we see different forms of oppression at play. Husbands lord over their spouses and deny them certain privileges just because they can. The treatment of many domestic staff in Nigerian homes is generally poor. At workplaces, we have superiors who use their position to mistreat others.

Therefore, to effectively tackle the issue of oppression, we must begin with a mindset shift. We need to correct cultural, tribal biases that enable oppression. As always, the change you seek begins with you. You need to make decisive and conscious efforts to be fair to all. In addition to this, we should speak out against oppression, whether we are directly affected or not. We must speak out against injustice in our society.

Love is all I have,
Atinuke Odjenima
Transformational Growth Catalyst

When is something said to have a life? What essentially differentiates living things from non-living?

To have life is to exist, having the potential for growth and productivity. Living happens when these potentials are being utilized; to live is to be active. To live is to move from the point of mere existence to growing and engaging in productive activities.

When we say electricity has life, it means it can produce light with the effect of burning. So, the life in an electrical wire can create.

Life is synonymous with living, while living is synonymous with growth.

When you have life, it is an expected responsibility that you grow. You can’t be in this life, and you are not living. Living means to be aware, conscious, and deliberate, intentional about your life wanting and desiring to change or move from one place to another, from one phase to another.

You are living when you want more, desire more, thirst more, and hunger for more. Living means your yesterday is different from today, and your tomorrow is looking better, brighter, and more beautiful than today. Living is a life that is not static but dynamic and keeps changing for the better.

This is the living I mean. Not living just because you breathe and count your days each passing year but living in terms of what your life has produced.

If the life around you is changing and growing technologically, economically, socially, and politically why won’t you- the most crucial factor and the most indispensable resource of earth that carries the seeds of potential to produce greatness? Why won’t you change, yield and produce? Having life without growth is an ordinary life and a colossal waste of the potential you carry.

Friend, we are designed to live; we are designed to produce, to grow. If you do not wake up to the reality of who you truly are, you become stale, outdated, and useless. You become a burden not only to those around you but a burden to the earth.

If grasses could grow, and if animals could grow, don’t you also think that you are designed to grow?

Biologically, you’re growing whether you are conscious of it or not. Our biological growth equips us with greater capacity for productivity as we grow from infanthood to adulthood. If nature mandates us to develop biologically, it shows that we must make the deliberate effort to grow in every other aspect of our lives.

Have you been growing? Can you identify areas of your growth? Who were you five years ago, and who are you today? Are there any visible differences? Have you become better today in all areas or most? Can you identify areas where you need to do more work to grow? What are your next five years looking like? Who do you want to have become? What do you hope to have achieved?

Don’t be complacent, don’t stay too long where you are, and don’t be too comfortable with the status quo. Want more out of life, demand more from yourself, dream bigger, push yourself a little further, make changes in your life for the better, and bless the world with that greatness that resides inside you.

Indeed, you are made for more. Challenges, obstacles, and hindrances may come your way, and sometimes you will even fail, don’t get discouraged, don’t give up; they are all signposts to the new you, a better you. The truth you must know about yourself is that you can move past those hurdles.

All you need to do is remain focused, harness all your strength, have faith, and believe in yourself. You will be surprised how much you get in return as a reward, but the biggest reward is actually how much more a better person, a new you you would have become.

You are made of more, for more.
You are made to grow, so keep growing

Love is all I have,
Atinuke Odjenima
Transformational Growth Catalyst