• Home
  • About
  • A Little Bit of Love
    • Manifest
    • Travel
    • Dreams
    • Relationships
    • Thoughts in motion
    • Experiences
    • Less Talk
    • Motivation
    • Love
    • More Action
    • Late night
    • Life
  • Why Didn’t You Warn Me?!
    • WDYWM Podcast

lipstickandblackcoffee

~ To A Life Worth Living xo

lipstickandblackcoffee

Tag Archives: Consistency

Truth Hurts

28 Friday Aug 2020

Posted by Irene Ephraim in Less Talk

≈ Leave a comment

Tags

Bank Holiday, Consistency, Quotes, results, TGIF, Truth, Weekend, Work

I came across this post two days ago by Monika A Mazur, and felt attacked by it. 

Can’t complain about results you don’t have for work you didn’t do.


It convicted me, and reiterated that doing the work isn’t a part-time gig.

Enjoy your weekend, but next week, we’re going to be on job!

Xo

Latest Posts

I Made It

33 held so much for me. I felt like I couldn’t fully exhale for a few reasons.Give or take the inaccuracies of reported history, Jesus was 33 when he ascended. My late friend was also 33 when he ascended. And a small part of me had come to anticipate that this too could be my …

Continue reading →

by Irene Ephraim December 17, 2021

CAN YOU HEAR YOURSELF?

The constant chatter is overwhelming. One person says this, another person says that. Your mum says it’s this way, your brother says it’s the other. Then there’s the people who love to be contrarian with no actual thoughts of their own, just adept at piggybacking off what a group of people might agree upon and finding a …

Continue reading →

by Irene Ephraim December 13, 2021

Cloudy With A Chance Of…

One day you’re fine, life is good and the air is filled with prospects that you could almost pluck them like the squiggly lines you see when you look at a blue sky. The following day however, you’re freezing your bits off, your umbrella is inside out and the contents of your bag have just …

Continue reading →

by Irene Ephraim December 6, 2021

The Improbable Is Still Possible 

Improbable–not likely to be true or to happen.I saw a TikTok of a guy doing the improbable. Getting two basketballs into a hoop using a crutch, throwing a CD into a moving Wii console, releasing ping pong balls with the aim of reaching various points and so on.   It was fascinating to watch. In a different …

Continue reading →

by Irene Ephraim December 2, 2021December 2, 2021

Loading…

Something went wrong. Please refresh the page and/or try again.

In All Honesty…

02 Friday Mar 2018

Posted by Irene Ephraim in Experiences, Less Talk, Lessons Learnt, More Action

≈ Leave a comment

Tags

author, Commitment, Consistency, Feel, Friday, Honest, life, London, Practice, Progress, Relationships, Repetition, Skill, Snow, Speaker, success, Trials, UK, Work, writer

I’m just going to come out and say it. I’m shit at keeping up.

I am not a routine person at all and need free reign to, well, freely reign over whatever I so wish. I like to hibernate from time to time and ruminate over my issues and thoughts in perfect peace and having to be visible disrupts that. Schedules to me are a constriction and only further incite the rebel in me. But, as my mother would say, man cannot live by bread alone and in this instance I cannot be without discipline and consistency as those are the springboards to success.

My relationship with posting is shoddy to say the least. I go through many peaks and troughs with it that I can only imagine for you is meh. *Whispers* If truth be told it’s an absolute miracle that I have been “blogging” for nearly 4 years!

So here is what I am going to ask of you, hold me accountable. No man is an island and no matter who it is, everyone needs someone to encourage or in my case push them to act. On my part I will do my best to continue cultivating discipline and be more consistent.

If there is something in your life that you know needs to improve, put the energy into doing just that. You will have good days where the progress is evident and palpable, but know that there will also be ‘bad days’ where you will want to throw the towel, bucket and sponge in, don’t. I more than anyone understands how an obstacle can come along and give you a swift kick in the shin, but continue to practice. Practice being better than you were yesterday, practice encouraging yourself, practice being disciplined in the small things so you can handle with more ease the big things, practice doing things out of your comfort zone so you can do more things out of your comfort zone, whatever it is, practice and don’t give up!

Xo

P.s How are we in March already?!

 

Major Key Alert

18 Monday Sep 2017

Posted by Irene Ephraim in Experiences, Motivation

≈ Leave a comment

Tags

career, Consistency, Hardwork, Monday, Money, Motivation, Relationships, success

I am constantly reminded that a major key to success is consistency. Even when you get the thing you have worked for, you have to maintain it and maintaining it requires consistent action.  Relationships, money, career, health, home, everything needs to be maintained and in some cases improved upon by consistent effort. It will be near impossible to sustain something if the energy you devote to it is every once in while.

10% effort means 10% results, in fact that’s a lie, what you will most likely get is less than 10% results.  Your output has to be greater than what you want. So if you want 100% results then you must put in 130% (not an accurate figure) consistently and this applies to absolutely everything, especially when you are just starting out.

Now, I have to be honest or I should say realistic, it may take months, years even before you start to see the fruits of your labour and you have to be okay with that. You will sometimes feel like giving up but you owe it to yourself to see things through. Trust me, those steps that you take repeatedly that feel and look like nothing to you, will one day materialise into something worthwhile.

No one who has attained great success in anything did it once. Your fav spent YEARS investing in themselves for you to see them as they are, so hold tight, keep working and when the time is ripe, it will happen.

W(ait)ork for it.

Xo

P.s This post is more for me than it is for you. I have work to do…ugh.

Relationships: Family, Friends, Career, Money…?

05 Monday Sep 2016

Posted by Irene Ephraim in Late night, Life, Relationships

≈ Leave a comment

Tags

career, Consistency, Effort, Fulfilling, Harvest, Men, Money, Nurture, Patience, Reap, Relationships, Sow, Women

Relationships are hard work, irrespective of what form its in, maintaining them sometimes, will have you wanting to free fall from the highest cliff, grrrr!

I was sent a video last night that wound me up. It was a woman talking about how you should treat your man and a few seconds in, I was rolling my eyes, blah blah blah. The thing is, it wasn’t that I didn’t agree with some of what she said, it was the conviction she held that women are SUPPOSED to treat their men that way period. I thought, hold up, what about the men? what will they be doing? does one not have to take into account the calibre of the recipient of such wonderful treatment? It made me think…

People are out here in these streets having expectations of others that they themselves are not fulfilling.

Why do we always want what we have not worked for?

Why do you expect to be taken care of, when you cannot take care of yourself?

How much have you put in for you command this in return?

What do you bring to the table?

In my experience you attract what you are. Years ago I noticed that the men I was attracted to, had one thing in common, my bad traits. It was like fighting with myself on a daily basis, stress! My vibrations were operating at a much lower level and it showed. Thank goodness for growth!

Your relationship to friends, family, career, and money need effort, consistency, nurturing and patience in order for them to flourish and be fruitful. If you are not contributing in that way, the end results will certainly reflect that.

Being on the receiving end of the amazing things in life will often require you to supply something of yourself, a sacrifice of sorts. Everything has a price, whether you think it is worth or not is entirely up to you.

So lets do away with the idea that you get something for nothing, and accept that what you sow, be it good or bad, you’ll reap in due time. I have said this before and ill say it again, you cannot sow and reap at the same time, one must happen before the other.

One must happen before the other.

Don’t be a dreamer

08 Monday Aug 2016

Posted by Irene Ephraim in Late night, Less Talk, Life, More Action, Motivational & Intentional, Thoughts in motion

≈ Leave a comment

Tags

action, blogger, Community, Consistency, Create, Doer, Dreamer, life, Like-Minded, Night Creatures, opportunity, Persistent, Practice, Repetition, Shonda Rhimes, Universe, writer, Year Of Yes

I have been thinking about late night writing or posting should say. Why? Because I’m a vampire of course.
No but more seriously, there is bound to be a community of nutters, I mean like minded people scouring the internet for something to divulge into, right? People like me.

I had a pretend community called ISG, Insomniac Support Group because le struggle to sleep was real. It consisted of myself and one other guy on Twitter ha!

Anyway back to the matter. My first late night post goes a little something like this: Go to sleep. Just kidding.

What keeps me up at night? Erm a whole host of things, bills, bills, bills, have I said bills?  If I’m honest I try not to allow such things deprive me of sleep, usually if I am up till late, my aspirations are haunting me, literally.

I find that sometimes I spend a large amount of time thinking about them rather than actually doing them. The reason is usually because I have never done it before and truth be told my goals scare me lol, so what do I do instead? Procrastinate.

Last week I bought the audio book by the Shonda Rhimes “Year of Yes: How to Dance It Out, Stand In the Sun and Be Your Own Person”.

Shonda is both incredibly inspirational and a pioneer of her own kind. She consistently breaks the mould in various aspects of her life and is living it exactly the way she wants it. I applaud her boldness and her ability to say no to some things and yes to others, if you’ve read/listened to the book, you’ll know what I am referring to.

The thing that most resonated with me from her book, was something she said in her commencement speech at Dartmouth University, which she was petrified of doing. She said don’t dream, do.

Now you might say ‘yeah we know that Irene, we all know that’ yes we have heard it a trillion times but how well have those words permeated your skin? What’s the ratio of what you do to what you don’t do in respect of your goals? Be honest with yourself.

It was like I was hearing those words again for the first time. Its funny because my posts are riddled with ‘action talk’ yet I felt a renewed sense of attachment to the words ‘Don’t dream, do’ as if I had unlocked a new level on a game, the game of life. Maybe its because I knew I wasn’t doing nearly enough.

Yes its great having dreams, but dreams will remain a fantasy if you don’t do anything about it.

No sense in conjuring beautiful images of what you’d love your life to look like if you don’t in fact take any action towards doing something about it.

It doesn’t matter if you don’t know how to do it, just keep doing what you know and be keen to learn.

The idea is to not keep still waiting for the perfect time or opportunity. Now is the perfect time and you are the opportunity.

Keep moving, keep repeating, keep practicing, keep learning, and most importantly keep doing.

By being proactive, the universe will aid and abet in order to get where you want to be but you have to do, consistently and persistently.

Okay that’s my lot. See you night creatures! XO

Relationships: You need to cut it

15 Wednesday Jun 2016

Posted by Irene Ephraim in Life, Motivational & Intentional, Relationships

≈ Leave a comment

Tags

Attitude, blogger, Compromise, Consistency, Effort, friendships, Grass is Greener, Healthy, Loving, Maturity, peace, Piece, Quality, Relationships, Respect, Single, Situationships, Social Media, Twitter, writer

Relationships, friendships, situationships, familyships = Work

When you’re single you think, wouldn’t it be great to be in a relationship? And when you’re in a relationship, being single sounds like a wonderful idea- The grass always seems greener on the other side.

The truth is every type of relationship requires consistency, effort, and most certainly compromise. It’s work, the grass is greener where you nurture it.

People have the impression that relationships (all forms) are supposed to be easy, fun, like they appear in the movies. When it doesn’t fit that idealistic picture, then the answer is to cut them out.

The attitude that there’s plenty more fish in the sea in this society is very much rampant and although that statement might be true, the focus should always be on quality not quantity. Quality and edifying relationships are hard to come by and when you have them, they should be valued and respected accordingly, rather than disposed of.

I often see on social media declarations like, ‘I’ll cut that person off’ or ‘I have no qualms cutting people off’ as if it’s an accomplishment *Slow claps*. I’d be lying if I said I didn’t behave like this when I was younger, I was ruthless albeit justified in some cases by very humble opinion. Over time I learnt the value of nourishing relationships, which includes telling people the hard truth (and also hearing it) and making the effort to make it work.

Was and is it easy? Heck no. Many times I want to be stubborn and hold on to my pride for dear life, because temporarily that will make me feel better. In the long run you will suffer.

You cannot jump from friend to friend, relationship to relationship and the like, just because you don’t like something they did it or said. You will find that whomever you are with and wherever you go, the problem remains. Shirking your issues with others won’t make them disappear.

In order to have the kind of loving, nurturing, healthy relationships that you desire, you must take responsibility and approach it with a level of maturity that sometimes, may not be present in others.

If it means something to you, then treat it that way, if it is no longer worth it to you, have the decency to respectfully leave it peace and not in pieces.

XO

Why Didn’t You Warn Me?!

Why Didn't You Warn Me?!

Why Didn't You Warn Me?! is a podcast speaking on the things you should know, but don't. The things you typically find out after the fact, and it's sometimes too late. Fear not, Why Didn't You Warn Me?! with Irene aka Lipstick, will give you the 411 through story-telling, conversations, and refreshing perspectives.

© Copyright © lipstickandblackcoffee 2021

  • Listen on Apple Podcasts
  • Podcast RSS Feed

Create a free website or blog at WordPress.com.

  • Follow Following
    • lipstickandblackcoffee
    • Join 264 other followers
    • Already have a WordPress.com account? Log in now.
    • lipstickandblackcoffee
    • Customize
    • Follow Following
    • Sign up
    • Log in
    • Report this content
    • View site in Reader
    • Manage subscriptions
    • Collapse this bar
 

Loading Comments...