Managing Pride in our Achievements

The Women Lighthouse Podcast is a community for purpose-driven women. They discuss the emotion of pride and how to manage it in achievements. They emphasize the importance of recognizing success while staying humble. They interview Mrs. Iboro Iroham, who shares her achievements and how she manages pride. They discuss expressing pride positively and not making others feel less. They advise women to handle discrimination and not allow negative feelings to overwhelm them. The advice is to stay humble, ask for help, and focus on personal growth. Hello everyone! You are welcome to the Women Lighthouse Podcast. This is a community for purpose-driven women who desire to live their dreams and aspirations. Our mission is to inspire you to live your dreams one day at a time while serving as a beacon of hope and guidance. We will be addressing various issues related to womanhood. Join me as we explore our journey of life together. I am your host, Wime Hamilton. Hello ladies! You are welcome to another episode of the Women Lighthouse Podcast. It's great to have you on the show today. Today, we are discussing another emotion and that is pride. As a woman, how can you manage pride in your achievements? Managing pride in our achievements as women is important in our personal and professional development. Women usually face unique challenges when it comes to this and they find it challenging when it comes to acknowledging and celebrating their accomplishments. Therefore, for a woman, it's important to create that balance between recognizing your success and also staying humble. On today's episode, we will be discussing strategies for women to effectively manage pride in their achievements in order to be able to foster a healthy sense of self-worth and confidence. And I won't be having this conversation alone today. Here today with me in the studio is a very good friend of mine. She's my big sister, not by blood but by bond, and her name is Mrs. Iboro Iroham. Mrs. Iboro Iroham is the CEO of I.B.Iroham's Girl Store, created to make girls between the ages of 0 to 15 look stunning and beautiful. She is a public speaker that has spoken in over eight countries in Nigeria and also across the globe. She's an executive facilitator in make life work e-institutes, an online community geared towards inspiring young people to be their best version of themselves and be relevant in society. She's happily married and is blessed with a beautiful daughter. Oh, you're welcome Iboro to this episode. It's so great to have you on the show. Thank you, thank you. It's my pleasure to be here too. Yes, Iboro is my very, very good friend. In fact, she's my big sister. We've known each other for over 10 years, so she's my go-to person. So we're going to be talking about managing pride in our accomplishments as women. So to begin our conversation, what are some of the achievements that you've experienced as a woman that you're proud of? Okay, thank you very much. Well, I've had like lots of achievements starting from when I was single until now that I'm married. I had the privilege of holding several leadership positions in the university that made me recognized in three universities. Then I've also had the opportunity to speak in about nine states in the country and that also made me widely recognized. Then also, I know I have also facilitated in different online platforms that has also made me widely recognized and widely known. So I would call that great achievement for me. But the major ones were the ones that happened during my university days. Those were very, very big and major achievements for me. So I would call that great achievement. Even now I'm still achieving. I have a business I just started and it's already opening doors for me. Okay, so with these achievements you've mentioned, how does it make you feel when you look back and you see what you've been able to accomplish thus far in your life? Yeah, I feel very, very great. I know I still have a lot ahead of me but looking back at this one, I feel very, very fulfilled as a woman that I've been able to utilize my womanhood to impact my generation. So I feel great and it also gives me a sense of accomplishment too. Okay, so when we talk about pride, most people associate pride with like a negative emotion. When you're proud, they tend to look at you like, oh she's full of herself, um who does she think she is. So is pride message really a negative emotion? Well, people see things differently. As a woman, you can have a very, very positive courage when you move, when you speak. But some people might interpret that to mean pride. But to me, pride is not a negative emotion. Everyone has that sense of pride when you've achieved something important in life. So I won't call it, I won't call it a negative emotion at all. It's just that people just have a way of misinterpreting things. You see that you have a good charisma, you have a good courage in the way you speak, in the way you carry yourself and people just call it pride. But in your heart, you know, it's far from pride. So that's it. So since you feel it's not a negative emotion, when you feel proud in your accomplishments, how do you manage it in such a way that it doesn't turn out to be a negative emotion? Okay. Well, first of all, when I achieve something great, I try not to make it get into my head, let me use that word. Because by the time you start getting all the accolades, all the standing ovation, all the calls, text messages congratulating you, it will definitely have a way of getting into your head and you now want to feel on top of the world, okay, this is me. So whatever I accomplish, I try not to make it get into my head. I just tell myself, this is a little, more can still be done. Or I tell myself, people have even done more than what I've done. So there's no point and I need to get into my head. So how do you now get to express your pride in that accomplishment at that point in time? Okay, we thank God for all the social media outlets and platforms that we made available. You know, once in a while, once in a while, I can speak to any of them and just express my, should I use the word pride, just express myself in the area that I've accomplished. So yes, basically, I use social media, any of the platforms, Facebook, WhatsApp, Instagram, to just express it. I can write it in front of the post, if I have pictures, I can still post it there. And when the comments and the likes start coming in, I still try to keep my head cool. Yes, well, basically, that's how I express it through social media outlets. Okay, so when we say that pride is expressed wrongly, what can be done? And you would say, oh, the way this person is actually expressing pride, this person is doing it in a wrong way. And how would you advise women to express pride positively? Okay, well, some women indeed need to express their accomplishments. Actually do it negatively, in the sense that they can make, the way they will say it, they will make other women that have not really done much or other women that are still coming up, you know, to feel less of themselves. You know, there's a way somebody, okay, let me use an instance. Maybe I find myself in a gathering of young women, young women of say five or six, you know, and all of us are discussing, yes, all of us are discussing, this one is saying, okay, something related to family, this one is saying something related to finance, this one is saying something related to business, and all of that. Then all of a sudden, I just come in, cut to the conversation, and I'm like, okay, at a certain time, I won this award, and I felt like the best. In fact, the way I carried myself, every other person there was just rubbish to me, all those kind of things. Every other person was just like, I'm nothing for any other person there. I just carried myself like I was the best, this award, this award for being the overall best. To me, I might just be expressing myself, but other women there might start feeling bad, they'll be like, this one actually saying other people were rubbish. Maybe us here too, that are having a discussion with her, we are rubbish too. So, some people, yes, some people go as far as using wrong choice of words and also wrong terms to express their pride. So, that can be seen in a negative light. So, I advise women, if you want to express your pride, you can just say it and make everyone feel relaxed. Say it and make everyone feel comfortable around you. You don't say it in a way to spite other people or make other people feel less of themselves. Say your things, at least in saying it, people know that, okay, this is your area. You know, it's also a way of advertising or marketing yourself, but don't say it in a way, don't say it in a way to make people feel less of themselves or go back home and they'll be like, God, when? So, basically, that's it. Okay, so for women that may experience discrimination for expressing pride in their accomplishments, how should we handle such a situation? I would say to such women, don't allow yourself to feel that way. That feeling is a choice. Yes, you can feel it temporarily, but don't allow it to be a permanent feeling. If it wants to come, consciously walk out of it. Tell yourself, I will not feel this way. I too will accomplish something meaningful in this life. That's why, yes, that's why it's called a feeling. So, if you want to allow yourself to ride through the feeling, you might not really live up to your standard or up to the standard people are expecting of you. So, I would say, don't allow yourself to be overwhelmed by such feelings. You know, another way most women can even allow themselves, they might not have to be in a gathering of people talking. Some people can just open social media and see what people are posting, see what people are doing and start feeling bad. I start feeling bad, oh, see my mates who are online, they're achieving this, they're achieving that, God, when? Don't allow the feeling to get a hold of you. In your own little corner, be doing your little bit. One, two, three, four, before you know it, you'll reach 100, you'll reach 1,000 and that will be a great accomplishment. Okay, so to conclude our conversation, what advice would you give to women that may be struggling in managing pride in accomplishments? I would say to such women, consciously learn to stay humble. And also, if the thing is refusing to work, ask God for help. Okay. Because, yes, because that won't be the only thing you accomplish. As God, yes, as God gives you life, as you're advancing, there will still be many more accomplishments. So if you want to attack all those many more accomplishments with pride, pride, in a negative way, you might not last. That's the thing. So I would say, by all means, consciously stay humble. As you accomplish, stay humble. As you grow into more accomplishments, stay humble. That's my advice. Um, yeah, I remember the quote that, um, late Miles Monroe of Blessed Memory said that, um, the greatest, um, hindrance to success is not failure, but it's your previous success. You know, it's easy to get comfortable when you accomplish something and you feel that you've arrived and you relax. So what can hinder you from aspiring to do more is when you feel that you've succeeded, you get comfortable and you don't strive for more. So that's the danger of becoming proud to the extent that you feel that you've accomplished so much and you feel to challenge yourself to do more. Thank you so much Iborra for joining us today in this conversation, for sharing your experiences and your advice. Dear listeners, it's been a great conversation with Iborra and we need to understand that managing pride in our achievements as women requires a balanced approach. It requires us acknowledging and celebrating our accomplishments while remaining humble and open to continual growth. Recognize that societal and cultural factors may influence your perception or other people's perception of your success. And therefore, always remember to embrace your achievements, share your successes, serve as a role model to others, cultivate self-awareness, practice gratitude and seek mentorship and support to be able to grow in your achievements as a woman. Thank you for listening to today's episode of the Women Lighthouse podcast. I hope you were inspired to keep taking steps towards living out your dreams. If you enjoyed today's podcast, if you enjoyed this episode, we encourage you to share it with other women and leave us a review on our social media platforms which is in the description box. Also, feel free to subscribe to our channel to get notified of new episodes till I come your way on our next episode. Keep living, keep dreaming. Bye for now.