Timeout with Shopper Mama - Medical alert!

Hellooo hellooooo...


Do you realise that time flies so fast, when we are too over stress in office.    So before you over-kill yourself, read this -

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The Centre for Disease Control has issued a medical alert about a highly contagious, potentially dangerous virus that is transmitted orally, by hand, and even electronically.



This virus is called Weekly Overload Recreational Killer (WORK).


If you receive WORK from your boss, any of your colleagues or anyone else via any means whatsoever - DO NOT TOUCH IT!!! This virus will wipe out your private life entirely. If you should come into contact with WORK you should immediately leave the premises.


You should immediately forward this medical alert to your friends. If you do not have friends, you have already been infected and WORK is, sadly, controlling your life.  Get help immediately !

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So, take a coffee break now ok!  

Vogue-U Potion - The Stress

Praise to Allah, the Almighty, the Most Gracious and the Most Merciful

Mak Pah used to take up a motivational course on Personal Effectiveness. And in one of the subject, it covered on Stress!!!! In every subject, we need to submit a learning guide activity whereby we need to write on what we have covered and learned based on our own experiences or encounters.

Let me share the information with all of you as my trainers said sharing of knowledge is virtue. Mak Pah was asked to write on 3 possible stress situations I might encountered and how I would be able to control or overcome them......

So Mak Pah gave 3 scenarios:

Too much work

This factor is quite common nowadays with the current job situations. All of us tend to be multi-tasking and began to feel the pressure. Sometimes we do prioritize our job accordingly, however circumstances of impromptu incidents do come at the very last minute, whereby you need to stop your other official duties and rectify the current problem or project as soon as possible. For example, in Mak Pah's case, I am in the Administration so any Admin matter including government legislations shall be under my portfolio. For example, if the NEA officers come for inspection and then penalized us on certain issues like mosquito breeding, I had to quickly act on the counter measures like getting our NTS workers and cleaners to quickly clear the area and also get our pest controller to fumigate and larvacide (oiling/killing) the larvae as soon as possible. With this kind of interruptions, it could cause a lot of back lots in other Administrative works and could make me feel stressful especially if I could not meet my other Admin deadline of invoices and good receipt submission to Finance for the closing of accounts. Initially I had a hard time juggling with such situations, but now after many occasions, I tend to take things easily and not get stressed up like staying back late to clear the back lot and on top of that learn to increase self-awareness like quickly manage the time if possible in order to prioritize critical ones to non-critical ones. Eventually the habit has develop the positive thinking like take things as it comes and handle it professionally.

Changing job requirements

With the current fast moving pace of our job market, we began to feel everything around us are beginning to be a part or at least important to us. Mak Pah was from a secretarial post, then all of a sudden I am now moved to Administrative post and I had to be prepared for any new technology and responsibilities. At first the stress of being given more tasks to do made me feel very frustrated and started comparing job portfolios with other colleagues. Eventually as time past, I managed to overcome the stress and accepted the changes positively. I began to build my own support network by listing down who to contact for verification or support. I took the initiative to seek help and enquiries from government bodies like NEA, LTA and MOM for any matter pertaining to the latest legislations and also from professionals like from my peers (engineers, technicians and even lower rank staff who has many years of work experiences), direct bosses or other bosses/depts. In fact as time goes by, the circle of friends from every walks of life began to increase and Mak Pah felt more secured and confident. I think most of us went through many barriers before reaching our goals right.

Personal and family problems

When I send my maid home due to medical problems. The initial part was quite tough for both my husband and me as the children were not able to take up the responsibilities of juggling the house works and school works at the same time. We had to teach them step by step on how to do the task properly like how much detergent to put in the washing machine, how to iron their school uniforms, fry an egg, etc. No doubt when the maid was around, our children did perform some of the chores but with the supervision of the maid, my husband or myself. Now after the maid left and with nobody at home during the day, they need to learn to be independent and manage the task independently and with confidence. Initially there are bound to be hiccups and unsatisfactory tasks performed but as time goes by they managed to pick up easily. The stress level of not being able to juggle my time and commitment with them during the day affected me emotionally. I began to worry about them all the time and always call them to check their welfare and well beings. Initially when I reached home and seeing the house was in a mess made me mad and started nagging at the children. However I managed to overcome that by seeing the positive side of things like at least they took the responsibility of performing the tasks even if they were not to my satisfaction. In order to overcome the stress, both my husband and myself would make it a point of rewarding the children. No doubt we have more two-way communications with them to get feedback, but sometimes certain issues the children preferred to settle among themselves. Through communications with them, we realised there are still some gap between the youngsters and adults. Mak Pah realised now why our parents did the same to us when we were teenagers that time. Nevertheless we try to build the trust and stronger bonding among ourselves without any boundaries if possible.

Well as the saying goes, it is easier said than done. So everyone of us need to be given the opportunity to excel in whatever makes us feel comfortable but of course in a positive way. Nobody in this world should be condemned and criticised coz nobody in the world is born perfect. Everyone has their plus and minus points. So enjoy life to the fullest and don't let others stress us up. God created us as the most beautiful living thing alive, why waste it on trivial matter or remarks from those who wants us to fail.

So vouge-u-ers, stay cool and happy always. Take things and enjoys life to the fullest.

I'll share some more in the future postings okay......

Luv from Mak Pah.

Vogue-U Potion - The 90/10 Principle

May Peace be Upon Us....

Have you heard of the 90/10 Principle. When I first received an email from my ex-colleague a few years back regarding this principle, it made pondered and at that moment everything pertaining to this principle which I've undergone started to make me realise how uncivilised we've been when reacting to situations.

For those who has never heard of the 90/10 Principle, read on further to discover it and for those who has read or heard of it, probably treat this post as a refresher or recap.

The author of The 90/10 Principle is Mr Stephen Covey. Discover the 90/10 Principle and it will at least change our life or at least, the way we react to situations.

Author - Mr Steven Covey

What is this Principle?

Well it consists of 10% of life is made up of what happens to us. While 90% of life is decided by how we react......

What does this mean?

We really have NO control over the 10% of what happens to us.....

e.g. We can't stop....

the car from breaking down,

the plane will be arriving late, which will affect our whole schedule,

a driver may overtake us off in the traffic...., so on and so far.....

However, the other 90% is different, we can somehow or another determine the other 90%.

How?....

Well..... it's by controlling our reaction actually. Let us see the following scenario as an example....

We are having breakfast with our family. Our daughter knocks over a cup of coffee onto our business shirt. We have no control over what has just happened. What happens next will be determined by how we react. We start to curse. We harshly scold our daughter for knocking the cup over. She breaks down in tears.

After scolding her, we turn to our spouse and criticise for placing the cup too close to the edge of the table. And then a short verbal battle follows. We storm in the bedroom to change a new clothing. Back to the main door and we find the daughter has been too busy crying to finish her breakfast and getting ready to school that she misses the bus. Our spouse must leave immediately for work, thus we have to rush to the car and drive the daughter to school. Because we are late, we drive 60km/hr in a 40km/hr speed limit zone. Obviously we'll get the traffic fine from traffic police on guard along the speed limit zone. After 15 mins delay, the daughter runs into the school without saying goodbye. Then to make things worsen, after arriving late at the office, we realise we left our important documents at home!!!!!

The day has started terrible. As it continues, it seems to get worse and worse. We look forward to coming home. When we arrive home, we find a small wedge in our relationship with our spouse and daughter.

Why?

Because of how we reacted in the morning.

Why did we have a bad day?

(A) Did the coffee cause it?

(B) Did our daughter cause it?

(C) Did the traffice police cause it?

(D) Did we cause it?

The answer is "D"

We had no control over what happened with the coffee. How we reacted in those 5 seconds is what that caused the bad day.

Here is what could have and should have happened.....

Coffee splashes over us. Our daughter is about to cry. We just gently say: "It's OK, dear, you just need to be more careful next time." Then we just change a new clothing, grab our things for work, and finally we see our child getting on the bus to school. She may even turns and waves goodbye to us. Then we arrive to office early and cheerfully greet the other staff.

Notice the difference?

Two different scenarios. Both started the same. Both ended different.

Why?

Because of how we reacted of course. Again the emphasis is we have no control over the 10% of what happes in our life but the other 90% was determined by our reaction.

There are some ways to apply the 90/10 Principle.

Scenario 1:

If someone says something negative about us, do not be a sponge. Let the attack roll off like water on glass. We do not have to let the negative comments affect us. React properly and it will not ruin our day. A wrong reaction could result in losing a friend, being fired, or getting stressed out.

Scenario 2:

How do we react if someone cuts us off in the traffic? Do we lose our temper? Pound on the steering wheel? Do we curse? Do our blood pressure skyrocket? The answer my vougue-ers.... Who cares if they want to overtake us and make us arrive 10 seconds later at work? Why let the cars ruin our life? Let it be....

Scenario 3:

Put your worrying aside and always stay happy. For instance you are told you lost your job (wow this is serious!!!). Now why lose sleep and get irritated? InsyaAllah, with God's will, it will work out. And use the worrying energy and time to find a new job instead.

Scenario 4:

The plane is late. It is going to mangle your schedule for the day. Why take our your frustration on the flight attendant? She has no control over what is going on. Use your time to study, get to know other passengers maybe. Why do you need to stress out? It will just make things worse.

So friends.... now you know the 90/10 Principle. Apply it and you will be amazed at the results. You will lose nothing if you try it. The 90/10 Principle is incredible. You will see it by yourself!!!

Millions of people are suffering from undeserved stress, trials, problems and headaches. Thus we must understand and apply the 90/10 Principle to change our life. No harm trying and probably we can enjoy it. It will only takes willpower to give ourselves permission to make the experiences. Absolutely everything we do, give, say, or even think, it's like a Boomerang. It will come back to us.....

If we want to receice, we need to learn to give first.....,

Maybe we will end with our hands empty, but our heart will filled with love.....

And those who love life, have that feeling marked in their hearts.....

Lots of Luv to all......

InsyaAllah..... Amin.