Tag: future

Posted on

The Golden Rectangle of Reading Habit

“We read to know we are not alone.” – C.S. Lewis

Hello there! I have been thinking of what to share this round and this thought came to mind… we got to know from Simon Sinek on the Golden Circle from his book, “Start with Why” and how about if I come up with the Golden Rectangle of Reading Habit? I will be sharing in black and white though (haha).

Image result for reading meme

This Golden Rectangle of Reading Habit is based on my own views, observations and experience. Please contact me direct if you have any questions or need more information.

Here it goes…

“The only important thing in a book is the meaning that it has for you.”
–W. Somerset Maugham

Let’s start with “Why reading is good?” then go on to “What are the strategies?’ and finally “How to make it a habit?”

“Reading is to the mind what exercise is to the body.”
– Joseph Addison


“A man only learns in two ways, one by reading, and the other by association with smarter people.”
– Will Rogers

So my friends, what is stopping you from starting to read?

“Your habits, your future!”

Posted on

What do you want to achieve in 2019?

“Cheers to a new year and another chance for us to get it right.”  ~ Oprah Winfrey

The year is coming to an end. Have you set for what you want to achieve next year and the years to come?

There are a lot of books written on goal setting and the importance of it (also there are some who do not really agree to goal setting… just go with the flow and come what may sort of concept).

Anyway, in my humble opinion, it is a good habit to set goals for yourself. Goals are like check points and light beacons guiding us; whether we are nearer to achieving the results that we want or getting further away, hence, we will need to do something to get back on track. 

If you cannot think of any goals to set, how about issues that you would like to solve? In a way, they are like something you would like to move towards to (solving the issues).

Imagine driving on the road and looking at the milestones / signboards showing the distance to go in reaching our destination (or check points)… normally, one will be more excited when the destination is getting nearer. The same feeling when we are about to reach / achieve the results of our goals.

Image result for new year's resolutions memes

I have compiled some good questions to help in preparing ourselves in goal setting; the questions are as below:

1) Why am I here? 

What is my purpose? What is meaningful for me? What moves me? What is my passion? What I do I really care about? What need can I serve?

Note: A good book to read will be “Start with Why” by Simon Sinek 

2) Where have I been?
 

What does my past outcome indicate? What past experience have I got? What can I learn from my past? 

3) Where am I now?
 

What kind of person am I? What abilities do I possess? What am I good at? What are my strengths and weaknesses? What do I love doing? What motivates me?

4) Where do I want to get to?

What kind of person do I want to become? What is my personal brand? What abilities do I want to develop? What learning goals shall I set? What are the organizational goals in which I can make a difference? Which knowledge and skills areas do I need to focus on to deliver both my personal objectives and benefits for my organization? What is my conscience directing me towards?

5) How shall I get there?
 

What learning and development actions do I need to undertake? What resources will I need to have? How shall I overcome obstacles to my learning?

6) How will I know if I have made it?
 

What is the measurable outcome? How do I measure achievement of goals? Is it money? Is it promotion? Is it another measure of success?

7) What’s stopping me?
 

What’s holding me back from doing what I want to do?

8) Who can help / support me?
Who can teach me? From whom can I learn? Who can be my accountability partner?


After going through the questions, the next best thing to do is to come up with your own written plan… or be more creative and come up with a mind map of the goals you want to achieve… some of the recommended areas are as below:

– Spiritual
– Family
– Health
– Personal
– Financial
– Community
– Career / Business
– Friends
– Environment

The moment you have decided on what you want, everything gets clearer. When you put them into action, you will get the results and be motivated, thus realizing your potential to achieve even more.

“Character is the ability to carry out a good resolution long after the excitement of the moment has passed.” ~ Cavett Robert

“Your habits, your future!”

Posted on

Habit on Developing a Healthy Perspective


Source: pixabay.com

“The only thing you sometimes have control over is perspective.
You don’t have control over your situation. But you have a choice about how you view it.” – Chris Pine

I believe most of us have encountered events; positive or negative ones from time to time. Some of the daily events; traffic conditions, weather, dealing with people, news, unexpected happenings, not getting the promotion and many other events that have happened before or may happen some time in the future… most of the events are not within our control. 

What I have learnt from my mentors and coaches, the events or happenings may be perceived differently from people to people. Some may see it as negative, others may be glad and view them as positive. It is depending on the PERSPECTIVE on the person experiencing the event.

Related image

Jack Canfield (author of the Success Principles and series on Chicken Soup for the Soul) mentioned that Success Principle #1; “Take 100% Responsibility of your life” with the formula:

E + R = O (Event + Response = Outcome)

Whatever the Event may be, depending on the Outcome we want (positive or negative), we Respond accordingly (think and action). Please read the article as the link below to learn more about the formula:

https://www.jackcanfield.com/blog/the-formula-that-puts-you-in-control-of-success/

“There is nothing either good or bad but thinking makes it so.” – William Shakespeare

In this blog, I would like to share some pointers on how we can develop the habit of healthy perspective (inspired by Jeff Keller) in my own words, understanding and suggestions, please feel free to share your thoughts with me;

  1. The challenge(s) that you are experiencing versus your entire life journey. What will this matter 10 days / 10 months / 10 years from now? Of course the issue at the moment you are experiencing it may seemed enormous, just bear in mind that it is not the end of the world. It takes practice on awareness (mindfulness) and decision to NOT let the issue cloud your mind for the day(s).
  2. What is your end in mind? As this is the journey of your life, there are roadblocks and distractions along the way… focus on your mission and keep going. As one of my mentors said to me… “Don’t sweat the small stuff… look at the big picture!”
  3. As long as we can wake up in the morning, we should be HAPPY. The attitude of gratitude and not taking anything for granted is important. Decide to be glad and celebrate life.
  4. Have an open mind to events, adventures, experience, people around you and all the happenings have learning to teach us to be better. We have the power to reflect, observe and learn from the experience. What can we learn? How do we want to learn?
  5. Help others, pay it forward, do as much as we can (with any means necessary) without any expectations. Whenever we are able to give, it is a blessing and as long as we are able to serve and give… we should be counting our blessings that we are able to do that. Moreover, by focusing on others, we do not have time to think of negative events… giving ourselves to others will make us whole (sense of fulfillment) and happier.
  6. Birds of the same feather, flock together; choose your friends wisely. In this case, we have to be selective in choosing the right, positive and worthy friends. Whether we like it or not, people surrounding us will somehow influence us (no matter how strong your will power is). Better to be around people who are positive, spreading joy and happiness.
  7. Decide to view every events as an opportunity to learn, grow and be better. Of course by certain events, we may feel the pain… let’s put it this way, the reason we are feeling the pain, is because we are still alive (isn’t that something to be happy about?).
  8. Words and phrases have energy (positive or negative) effect on people. Be wise and choose the right words / phrases to use with people; not forgetting our own self-talk. Train your brain, make it a habit to talk more positives.
  9. Practice spiritual connection as people with strong spiritual beliefs tend to have healthier perspectives. Especially when we have strong beliefs and purpose, most of the time we are more resilient and focus on the big picture. We tend to be more grounded, having sense of confidence and knowing that things are in order.
  10. Leaders are the combination of the word “Learner” and “Reader”. Like what Zig Ziglar mentioned, motivation is like taking a shower, you have to do it everyday… How? one of the best ways, by reading. Hence we can earn more knowledge, skills and better perspectives.
  11. Exercise and move more. I strongly believe that we are built to move… get that body moving, heart pumping and release endorphins (neuro-chemical) that helps with making us feel good (fighting stress). When some of the people I met said to me… “I don’t have time to exercise…”, what I am hearing is that, exercise is not their priority! If it is very important to you, I am sure you can find time to exercise.
  12. Laughter is the best medicine… when you laugh, blood circulates better as your heart is pumping when you laugh. In India, there is an exercise known as the “laughter yoga”… you may find out more and do some research on this yoga to experiment it.
  13. Learning to say “NO” to activities that are not helping you to get nearer to your goals, mission or dreams. As we have limited time and time is a very precious commodity… we have to be selective to activities that provide us balance and getting us nearer to the results that we want.

“Each person does see the world in a different way. There is not a single, unifying, objective truth. We’re all limited by our perspective.”
– Siri Hustvedt

“Your habits, your future!”

Posted on

“Reboot” and “Refresh” Habits

“Rest when you’re weary. Refresh and renew yourself, your body, your mind, your spirit. Then get back to work.” – Ralph Marston

What do we do when we are tired? I am sure most of us have experienced this before. This has triggered me to share some good habits with you. Feel free to practice them and let me know how it goes.

Image result for reboot meme

“Every now and then go away, have a little relaxation, for when you come back to your work your judgment will be surer. Go some distance away because then the work appears smaller and more of it can be taken in at a glance and a lack of harmony and proportion is more readily seen.” – Leonardo da Vinci

 

Image result for tips meme

Here are some of the good habits:

  1. “Solvitur ambulando” is a Latin phrase which means “it is solved by walking”. When we feel tired, it could be due to a few factors; we are bored, ran out of ideas or could be lack of oxygen. By breaking what we are doing at that moment to go for a walk, we can reboot, refresh and re-energize. One of the brilliant articles to read: https://www.huffpost.com/entry/hemingway-thoreau-jeffers_b_3837002
  2. Drink water is a healthy and good way to increase our brain capacity feeding it with oxygen and transporting nutrients to parts of our body. At times when I was too focused in completing my tasks, I forgot to drink water then I felt lethargic, not able to focus and leading to headache. Water does not only hydrate us, it contributes to many health benefits. (all right, take a break and have some water, now…)
  3. Aromatherapy has psychological and physiological effects on us. With the right essential oil (I believe it depends on individual, the one they use in the office… is not to my liking, I prefer lemon or something zesty), it will help to boost our mood, helps with stress reduction, calming us and assist in triggering sense of focus. There are many options that are available or the easiest is to rub the essential on your palm and enjoy the scent.
  4. Snack healthily with nuts, dried fruits, fruit or vegetable slices, peanut butter, etc… here is one of a good resources: http://www.eatingwell.com/article/15314/10-ways-to-snack-smarter/
  5. Power nap... in fact, I just woke up from my power nap and writing this blog, haha. There are a lot of “different schools” of thoughts on this topic… according to science, generally the range of duration will be from 10 to 30 minutes. As long as you do not go into “sleep inertia”, when that happened, you will wake up feeling worse. How long for you? Please experiment.
  6. Stretching or quick exercise i.e. jumping jacks, walking around, planks… there are so many exercise we can do. Find the one that you are able to do with the space constraint and with the resources that you have (chair or table).
    This site is interesting:  https://draxe.com/exercise-to-do-at-your-desk/
  7. Have short breaks in between tasks; pause, look around (focus exercise), meditate, mindfulness (awareness), puzzles, read articles, talk and socialize, breathing exercise, doodling… make coffee or tea and enjoy sipping. Take a break, have a Kit Kat (not that I am getting any sponsorship from them :-p )
  8. Most important of all, should we want to stay energize, focus, refresh and healthy… have enough rest and sleep. How many hours? Different people will be different. You will need to experiment and take note of whether your sleep is a good light or deep sleep. For me, I will need at least 7 hours of sleep to be performing my best.

 

“Take care of your body. It’s the only place you have to live.” – Jim Rohn

 

“Your habits, your future!”

 

Posted on

Providing the fish versus teaching you how to fish

 

As I was going through some of my old short articles and collection of quotes (that motivates and provides me the wisdom), I came across this ancient Chinese quotes:

“Give a man a fish and you feed him for a day. Teach a man to fish and you feed him for a lifetime.”

A lot of people (including my old self) want to be given the fish (if possible for FREE! anything that is free will be good… at least it’s provided for…)

Then the thought of this question came to me… “Why settled for limited fish?”

Isn’t it better to learn how to fish, therefore you can fish (catch) as much as you want, right?

We all have the choice to learn from successful people who have experienced in fishing and now turned professional fishermen/women. In fact, we should be paying them to learn from them.

Image result for memes on fishing

Another quotes that I find relevant… “When the student is ready, the teacher will appear…”

What if, one day, a professional fisherman/woman offers to teach you how to fish and the secrets of catching fish abundantly… will you accept him/her as your coach/mentor?

Or will you give excuses that you are too busy, (no time), not interested, not in a hurry or whatever the excuses may be!!

Image result for memes on priorities

Of course I am not talking about the real fishing… it’s a metaphor that I am using to represent opportunities.

“Life is short, once the opportunity is gone, it’s gone…” 

Life is too short and it is better for one to live life to the fullest and not hoping that life will be better (sitting and waiting for things to happen…)

When we reach a certain point in life and look back… will we say to ourselves… “WOW! I’M GLAD I DID…” or “OH DEAR! HOW I WISH I HAD!”

“Always do your best. What you plant now, you will harvest later.” ~ Og Mandino

If we have not given our best, we have not lived!

There are many ways to learn “fishing”, please find some of the ways that I believe will work if you put some heart into it…

  1. Look for a coach/mentor and engage him/her to UNLEASH the potential in us.
  2. Find and make the time to read, we can start with 5 minutes and gradually increase it to more.
  3. Attend training, workshops, seminar, conferences, networking events; get to know people and talk to them. A lot can be learned when our mind is open.
  4. Have an inner circle of great friends (from different industries) having the same values. Napoleon Hill called it “Mastermind Group”. To find out more, you can visit Jack Canfield’s site: http://jackcanfield.com/blog/mastermind-group/ 
  5. Be curious and have the hunger to learn… we can always do our own research via the internet, magazines, audiobooks, e-books and many more resources around us. We just have to make time to invest in this activity.

I strongly believe that, the more we do (and learn), the better we get.

My own definition of a LEADER is a combination of two words, LEARNER and READER.

The more we LEARN, the more we EARN (knowledge and skills).

Thank you for investing your time in reading. Please do share with me if you have some learning points and tips.

 

“Your habits, your future!”

 

Posted on

Making decisions…

Image may contain: text

“Stay committed to your decisions, but stay flexible in your approach.”  – Tony Robbins

A lot of us, myself included… tend to wait for the right moment to make decision – the right decision… is there really a right decision?

Image result for meme on decisions

What I have learnt from some of the audio books, we have to just make the decision and manage the decision we have made… fine-tuning it along the way – to make it a good and sound decision (at the time we made that decision with the resources that we have). We have to learn to be resourceful and have the grit (persistence) to pursue what we have decided upon (as long as we can).

“It always seems impossible until it’s done.” – Nelson Mandela

At times we have the fear to make the wrong decision… well, if we do not make that decision, will you be able to know whether you are able to achieve it?

Some recommendations I have in mind…

Image result for meme on tada

  1. Use the Benjamin Franklin method (a good article to read: https://www.artofmanliness.com/articles/how-to-make-a-decision-like-ben-franklin/)
  2. Discuss with the people that you trust (to bounce off some ideas) and you will have to make the decision, anyhow.
  3. This is the time when you know, having a mentor and / or a coach helps (let me know if you need any help, i will be more than willing – if both our schedules permit).
  4. Do your research, write down the possible outcomes (depending on the goal that you have set), “sleep on it” for a few days and refer to item #2 or #3.
  5. Just Do It… NOW! (If you do not, will you regret it… at a later stage in life?)

In my humble opinion, it is not how you start, it is the journey of learning, to keep going and persist until you finish what you have started.

Image result for quitting a habit quotes

So what… if you made a mistake? Evaluate the experience and move on…

I am sure there are a lot of good reading materials you can get pertaining to making decisions. You can read as much as you can or want… ultimately, you have to make that decision to either start or not.

Image may contain: text

Opportunity does not come to you… You have to SEIZE IT!

Let me share some quotes that I like on making decisions:

  1. “A wise man makes his own decisions, an ignorant man follows the public opinion.” – Grantland Rice
  2. “When your values are clear to you, making decisions becomes easier.” – Roy E. Disney
  3. “I made decisions that I regret, and I took them as learning experiences… I’m human, not perfect, like anybody else.” – Queen Latifah
  4. “Sometimes it’s the smallest decisions that can change your life forever.” – Keri Russell
  5. “Our daily decisions and habits have a huge impact upon both our levels of happiness and success.” – Shawn Achor

I look forward to your success and please share your story / journey with me.

 

“Change your habits, change your world!”

“Your habits, your future!”