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Personal Development

Personal Development, Success

Quarter Life Crisis Occurs at 25 years old? I don’t think so!

December 2, 2010

I was in FULL KNOWLEDGE that today is the 1st of December. It means that this is the final leg of the ‘race’ in 2010. Now, when it’s this time of the year, I usually know that I’m just 1 month away to my birthday (hint: it’s in january.. duh!) and this year it’s especially surreal because I’m turning 25 next year.

25 = quarter century old = quarter life crisis

Is it? I don’t know. But I certainly hope not.

Now as I ponder what exactly has happened in the past 24 years of my life, I dare say that this life has been well-lived so far, simply because I try to live by the motto of ‘Carpe Diem’ and early experiences in life have led me to treasure life even more.

The MMI event I recently went to (if you haven’t read it, it’s here), has made me more aware of the importance of success and celebrating it. It was really funny to me to go through one activity in MMI where I had to list the successes in my life because i think around 3 or 4years ago, Calvin did a similar exercise with me. So what we have to do is to list down the number of successes we have experienced in our life. Back then, I didn’t write a single thing! I think I only wrote 1 and I felt sooo bad that I didn’t have any achievements in my life.

BUT NOW.. it’s different.

At the event, successes that I have experienced from when I was young till today, came to me quite naturally and I just felt overwhelmed at how much I have changed – how now I do not think as poorly of myself as before.

Were the experiences of success the determining factor?

Maybe. But I have to say that it’s how I think and choose to empower myself with my success stories that caused me to remember and list them more.

Food for thought:

Now, don’t you think if you are constantly thinking about how successful you are, you probably will think that you are?

Similarly, if you constantly can’t recall your achievements, you probably will be thinking you have nothing much to cheer about and you aren’t successful.

That was the revelation that I got from MMI’s experience.

The more you think about success and how you are able to achieve, the more likely you are to think that you have the ability to succeed. Well, what the ‘gurus’ like to term this, especially in The Secret, is what they call the Law of Attraction. Law of Attraction or not, it just shows how important empowering yourself with positive beliefs (especially about yourself) are.

So right now, Calvin and I have adopted the exercise conducted from MMI where we celebrate at least 5 of our daily successes, big or small, just to keep the positive energy going.

I have to say that I’m not the most positive person in this world. I actually like to think – since opposites attract; Calvin is super positive ALL THE TIME, that explains why I’m usually the negative party in this relationship.  It’s all his fault! 😛

Well, the exercise has been useful so far though sometimes we laugh at the fact that we only have 3 for the day and we try to do something to make up for success #4 and #5. That still helps, doesn’t it? We train ourselves to be successful! Hehe..

So that’s the crux that I wanna share with you and that is, celebrate your successes – old, new, big or small. They are never too small to be passed off as insignificant because they are small achievements meant to be celebrated! So celebrate!

p.s. Though I do recognize my abilities in achieving my successes, I do not want to forget my Jesus. Because only with Him, all things are possible.

xxx

Financial Freedom

Moral of The Story According to The Tourist

April 23, 2010

I received this email today and I found it really funny. 🙂

No offence to the sender with regards to what I am about to share but it’s just another way of looking at things. And especially give people a new insight as to the importance of attaining financial freedom.

So here goes….

=================================

A boat docked in a tiny Mexican fishing village.

image002

A tourist complimented the local fishermen
on the quality of their fish and asked
how long it took him to catch them.

“Not very long.” they answered in unison.

“Why didn’t you stay out longer and catch more?”

image003

The fishermen explained that their small catches were
sufficient to meet their needs and those of their families.

“But what do you do with the rest of your time?”

“We sleep late, fish a little, play with our children,
and take siestas with our wives.
In the evenings, we go into the village to see our friends, have a few drinks, play the guitar, and sing a few songs.

We have a full life.”image004

The tourist interrupted,

“I have an MBA from Harvard and I can help you!
You should start by fishing longer every day.
You can then sell the extra fish you catch.
With the extra revenue, you can buy a bigger boat.”

“And after that?”

“With the extra money the larger boat will bring,
you can buy a second one and a third one
and so on until you have an entire fleet of trawlers.
Instead of selling your fish to a middle man,
you can then negotiate directly with the processing plants
and maybe even open your own plant.

You can then leave this little village and move to Mexico City , Los Angeles , or even New York City !

From there you can direct your huge new enterprise.”

image005

“How long would that take?”

“Twenty, perhaps twenty-five years.” replied the tourist.

“And after that?”

“Afterwards? Well my friend, that’s when it gets really interesting, ” answered the tourist, laughing. “When your business gets really big, you can start buying and selling stocks and make millions!”

“Millions? Really? And after that?” asked the fishermen.

“After that you’ll be able to retire,
live in a tiny village near the coast,
sleep late, play with your children,
catch a few fish, take a siesta with your wife
and spend your evenings drinking and enjoying your friends.”image006

“With all due respect sir, but that’s exactly what we are doing now. So what’s the point wasting twenty-five years?” asked the Mexicans.

image008And the moral of this story is supposedly:

Know where you’re going in life….
you may already be there.

Now let me tell you the real moral of this story:

There is a missing part to the story. If you continued doing what you are doing, at the end of 25years, you are still working every single day to get your small catches of fish to feed your family and children. Perhaps you might even have to rely on your children to get the small catches of fish.

But if you established your corporation with the idea that the tourist presented, at the end of 25 years, you will not have to lift a finger to ensure that your catches of fish feed your family and children. In fact, you can even rest assured that you have enough to feed your children’s children over the many years to come.

Now, which one sounds better as a retirement plan?

Health and Fitness, Personal

How To Cure A Stiff Neck (From My Personal Experience)

April 20, 2010

Ok… So.. I may have slept in the same awkward position for the whole night but that doesn’t mean that I wanted to!

Really hate those days when I wake up and say, “uh-oh, STIFF NECK!” and today just had to be that sort of day. I woke up and when I turned my head to one side, that excruciating pain really made me tear. It didn’t occur to me that THAT PAIN was going to be even worse when I was checking my blind spot when changing lanes. It didn’t even register in my head that it’s going to be painful, until well I turned my head to check my blind spot.

Goodness and the whole day sitting in front of the computer at my desk, couldn’t have made it worse.

Well when I just couldn’t take it, guess what, I googled for a solution and look what I found.

how-to-cure-stiff-neck

I immediately jumped to step 3 cos.. I didn’t think it was that bad that I needed to see a doc for it.

So I went to the Pharmacy and she recommended me Kenhancer Plaster which I applied, only to find that it wasn’t hot at all -like it didn’t help much. But i just beared with it for the whole day, until I got to the supermarket to get both Ammeltz Yoko Yoko and Salon Pas. Hahaha.. Calvin was a major darling who wanted me to buy both just in case either one was as useless as the very first one i got from the Pharmacy.

I haven’t used  Ammeltz Yoko Yoko and Salon Pas since the days of playing basketball back in high school/JC for muscle aches and joints. So I pretty much forgot how it felt to use it. Now, back to my story, I decided to use Salon Pas because it’s apparently more effective.  And let me tell you this, Salon Pas is DEFINITELY A KILLER. Within seconds (literally seconds), the heat hit right through into my skin, nerves, joints and what have you, and I immediately felt pain and relief at the same time. How ironic. But it was MAJOR SHIOK (meaning comfortable in dialect).

Goodness, it’s either the heat that made me forget about my pain or it just really is effective. (Which I’ll let you know tomorrow) haha.

So how to cure a stiff neck?

PLEASE USE SALON PAS PATCH. 😀

This is not an advertorial but really from my own experience. haha..

If you’ve got a better solution, let me know too! Just in case Salon Pas loses its effectiveness tomorrow. :p

—————————————————-

Lastly, something totally unrelated which I found on Facebook:

75dogsforadoption

Anyone who is looking to adopt a dog soon.. do think of adopting one of the 75. I wish I can but I can’t.. cos I don’t have a proper place to rear one. So, yep, if you are a dog lover, do take note of the details if you are interested. 🙂

Personal Development, Success

How To Be On Track To Achieve Success

September 6, 2009

Success is more than economic gains, titles, and degrees. It isn’t as difficult as you think to achieve. Because every single day we do have our little successes in the things we do. Hence, we should embrace the successes in our lives, even though they may be really small.

To be on track to achieve success, you need to look closely at your beliefs, values, and principles aside from your economic situation, professional qualifications and even ethnicity. Moreover, you also need to reflect on your experiences to give you insights on your strengths and weaknesses.

Ask yourself, “Who do you want to be?”

You need to know who you want to be in order to know what are the things you want to change about yourself in order to be closer to who you want to be. The things you need to change might be attitudes, habits, or points of view. They might not be changed overnight but the most important thing is that you recognise what needs to be changed and start working on it.

You also need to be clear of the knowledge, skills, and attitudes that you have that will help you in attaining your vision. This is because there is a need for you to assess these knowledge, skills, and attitudes that you have at present to help you to make changes to your attitudes etc. or to help you plans the steps to achieve your success.

It is good to always plan your route to success with goals. Goal-setting is a very important aspect in determining your success. Calvin and I can attest to that. Goal setting keeps you focused. They need to be S.M.A.R.T. – specific, measurable, attainable, realistic, and time bound. You need to sit down and think about your goals and set them according to the S.M.A.R.T. qualities. With the S.M.A.R.T. goals, you can be sure that you are going to be on track in achieving the success you desire.

But before all that, you really need to take the big step of identifying who you want to be and then slowly think about how you are going to be the person whom you want to be.

All the best!

Personal Development, Success

The Triangle Theory of Success! (Part 3)

May 23, 2008

After a long break (yes a very longggg one!), it’s back to my 4 part series on the Triangle Theory of Success which I feel has benefited me in a great way in achieving that balance that I want in life and this balance empowers me with confidence and faith to achieve even greater things.

If you are constantly wondering and envying that featured person in the newspaper (a successful businessman, artist, celebrity, designer, writer etc.. the list goes on), well, frankly you are not the only person who feels that way. You are just wondering “How in the world could they have done/achieved that?” Frankly, I’m one of them.. I always envy those who seem to have achieved success ‘without much effort’, when in fact, the media always creates a rosy picture and not really on the hard work that was put into it.. I know too many cases of such.

Let me tell you, it’s achievable by people like you and me. The success and breakthroughs that you are looking for in life, are accessible by you but it’s a matter of whether you want to push yourself out of the comfort zone to get to it. I know my journey has been rather a sort of “internal battle of ‘what ifs’ and ‘just do its'”. But to me, the Triangle Theory of Success has been some sort of a revelation to me because upon achieving balance in the mental, physical and spiritual aspects of my life, I have seen tremendous things happening in my life in the past year:
1. I have achieved a great balance between school and business, just completing my Psychology degree and have managed IMovators, my start up with Calvin and Munir.
2. I was featured on a reputable local bilingual newspaper, MyPaper together with Calvin.

3. I appeared on a local talk show, Just Shoot 3!.

4. Calvin and I were featured on a local tertiary magazine, Crossroads.

5. We achieved breakthroughs in internet marketing.. Especially for Calvin.. where we must really thank God for generously blessing him and Jonathan and what they are doing. Do check out IMBuzzCreators.com to check out the wide array of products and services they are providing!
What I’ve seen happening in our lives, specially for me, Calvin and Jonathan, are really outcomes of the Triangle Theory.. Do check out my earlier posts, Post 1and Post 2 on more on the Triangle Theory.
Now, in this post, I’m concentrating on the physical aspect of our lives, which mainly comprise of leading a healthy lifestyle and have a healthy body. Why are they important?

Without a health lifestyle, you won’t have a healthy body and without a healthy body, you are unfit to pursue the things that you want to because you just can’t meet the physical demands of the task. Moreover, a lot of people say, “Money can’t buy health” which is partially true because you may have all the money in the world to pay for treatment etc., but if your health is already in a bad state, money can just buy you more extra time to be alive, but not prolong your health. Sad but true.

Achieving the best of the physical aspect of our lives is not as easy as it seems. Sometimes, we are always tempted to do things that are contrary to living healthily such as snacking on fatty foods like cakes, sodas, fried chicken etc. We may be addicted to smoking or bingeing, which are maladaptive health behaviors (woohoo! i hope my health psychology professor would be proud to see i’m blogging about this.:P) It’s a daily decision to choose to do the ‘healthy’ or the ‘unhealthy’ things in life.

It’s not only just the food that comprises our lifestyle but also the activities that we carry out on a daily basis. For instance, are we couch potatoes who sit in front of the TV all day? Or are we actively working out? A simple activity would be to choose to walk 15mins from place A to get to place B instead of taking the public transport or car. (By the way, Calvin’s such a lazy bum who doesn’twant to walk from my place to the library which takes only 10mins! hahaha..)

You need to start a exercise and diet regimen that will keep you not only on your toes but maintain your optimum health. It’s good to start with a non-ambitious plan of working out 1-2times a week for at least 30-45mins to a more routine plan of working out at least 20-30mins a day.

The activities that I do implement:

1. Cycling

2. Brisk Walking

3. Jogging

4. Playing Ball Sports i.e. Basketball
5. Swimming

It’s all about making the first step towards a healthy lifestyle! As for your diet regimen, it’s good to eat more vegetables and fruits and drink more fluids (fluids meaning water, juices etc. and not sodas!!).

An example of my day’s meals:

Breakfast: 1 glass of water, a bowl of muesli with non-fat milk

Lunch: Seafood beehoon soup with barley water, an apple
Dinner: 2 Vegetables and 1 meat side-dishes with brown rice and a bowl of soup.

It’s better to have proper meals in a day rather than starve in a bid to diet. Also,you need to start putting in effort to eat right and healty whenever you go out to the restaurants or eat out at the food centres. Start exercising regularly too. Find it difficult and need motivation? Involve friends as well to get them to work out together with you or join you in your activities!

Maintaining such a healthy lifestyle and body just helps to make sure that your mind and body are constantly moving and on the go. Moreover, you would also feel that you’ll have more energy each day and can be able to move forward with ease. Plus, exercising releases hormones that produces a ‘feel-good’ and destressing feeling.. It does help in maintaining the mental aspect of your life! So start making a change in your life today!

In my next blog post for this series, I’ll be touching on the spiritual aspect. So do drop by for more!