Ueverse

It’s been a while since i touched this space.  A period of over two weeks of stalling in activity in a blog these days sounds quite horrendous to any avid blogger wannabe.   You may ask why, I shall leave the details when I came back from my holiday to explain.  I’ll be heading south on my motorbike in a couple of hours time to tour the isle of Tasmania on motorbike for a few days.  I thought before I leave I’d quickly drop a note here to let everyone know that things are going ok

I’ve been mostly working in the past two weeks, had 3 weddings and a few other exciting little discoveries and achievements that kept me excited, aside from that, I have been working on myself, partially includes the stopped activities here.  Oh… i gained weight - 2kgs, very happy about that too. 

When i came in today, I saw from the stats that there had been continued visitors over the last two weeks despite of a total lack of new contents, for that I thank everyone who had been making their visit for your continued support and showing interest in reading.  I will definitely share more when I’m back from my holiday.

In the meantime i couldn’t wait to getting my packing ready (yea i left it in the last minute), and set out on this week long trip!  Yesterday when I replaced the choke cable on my bike, I left a pipe unconnected to the air tank out of my usual clumsiness, only to discover that the bike couldn’t run pass 60km/hr, yes it was then fixed, so hopefully everything else stay smooth this week

I’m not anticipating any internet access for a week, it is unlikely I’ll be checking my emails or make new entries here, I wish everyone a great week and hope to see you soon.  Oh, that’s right, happy Chinese New Year, for the year of rat!

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Filed under: Personal Development |

My mind had been stimulated, stuffed, constipated (a form of congestion worse than the literal meaning of constipation and now exhausted, by the amount of information I have consumed in the last couple of weeks.  In my latest research effort for some upcoming projects, I spent large chunk of my time online.  I made new discoveries, learnt new concepts and formed new ideas, yet I detected a subtle trace of anxiety, defeat and guilt silently growing, robbed me of my sound sleep.  What’s going on I asked myself, what’s with all these negative emotion surging, how do I reclaim my peaceful sleep? I’ve only been reading interesting materials, maybe voraciously, maybe unfiltered.

OK, when I say ‘unfiltered’, I’m not implying adult content, the word simply connotates an unselective nature of my information consumption.  Information overload seems to be a faded buzzword from a decade ago, these days we have life hacks and GTD (Get Things Done) style of self-help education focusing on simplification and productivity to deal with this pandemic yet subtle syndrome. Whatever you label it, I’m experiencing the effect of it first hand.

How did I get sucked in?  Scouring the web for information can feel like a treasure hunt.  You travel through this gigantic maze filled with hidden treasure making discoveries that feed your starving curiosity and thirst for knowledge. Whatever you dig up, be it greatly inspiring, mildly entertaining or downright useful, you get a victorious sense of satisfaction of making findings.  If not careful, your attachment to making findings can grow into a mild addition, instead of turning the information you find into tangible output, you are on a continuous quest to search for the next pot of gold.

The sheer volume of accessible resource out there can also make it a time consuming process to weed out the junk to uncover gems.  Millions of pages delivered to you by search engines and if that’s not enough, armies of people driving content to you via social media in multitude level of partial filtering. 

Content producers like Foobar who talks about technology or Joe Blow who talks about making money all claim authorities of their own.  On top of this, your search effort is constantly interrupted by hundreds of emails flooding into your inbox, plus phone calls, snail mails, magazines, news… Holy moly!  I can spend another 20 years just to be a human search engine!  What’s wrong with making discoveries and doing lots of learning you might ask.

I mentioned the sense of anxiety, defeat and guilt building up didn’t I, well when the room turns cluttered, bills pile up on the desk as quick as unwashed dishes pile up in the sink, you see more of your LCD screen than you see daylight, things left unscheduled, deadline slips and when you almost forgotten it is your mother’s birthday, that’s when it should strike you like a thunder that you have been affected.  The negative emotions have been brewing in the back of your head like reoccurring dull ache, now you know it is too acute to avoid.  Worse still, you notice that your own thinking is under influence by the amount of unprocessed information you crammed in, subtly but surely. 

The web is abound with inspiring talents, interesting personalities and great concepts, enlightening you of myriad possibilities of success.  You get pulled in all different directions, bombarded by too many ideas, fed with so much advice, all day everyday.

I was surprised when I noticed a shift of style when I begin to write after a few days of reading, either my way of expression had been altered or my way of thinking had been influnced.  My goodness, reading my own rambling feels like looking at a foreign reflection of myself in the mirror of which I can find little resemblance!  If you think it is a challenge to develop the skills to influence people, has it occur to you that the ability to stay uninfluenced by others is even a greater challenge to master.

Consuming information in the modern time is next to the experience of dinning in an all-you-can-eat buffet.  You can either let your daily information feast go wild and out of control, or you can be selective and eat a healthy nutritious diet.  In the former case, please be prepared that your unselected and undigested info-feed could breed the obesity of the mind, make you burp possibly of noxious smell, slow you down to stagnation if not depression, ok maybe over exaggerating, at very least it could easily turn you unproductive.  In the later case you could be thriving and growing with all the energy and the nutrients you get from your carefully selected information consumption.

Having enough said about this blind consumption syndrome, if you are getting into such pattern or developing such feeding habit with a drop of productivity and an increase of emotional stress, like the trap I was slipping myself into, then make a change, now!

What am I doing – whatever it takes to restore equilibrium. 

In today’s case I’ll call it a snap-out-of-it (sooi) change – with a quick and dirty solution of an information fast week.

What’s the concept?

It’s my way to reach simplification and introduce effective change by creating a sudden interrupt of a forming bad habit, shock the system, disrupt the pattern, inducing a halt to an addition.  To deal with junk media consumption, the focus is to cut down input, foster activity and output.  It’s really quite simple isn’t it, the most difficult part would be to develop the discipline to make it happen.

What does it involve?

One week of no information intake, focusing on doing and completing items on your list of to-do’s and goals.  I sat down yesterday morning and I did a quick brainstorming session, I listed down a few simple items to get my sooi change going.

Here’s my strategy for the coming week

Cut down influx of information & disruption

No new reading, no web scouring, no radio, minimise phone conversations, minimise email ping-pongs.

Focus on activities and output

Do, do and do… working my way down my list, aiming to cross things out like they should never be there in the first place (I get an adrenalin rush even just to think about it :))

Convert learning into actionable items that can be measured by tangible result, this is what I see as optimal learning.

Un-clutter with an internal and external cleansing

By internal cleansing I mean mentally have a rest, giving the mind a break, take time to process all the information that’s already congested in the mind today, allow room to digest and absorb, through this cleansing process, I’m aiming to weed out the noise and work on signal, suck out the nutrients from the feast.

External cleansing is to cleaning up and un-clutter the surrounding environment, which can help foster a peaceful mental state.  I think the two works hand-in-hand, the external clutter is often a manifestation of the internal clutter, work on one could help the other.

Stick to your goals

Have to be relentless on this last point, this is the make or break of the above list.

Well that’s about it, simple. 

No new readings, no web surfing, no radio?  Minimising email and phone call? Is it possible that you can have zero information intake?  Well, not entirely, I don’t think one can completely isolate oneself from receiving information, the key here is to minimise the amount of information you receive for a period – the sooi period. 

Ever had the holiday experience of travelling without your laptop or blackberry for a couple of days to somewhere with hardly any web access?  Even better if you had your mobile ran out of battery and you didn’t bring your charger.  You are in a situation to do more and browse less, you don’t have much choice really, but to live the day with minimum disruption and information overload.  Do you remember how it felt? I felt uncomfortable in the beginning, disconnected and restricted, but after a few days the initial anxiety faded away, I felt totally rejuvenated with the new experience and I often experience massive growth during such period of clarity.

Today I’m here to replicate that similar environment hence making my sooi change.

Is it radical? Maybe, it is a relative term depending on how you look at it.  To the millions of people who do not have internet access and still live happily, cut down web access doesn’t mean much at all. To those grow up with the internet, this change could be uncomfortable.  But hey, that’s what a successful change is often about - to push yourself completely out of your comfort zone. 

When you have cleared yourself of disjointed thoughts, coming up with more coherent speech, no longer having keywords and tags drumming in your ears and plaguing your brain like a suffocating layer of grease, how would you feel then? Remember you are the one to judge your own success! 

Today marks the start of my Information Fast, for the longer term, I’m in the process of developing an effective strategy to ensure a balance between learning and doing, I will share as I go and report back on my Information Fast Week.

Enough said, time to do.

Note
I already feel a lot calmer being able to make myself sit down and put some thoughts on paper, same as when I take the time to water my plants and feed my fish I noticed a tranquil moment sets in, the kind of calm I experience when I take a long walk along the water, and I hear a voice ringing inside:

Claim back your time, claim back your life, claim back true yourself…

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Filed under: Change, Productivity |

Since I resigned from my 9 to 5 corporate job as a professional, I have been approached by quite a number of people talking with me about their wish to do the same and the hurdles they have encountered in make their wish into reality, many asked me how I did it and what I have planned for the future. That’s when I thought I’d start this blog to share with people about my journey.

After the creation of this site more people asked me about my past and my future, it made me realized that I haven’t shared much about my stories to let my readers to know more about me. During my recent web surfing I came across Peter’s book review competition on his latest post, Peter invited readers to share their life stories on making the impossible possible, the price is to win a book Make the Impossible Possible by Bill Strickland. Attracted to the offer I wrote a feedback about my personal story, after my submission I realised that this is probably something I should also share with my own readers about, which in my limited time allocated to writing, I’ve neglected to do well.

Without further ado, here’s one of my stories - making the impossible possible (edited from my posted feedback).

I have always had a belief which I now understand is a false one, that without the income of a well paid 9 to 5 corporate job, one cannot live a lifestyle that will lead them closer to their dreams, without a good source of income provided by a corporate job to meet all financial obligations, one will struggle in their search for happiness and fulfillment. Eventually I broke free of this limitation I set upon myself, smashed my wrong assumption into pieces and in Nov last year, I left my management role in multinational company to pursue a new journey that’s heading closer to my dreams. How did I do this?

A number of things i changed in my own life gave me the strength to make such transformation, more importantly I realised that I was able to make the impossible possible. One example of such significant change is my speed-skating experience.

I have now competed in short-track speed-skating race at state and national level for the past 2 years since I started my first training in late 2005 at an age close to 30, I kept smashing my personal best record and am aiming to achieve better result in the time to come. Coming from a family that can never afford a pair of skates (this is in the late 70’s early 80’s in China), I dreamed to be able to try skating ever since i was a kid. Every winter I sat on the bank of frozen water, just watched people on their skates gliding gracefully on the ice, but the dream of trying it out myself is a dream far and remote, it remained that way beyond my reach and imagination for years.

When I was 16 a classmate gave me a pair of his retired old skates, that’s the first time I ever got on the ice with blades under my feet. By this time I have already had the false belief set deep in me that I was someone too old to compete and skate well - like those athlete I have seen and admired. Training would be a waste of time many people would told me, I have ‘past my age’ to be any good at it, let along competing at state and national levels. Such thought had kept me away from pursuing what I’ve deeply loved till I was in my late 20’s. I simply believed that it was impossible for an adult to race in a sport where the average starting age is under 10.

An inspiration came to me 2 years ago when I stumbled across a blog journal by an adult figure skater. Kay’s skate journal documented how she started to learn as an adult at the age of 25, then started testing at national level. She talked about her various challenges. wrote in details and with her heart about things she did and thoughts she had in working on her passion. I was touched at that moment. It dawned on me that one can make things happen, you can follow your dreams no matter at what age, I also realised that it was myself that kept me in inaction. Two days later after reading Kay’s journal, I enrolled myself in the squad training.

It wasn’t the easiest for me. The average age of the training squad is under 16, when I started I had huge difficulties to keep up with 11 year old kids, if I don’t fall 9 times out of 10 times training I was happy. One thing kept me going though, it was to keep myself honest with myself, I don’t want to live with any feeling of guilt or regret for not trying my best in pursuing my own passion and following my own dream.

For the past two years, I have pushed myself hard and competed at state and national level. This to me is the true sense of turning the impossible into possible. I have engraved in my belief system that any single individual can turn their dream into reality by following their heart, taking actions, make changes, developing themselves, look for inspirations and learn from those who had achieved. The possibilities you can create by following your dreams had never been anymore real to me than having experienced it first hand.

In 2007 after my second time competing, I have decided I also need a career change, I wasn’t fully realising my own potentials by staying in 9 to 5 corporate job. Hence another transformation… the rest is history.

I’ve never been any happier, every minute of my waking time is now filled with a sense of purpose and there’s joy to be found everyday in my commitment to reach out for my goals.

Last Note

I’m grateful to so many great people sharing their life stories online that adds value to other people’s lives. Thanks also to Peter to share his offer and creating this opportunity for people to share their stories. Till today I cannot forget the evening I sat in front of my computer scrolling through pages and pages of Kay’s blog and thinking to myself - why am i holding myself back…

In the meantime I’d encourage anyone who harbors a dream to be brutally honest with themselves, ask yourself the question: am I telling myself any stories that stops me from working towards my dream? Am I doing everything within my capabilities to turn the impossible possible? Brutally honest please :).

It takes someone with a vision of the possibilities to attain new levels of experience. Someone with the courage to live his dreams. - Les Brown

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Filed under: Change, Following Dreams, Happiness, Journey |

I have read a number of websites lately about individuals who are quite inspiring in what they do, these range from the super successful masters of personal development, the moderately successful bloggers, to some fresh faced newbies who at least habours some of the quality of a successful figure.

One very common statement I saw in the profile of those people who gained reasonable success is something to the extent “if I can do it, anyone can do it”.  This is one big incomplete statement if not a false one that’s prevalent out there.  Can you also do it? can you also be successful, can just any one do it?

Yes I believed it for a long time, in fact till today i still believe in the statement.  What is the untold truth about the statement and people who are making the claim, is that it does take more than just an “ordinary” person to be successful.

So a statement like “I’m just an ordinary person, if I can do it, anyone can do it” should really be read as “I’m a successful person, if i can do it, anyone who wish to, can also do it”, or better still “I have the extraordinary qualities of successful people, if i can do it, anyone who wish to be successful and is willing to take actions and make changes, follow the road of successful people, they can also do it.”

Is it an over-elaborated version of a simple statement one might ask, no, i’d say this is how the statement should really be read.  Let’s have a look at the details.

Comparing the difference between the two statements, it’s not hard to note the following key points

1. The extraordinary quality of successful people
2. Have a wish to do it
3. Take actions
4. Make changes
5. Learn from great people

Develop extraordinary qualities of successful people

You hear from successful people that they claim they are just ordinary, the truth is they are NOT just ordinary.   They didn’t become successful simply because success just landed on them, the very qualities that these people have developed is the secrets that have separated them out from the crowd, from those “ordinary” people.  Saying that, having those qualities doesn’t make them any better or superior, it simply equipped them to reach the level of success they desire.

So what are these qualities? I’d say they are a collage of elements such as positive mentality, result driven, determination, persistence, ability to develop a vision just to name a few. So if success is what you desire, start acquainting yourself to such qualities, start develop yourself now.

Rekindle that desire to succeed

I always believe that if you want something bad enough, you will make an effort to get it.  Successful people claim that they are just ordinary people, but without an insatiable desire to do well, to be great and to try your best in every aspect of your life, you’ll remain an audience to the successful.

If you are comfortable where you are and don’t see a reason to change, it is perfectly ok too.  Most likely situation will remain the same, until you crave for something different.

Take actions, many many of them

Just craving for success and having all sorts of wonderful dreams and visions won’t generate any result until you take actions, lots of actions, many many actions, did I mention taking actions? Ordinary people dream about success and success remains a dream, successful people making success happen, that’s all the difference there is.

So many people have told me about their dreams and desire to do something other than their 9 to 5 job, but having done nothing towards making that change, one year after another, they’re still doing the same thing as they have in the past.  I was once exactly the same, until I realised that the only way to break out of the loop is to make it happen, rather than to wait for it to happen.

Today i’m closer to my dreams, it did take a lot out of me to kick myself in the butt, to move one step further towards my dreams and the journey ahead is still long, but I believe i’ve stepped over the starting line.

If you have a desire to be successful, a passion to follow, a dream to be reached, then start taking action to make your dream come true now.

Make changes, be flexible

Ever heard of the wisdom “if it’s not broken, don’t change it”?  You may get away with it in some technical field, if this is the general attitude you adopt in other areas of life, chances are you must be a genius if you know how to close up the huge distance between your current situation and success.

Have you had the experience of finding a street or a house while you are driving, perhaps somewhere you’ve been to in the past, for once or twice, you seem to remember where it is, you have a gut feeling you are so close to the place, it is definitely in the area, but you just cannot find it.

What do you do? Most people i’ve seen have two ways of dealing with it, group one keeps driving, goes around the block multiple times in the hope of finding it, if they’re “lucky”, they find it, after been seen as the most popular vehicle in the area of the day group two quickly recognise the situation they are in, accept the fact that they are in a unfamiliar zone, they reach out for their street directory or approach the locals to ask for direction immediately, couple of minutes later, they are at their destination.

Those ones who love to try one more time around the block eventually may have to reach out to their street directory, by the time they get to their party, the BBQ is almost over.

If you started taking action to change your life, stop often to look at your situation, change those undesirable habit and adjust often, speed up your journey.

Learn from great people

People are not born to be successful, they learnt their way to be successful, just like anyone else they have made their mistakes, learnt their lessons and accumulated their wisdom. 

Standing on the shoulders of giants allows us to see a lot more further than stretching in a trench, even if you don’t find a shortcut to your destination, at least many mistakes can be avoided.

So I definitely appreciate what successful people are really saying: develop extraordinary qualities, rekindle your desire to be successful, be willing to take actions and make changes, follow the road of successful people, you can also do it.

Final Note

At the end of this post I’d like to say that the definition of success is different to everyone, it is not confined to the connotation of career success, or wealth generation or any particular achievement.  In the broad sense of success it can simply mean to be happy, to live a fulfilled life, to be able to accomplish what you want to do, to have peace and tranquility within, to have a happy relationship etc.

Each subheading in this post can be a separate topic in it self, in my quick wrap here, i just wanted to touch on the topic of why some are more success than others and what can you also do to be more successful.

Next time when you see a highly successful people portraying themselves as ‘just ordinary’, think about the list of things they are ‘extraordinary’ that made them different, then the smart ones will reflect if you have what it take to also do it.

Develop the extraordinary qualities of a successful person, rekindle an insatiable wish to be successful, be willing to take actions and make changes, follow the road of successful people, you can also do it - Wyatt Song

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Filed under: Change, Following Dreams, Happiness, Personal Development |

In my reading today I came across an interesting comment by Lucid on Tina Su’s ThinkSimpleNow blog about dissatisfied reconciliation with our own body image.  In response to one of Tina’s points to forgive and accept our body as they are, Lucid mentioned that it had been difficult to be 100% comfortable with body image, which leads to the feeling of discontent.  

Such a happiness killer in many people’s lives, i thought to myself as i read that, for it was once a huge problem for me in my early life as well.  I thought i was too skinny, too short, not handsome, the list goes on and on. Reflecting on how I came to terms with body image issues, I wanted to write a quick note to share my thoughts.  Before i know it, the quick note turned into a mini-post, instead of doing another posting on the topic, i thought I will share it here as well.

It doesn’t matter what we do until we accept ourselves. Once we accept ourselves, it doesn’t matter what we do. - Charly Heavenrich

Lucid, you mentioned about having hang up in #1 about our physical form. When I abuse my TV diet and having a TV dessert I watch an American TV show - Extreme Makeover.

As the name suggest, people go into extremes in their attempts to change physical features they dislike about themselves, apart from the extensive cosmetic surgical procedures they go through (chin lipo, nose job, eye lift, fat reduction, breast implant, teeth straightening and whatever other things you could possibly think of) they also get a what I see as a packaging makeover (hair style, skin care, dress etc.) At the end of the makeover, they appear to feel like a new person the moment they reveal their new looks to their astonished family members and friends.

In the applause of the audience and the high-pitched energetic voice of the commentator, the show ends as if everyone was to live happily ever after.

I always wondered what really had changed in those who had been through such a ‘Cinderella-transformation’. Apart from the emotional stress contestant may have to endure to broadcast their lack of security with an entertainment value, the amount of physical alteration they do with their body is definitely something beyond my wildest desire to gain a better self-image.

Have they changed as a person? Will they really be happier from the day they come out of the show? Perhaps! Perhaps the radical change in their physical form had interrupted their old belief pattern and given them a new self-image to work with, perhaps the reality of who they really are as a person will soon sets in after the show, and they will fall back into the esteem issue they once had.

Now back to where I started rambling, when you are dissatisfied, uncomfortable, or maybe confused about your physical form, I’d say, go and do an extreme makeover and change it, would you not? No, I wouldn’t, I doubt if you’d answer yes to that one.

Can you change yourself - your physical form, or the features you dislike about yourself? If it is an overweight issue that’s troubling you, google “lose weight” and take some action to change it, if you feel you are too skinny like I once felt I was, then google “gain weight” and take some action to change it. If it is your legs too short or nose too long and eyes too big or ears to wide, and you don’t like the idea of plastic surgery, than start to learn to love them.

You may ask how, well this could go on as a complete new topic to talk about that will take up too much room in Tina’s space, but the quick answer would be two things:

1. Look at how our body image had been influenced by modern media and commercial culture. Who is teaching us what has become our perceived beauty, is that the aesthetic value we should adopt? I’d invite you to take 3 minutes to look at this Youtube clip, http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=K29-UEBPExQ or the following a bit more explicit one http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=gU_LHtBKwyA If this is what goes into our daily consumption of media, you wonder why people don’t feel comfortable about not having smooth skin, crisp eyes, slim body, large breasts etc…
2. Accept we are who we are, we’ve been given what we have, length of our legs or other apparatus won’t change, shape and size of our nose or eyes will remain the way they are…

Is there a problem? Well, we create that problem for ourselves don’t we

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Filed under: Happiness |

‘Can’t believe it’s dark at 4 o’clock!’  I randomly came across this headline written on a website.  For a moment I didn’t quite understand exactly what it was referring to, it must have been a great mistake! It’s mid-summer, I’m sweating even just sitting here in front of my computer, it begins to light up early in the morning well before 6am and it is still bright well past 8pm, so who wrote that nonsense!?

Uh… hang on, of course, for all of those on the northern hemisphere, it is mid-winter, this is one of the coldest months of the year, for sure, people would feel lucky to see their daylight last past 4 o’clock in the afternoon.

Immediately many other differences we experience due to our location came to mind, here in Australia (or on the southern hemisphere) Christmas time is often associated with BBQ, beer and the beach, whereas on the other side of the globe, white snow and fireplace.  Have you ever noticed that water swirls clockwise down the drain in the southern and anti-clockwise in the northern hemisphere.  Of course we could expand this observation to people’s language and cultural differences based on their location and ethnic background, without digress, what I initially started off this post to say is that how easy it is for us to make judgement without taking consideration where others are coming from.

In conversations sometimes heated discussions, how easily we can focus on just what we see as the facts and the truth, we could passionately present on how we see things, strongly believe that we’re correct.  Without taking a  step back, standing in other’s shoes, take a look at the world through their glasses or to fly to their side of the globe and learn about the facts they are seeing, we could easily build up the wall of misunderstanding to say the least.

In simple cases we will just have disagreements, in extreme cases conflict can turn into war… is there a right or a wrong?  People on both end of an argument are presenting facts as they see them, its easy to see that they both are right, neither are wrong when we take that observer stance.  Next time when we are part of the disagreement, what could you do differently to foster a better understanding…

Note: This post touched on location based differences, things like age, gender, language, culture, religion, thinking preference and numerous other factors could contribute to those differences we see in people, to understand these differences can be the best way to break down those communication barriers and to enhance relationships.

Education’s purpose is to replace an empty mind with an open one.  - Malcolm Forbes

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Filed under: Communication, Personal Development |

It is already the 3rd day of 2008, as the atmosphere of festivity and the celebration of the last few weeks continues into the new calendar year, many are taking this period of the year to reflect on the past and busy setting or working on their new target for the year, ‘new year’s resolution‘ as one of the most commonly used/heard terms around this time of the year.

Ok, so your new year’s resolution marks your commitment towards a new change, be it something as typical as losing weight, gaining fitness, changing your career, maintaining your well-being, be organised, stop procrastination, or something a bit more creative to the effect of dancing in the rain or climbing Mt Everest, you know it is a change that you put down on your wish-list.  How many of such things on your list do you actually accomplish or failing to accomplish over and over again?

I think it is quite an interesting observation of why so many people fail to keep promises to themselves, I’m also guilty sometimes of repeating some of those things on the wish-list.  So what is it that stops us from making a lasting change?

There’re quite a few factors to consider

• Fear - fear of failure, unable to leave our comfort zone to step into the unknown
• Lack of planning - we get distracted, carried away with other things that take away our focus
• No determination - giving up easily because we can’t see immediate result, lack of motivation to keep going
• Inability to adapt - new changes involves new habit, new environment, new people, new decisions, how flexible can we be in adapting to the new.
• Lack of commitment - unable to identify and establish a clear reasons for change

Each of the above elements contributing to your lack of action that eventuate in the failing to achieve your goals is worth a discussion as a separate topic.   In today’s post I just want to touch on the subject, hopefully trigger some thoughts, so you can reflect upon what’s your reason of unable to achieve what you always wanted to achieve.

Let me pose this question for things on your new year’s resolution, why did you list them down? is it because you think you like to change, you needed that change, or is it because you really desperately wanting to make the change.

Often when we setting our goals and looking at our future direction, we look for something that’s “nice to have”, we think it would be good for us to do or to have, it would be nice for us to achieve, we think we needed to make the change, however it is very easy to neglect the crucial question, is it something we “want to do”.  This nice to have, need to have syndrome extends beyond our new year’s wish-list, affecting many other areas of our life.

Take career for example, I have had so many conversations with people where they tell me that they really want to do such and such, but they stuck at doing things that are far from what they love to do for years.  When asked why, they say I need to have this job, it’s a good job for me considering the life style I need.  Of course it will be extremely difficult for them to make that lasting change towards what they want, simply because of they have shaped their direction based on their assumption of what they need to do or to have.

I have assumed I need my corporate job for years, I thought it is something I needed to go through to give me what I want, until i smashed my own assumption into pieces, I realised that it is an assumption, that’s all it is, I incorrectly confined myself based a false assumption.  Change immediately began as soon as I tossed that assumption away, decisions being made, actions taken, I’m heading down new directions, life changing experience transpires. 

Not only I don’t need to make a list and try to keep them as my new year’s resolution, every minute of the day become so meaningful that I can’t hold myself back from wanting to work on all the things I wantto do.  This change in me is definitely long lasting, it motivates me and I’m committed to make necessary adjustments in all areas of my life and willingly accept the responsibilities comes with the change.

This massive change did not occur in the beginning of a new year, it occurred at the very moment when I abandoned my wrong assumption and identified things I wanted to do, it marks a new begin, a new cycle for me, so my new year, new life already started at Nov07. 

Everyday can be that day for change, everyday can be the beginning for a new year…

If we could see the miracle of a single flower clearly, our whole life would change.  - Buddha

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Filed under: Change, Following Dreams, Happiness, Personal Development |

With this post I’d like to touch on the topic of pursuing dreams.  In my personal journey of searching for and following what I love, i have come many inspirational people who have touched my life in one way or another.   Those inspiring people can be athlete, performers, entrepreneurs or just about any ordinary people who relentlessly go about following their passion and trying to make their dreams come true.  It is usually not ‘what’ they do that touches me, but their attitude and commitment that propels them forward and closer to their dreams touches me.

I want to share a space in my blog here today in support of Kina, a young performer whose dream is to make a living with her music career, to gain more vote so she can win the opportunity to the Super Bowl - the chance of a lifetime for many performers.  Winners will have their music video played at the Super Bowl and a contract with Interscope Records, as you can imagine how much this could mean to a young artist who harbours a dream to make music for a living.

I came across Two Weeks For Kina randomly today, immediately i was captured by not only her singing, but the mere fact Kina’s many hours of work is part of her continued effort to go for her own dream.  I listened to her songs on her blog and read a few posts to find out more.

One thing i remembered as I read through Kina’s blog was how my own life had been touched by a skating journal 2 years ago (i will make a separate post to that later), it made me go down a completely different path in life.  I’m grateful that I happened to come across people like Kina and Kay, the sharing of their dreams inspires me to work harder for mine.

Today Kina is trying to reaching out to wider audience plea for support, I see that the very least I could do is to add a few votes for her and adding this post to spread the word, a few minutes of your time could make a huge difference in someone’s life, don’t you think it’s worth it.

Yea, you might ask that there are hundreds of thousands of people out there who need such support and help, what makes Kina’s case special, well, perhaps Kina is just as ordinary as everyone else, for she walked across my path today with a need for help, i think that’s enough reason already beside her great talent. 

If you want happiness for an hour, take a nap. If you want happiness for a day, go fishing. If you want happiness for a year, inherit a fortune. If you want happiness for a lifetime, help somebody. - Chinese proverb

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Filed under: Following Dreams, Happiness |

I wish everyone a great holiday break, wish you all the happiness and well-being…

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Filed under: Happiness, Journey |

One of the most satisfying feelings in life I find is the moment when you see your hard work had come to fruition, a mark of the achievement of your goals, knowing that through conscious decisions and persistent effort you have accomplished that very expectation you placed on yourself through your actions.  The journey to get to that point could be filled with sweat and tears, but when you stand on the pinnacle of Mt. Challenge, look afar into the future, you know the dreams you always had can be reached, you know you are strong enough to overcome any obstacles in your way, you know you are the master of your own destiny…

This is exactly how i felt today.  After a week of hard work, today marks a significant point in my journey.  After exactly a month since I started to work for myself, I have done quite a list of things that have moved my photography business a huge step forward, at the same time the amount of personal growth I have experienced is equivalent to or exceeding the amount i would otherwise experience in the past in over 6 months period.

This week presented a particular challenge, being closer to Christmas, most business will be closed next week and reopen after 7th Jan.   This means new deadlines for me to get things done before Friday this week, not only that, many business starts to wind down after Thursday, due to the Christmas rush, there’s almost always a delay in everyone’s delivery.   Facing this bottleneck and change in schedule, I had no choice but to adapt and change my plan, juggle things to the best of my ability, try to get things done. 

For an entire week I didn’t update any of my blogs, giving time to work on more urgent matters.  Slept less, worked more, my daily to-do list have been constantly added to with new tasks as many others are crossed off.

Some of the highlights of this week amongst a myriad of other stuff

• Got one of my other picture published on a local paper
• Inventory is done, business insurance settled, books up to date
• New phone contract with an interesting experience that lead to a good discount (will share details later)
• A number of jobs finalised, sent to printing, framing, ready to deliver etc.
• Paid a number of outstanding bills, got rego for next year, claimed some past expenses, started shopping and cooking at home, all the mundane and the necessary…
• Got 90% through my next dance performance routine

While it is a huge learning curve as I’m jumping onto the entrepreneurial wagon, in the meantime I’m also focusing to un-clutter my surroundings, starting to get to things that i always wanted to do but procrastinated for years when large portion of my energy was dedicated to my employment.

Thoughts and new ideas have been flooding my mind like an never ending storm, the only way i’m coping with it is by jotting them down on my little notebook, make time in the future to explore further.  I turn so excited when i thought of a few meaningful projects for 2008, I just ask myself why didn’t I set myself free earlier

I thought it was the happiest time when i walked the hustle bustle Friday afternoon street in the CBD, briefly but leisurely, getting a bit of Christmas spirit.  Seeing people rushing in and out of office buildings, I smile to myself gladly knowing that I no longer am part of that group.   But I was incorrect! I was definitely happier when i picked up some print that is ready to deliver.   Back to where I started this post, the sense of accomplishment comes out of lots of hard work and commitment to your personal mission.  

Still a few days of solid work is ahead before the final arrival of Christmas, I’m excited already just thinking about the next moment when I look back, I know I will feel the joy i felt today, simply because the simple truth says

you reap what you sow

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Filed under: Journey, Personal Development |