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4 THE STANDARD STYLE / WOMAN / FASHION August 3 to 9 2014 Recycled trend “Every day is a fashion show and the world is the runway” – Coco Chanel In Trend: Denim, White Denim jeans, Metallics, Platform Sandals Shamiso Catherine Ruzvidzo Patterned Kimono’s are Back If you aren’t part of the fashion world, its very easy to get lost in all the trend talk that happens in the fast paced world of fashion. You may often hear people say are you “on trend” or are you shopping for a trend. People always ask me what trends are and how they affect them. A trend is a popular style that is often determined through seasons and forecasted years in advance. They indicate the direction in which fashion is moving and act as a guide for fashion houses world over. Textile experts work years in advance to determine the guidelines of each upcoming season, identifying and anticipating styles. Trend forecasting gives designers style direction and shapes collections. One minute you can dressed in the hottest look and the next you are deemed out of date. Forecasting can be predicted up to two years in advance or more. BUY LOCAL Try Zimbabwean Brand Tanya Nefertari for patterned fashion. Some of the most popoular trends at the moment are metallics, white denim jeans, denim, patterned prints and platform sandals. Trends tend to recycle every couple of years, often coming back with a new style and modern cut. You may recognise some of these current trends, as they have similar styles and looks from what we were wearing during the 90s. Are trends followed in Zimbabwe? They are not followed as obsessively as they are followed overseas. However they do come and go locally, or often come and stay. Like the colour blocking trend from three years ago that seems to have become an attached trend for Zimbabweans. Platform Sandals Bright Pastal Prints Metallics
August 3 to 9 2014 THE STANDARD STYLE / INSPIRATION 5 Relational thinking for wholesome Living Cynthia Hakutangwi According to psychologist Sidney Jourard, fully 85 percent of your happiness in life will come from your personal relationships. Your interactions and the time that you spend with the people you care about will be the major source of the pleasure, enjoyment and satisfaction that you derive daily. The other 15 percent of your happiness will come from your accomplishments. Unfortunately, many people lose sight of what is truly important, and they allow the tail to wag the dog. They sacrifice their relationships, their major source of happiness, to accomplish more in their careers. But one’s career, at best, can be only a minor source and a temporary one, at that of the happiness and satisfaction that everyone wants. We are all bio-psychosocial spiritual beings as mankind. True health in mankind is more than the absence of disease since wellness involves health in all dimensions of life. Considering that the dimensions of life are all interrelated it becomes inevitable that decisions in one dimension can positively or negatively influence the other areas. Relational needs and wholesome living From a societal approach, the top ten relational needs include Acceptance, Affection, Appreciation, Approval, Attention, Comfort, Encouragement, Respect, Security and Support. Wholesome living is a product of pursuing wholeness in every area of our lives. This includes giving thought to how our actions and words may affect the vitality of those we interact and relate with. Wholeness is an expression of completeness, entirety, totality, unity, fullness and comprehensiveness. What lens are you putting on? I remember vividly the frenzy that hit our neighbourhood in the early 80’s when the British pop music outfit Five Star released their hit single “All Fall Down” in 1985. It became so trendy for the teen fans that could afford it to walk around the neighbourhood with an air of “coolness” donning a pair of denims and dark sunglasses (“shades” as they were popularly known). It was with a glee of delight when I briefly wore my first pair of “shades” which I had “borrowed” from my brother one Saturday afternoon. What an extraordinary perspective I had of everything that sunny afternoon! Everything and everyone appeared so dark and different for those few moments yet as soon as I removed them from my tiny face, When things go wrong! my familiar light-filled world was restored. In life we may not always be able to control the variables but we are responsible for the perspectives we choose to adopt as we interact with the world and everything around us. On various levels the world experiences so many struggles that arise from a self-lens. The selflens causes individualistic thinking which is responsible for a limited scope of problem solving, lack of consideration of the broader society, incomprehensive solutions and the dissolution of families, institutions and societies. Relational thinking is an approach for transforming societies, organisations and economic productivity. “It is a paradigm shift, where we view everything through a relational lens, speak with relational language, to give new relational definitions, and use relational instruments to reach relational goals which benefit everyone” - Relationships Global (UK). In the words of the author John Powell, “to live fully, we must learn to use things and love people, and not love things and use people.” It is our perspective therefore which makes the difference between what we see and what can be achieved. Putting on the relational lens means that we learn to see life from the perspective of relationships, as opposed to seeing it from the viewpoint of materialism or individualism. Relational Thinking is Sustainable Thinking Learning to think relationally is the first step towards building a more relational world. Whilst relationships are important in the lives of individuals they are also key in organisations on a Strategic, Cultural, Operational and Personal level. The scope of the relational lens is not only personal but organisational and extends to the wider society. For those in business Relational Proximity is a real issue to customers. When customers are not experiencing what ought to be the results of relational proximity – namely, a feeling of connectedness, being understood, belonging and fairness that supports respect, they start to disengage. The same applies in personal relationships. With relational proximity we can build trust, accountability, supportive relationships and a sense of belonging. The cumulative effect of adopting Relational Thinking results in the attainment of stronger families, more effective organisations, increased social cohesion in communities, improved economic productivity and greater personal and national wellbeing. Seek to establish healthy relationships The tragedy of our time has been the tendency to look at relationships with a “whatdo-I-get-out-of-this?” perspective. Meaningful and healthy relationships are developed and established when all the parties are willing to give and receive. The benefits of cultivating good relationships are endless. We can make a choice today and determine to think relationally and give of ourselves what we expect to benefit out of any meaningful relationship by changing our perspective. Cynthia is a Communications and Personal Development Consultant, a Life Coach, Author, and Strategist. She is the Managing Consultant of Wholeness Incorporated. “A passionate and fervent motivational speaker who speaks at seminars, workshops and conferences provoking people and institutions to challenge their comfort zones by imparting vital knowledge and information which can help them to live balanced lives and create trans-generational solutions.” E-mail: cynthia@wholenessincorporated.com Rufaro Mushonga “Show me a person who never made a mistake, and I will show you a person who never did anything.” This is a quote from William Rosenberg, the founder of Dunkin’ Donuts, a successful American global doughnut and coffee chain. Are you a perfectionist? It is important to strive for excellence in everything that you do, but being a perfectionist can send you to an early grave, because perfectionists struggle to deal with and bounce back from mistakes they have made. They live in denial. I was once a perfectionist, but in my line of work, I have learnt the hard way that I will make mistakes, and some of those mistakes can result in losing a client, or even losing your credibility in business. The bottom line is no one is perfect. We all make mistakes. I had a traumatic event experience a few weeks ago. I planned an event to near perfection, but I had service providers to deal with. This event was out of Harare, and I had to work within a budget, which meant using event service providers that I had not worked with before. I consulted with people that I trust who are in the same line of business as I am, and they referred me to “reputable” service providers. Now, you can control your own actions and behaviour, but you cannot control the actions and behaviour of another person, no matter how hard you may try to. The mistake that I made was to assume that basic event etiquette was not something that I had to educate these service providers on. I thought they knew! But they needed intense micro-managing, and this is something that I realised when it was already too late. “Murphy’s Law” took over. For those of you who are not familiar with this law, it says that “anything that can go wrong will go wrong. “ It was a circus! I was disturbed by the lack of professionalism that I had to deal with. In fact, I was traumatised! As my business partner, Archie Mhone, always says “You can plan - and plan to perfection, but when it comes to this business, you are only as good as the performance of your service providers. “ And as I said earlier, it was a circus. So you’ve made a mistake that resulted in losing a client that was key to your bottom line. Or you’ve encountered a huge obstacle that has brought your efforts to a halt. That experience, for a small business owner can be discouraging to a point where you want to give up, or you lose confidence in your abilities, and sometimes become fearful that you will make another mistake. In order to be successful, more often than not, you have to experience setbacks. Rather than crawl into a hole somewhere and hibernate, confront these setbacks head on. Accept your failure or mistake. Accept that you are far from perfect – no one is perfect. Accept that you are going to make more mistakes as you grow. This doesn’t mean you should become mediocre – by all means strive for perfection! But once you accept that you will make mistakes, when you do make a mistake, you will be able to dust yourself off, take corrective measures, and move forward. You will be a better entrepreneur than you were when you started. Learn from your mistakes. Use your failure as an opportunity to learn, to grow and to improve your business. Use it as motivation to succeed. In my line of business, which is events management, I work with checklists on a daily basis. So when I make a mistake, or overlook something, I add these mistakes to my checklists, so that next time, I know I won’t repeat the same mistake. To take my experiences even further, over the years I have found myself with a series of detailed checklists that I give to my team whenever we have a job to do. Sometimes I give these to clients. So because of my passion for wedding planning, I recently decided to put these checklists together and write a wedding workbook for couples to use, to help them plan their wedding without leaving out the small but essential planning steps that can make or break their special day. If I had not made mistakes, I would not have been inspired to write a book. Do not make excuses – take ownership of your failures. I am sure many of you can relate to this. Someone offers you a product or service at a certain price, and you negotiate the price downwards, and the product malfunctions, or the service is poor. The person who sold it to you blames it on the fact that you did not pay enough. Is this a legitimate reason for failing to deliver? Or is it just an excuse? Take ownership of your mistakes, and show that you have learnt from them. Admitting to a client that you were in the wrong is better than making an excuse, or shifting the blame. A client will respect you more if you show integrity. Get over it fast and bounce back. Get back on the horse! Time is money, and there is no time for you to throw yourself a pity party every time you fail. The longer you spend wallowing in your failure, the harder it will be to get back on the horse. Don’t give up! Rufaro Mushonga rufmush@gmail.com
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