Category: Personal Development

Feb 13

7 Days of Gratitude: Day 6

Oops…apologies again for being late! Been out late again 😉

Yesterday was an interesting day. I got to make a new friend recently and last night we went out for the first time. It was a new opportunity to make a friend and I’m really grateful for that, especially since one of my goals this year is to widen my social circle.

Yay, goal accomplishing! 🙂

What about you? What’s one goal or direction in your life that you’re grateful to have accomplished?

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Feb 12

7 Days of Gratitude: Day 5

I apologize for being 2 hours, 40 minutes behind on the 5th day of gratitude…I’ve been out til late 😉

It was my friend Gabriel’s birthday earlier this week, and I met him today for some coffee and to pass him his birthday gift (one of my favorite books; Veronika Decides to Die). We had a nice chat, had dinner with his girlfriend and friends, and decided to go play LAN games afterwards (DOTA Allstars on Frozen Throne, one of my all-time favorites!).
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Feb 10

7 Days of Gratitude: Day 4

Today is my brother’s birthday, and since I was staying at home, I got to watch my home lovingly prepare a wonderful dinner and cake for him.

I really love my mom.

She works so hard to take care of everything in the house so that the rest of us can do what we do. I don’t care what anyone else says, being a homemaker is as tough a job, and as important a job as they come, and it deserves the ultimate respect.

I’m very grateful to have such a loving person in my life. Today I’m grateful for my mom.

So today’s coach’s challenge to you is this, who is one person that you’re absolutely grateful to have in your life?

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Feb 10

Get Comfortable Outside Your Comfort Zone

This may a little bit deviate from Alvin’s theme on Gratitude. At the same time, from another angle it’s really related because you should be gratified of all the challenges that are coming into your life.

And that’s reason why you should be comfortable coming out of your comfort zone.

If you remember the earlier post by Alvin on stretching, yes, stretching will get your comfort zone bigger and you should be comfortable with getting the stretch.
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Feb 9

7 Days of Gratitude: Day 3

This 7 Days of Gratitude is going places I never imagined.

I’m typing this as it just happened, a few minutes ago. I was on my way home from the neighbourhood gym when I saw a downed motorcycle at the traffic light. I saw a few people rush over to help and so did I, and when I helped lift the motorcycle up I saw her: a little girl of 8 had been hit and was lying crying on the ground.

The men helped carry her over to the side of the road while I called for an ambulance. I noticed, however, that her mom wasn’t showing the usual high levels of distress or anxiety I’d expect…nevertheless, I made the call, and told her about it.

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Feb 8

7 Days of Gratitude: Day 2

Today has been amazing.

As I was having lunch I bumped into a good friend of mine who happened to be in the area, totally unexpected and out of the blue! It was a good chance meeting, and we had lunch together with his colleague, and afterwards they taught me how to buy the lottery, which I was intending to do but had no idea how (I normally don’t, but it’s a $10 million special draw for the Lunar New Year so I thought why not, keep my fingers crossed!).

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Feb 8

7 Days of Gratitude: Day 1

On the 7 Days of Gratitude Challenge, I wonder if I could cheat a little and start yesterday, because I had such a wonderful day.

My friends and I were meeting at the beach for a nice group dinner, but a couple decided to meet earlier for a seaside jog. I’m not that keen into running, but I love cycling, and volunteered to carry their bags on my bike.

The weather was beautiful. All perfect for an afternoon jog. As the sun went down, I cycled onto a pier and watched the sea, and felt the cool breeze against my skin. I breathed in deep, and felt good to be alive.

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Feb 7

7 days of Gratitude: Intro

Everyone will agree that a positive attitude is one that is essential for peak performance living. One of the key parts to a positive attitude that I outlined in 9 Keys to Overcoming Difficult Times is an attitude that allows us to acknowledge what is already going well in our lives and appreciate them for their value. I’m talking of course, about the attitude of gratitude.

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Feb 4

9 Keys to Overcoming Difficult Times

Lately, I’ve had to deal with a lot of changes happening in my personal life. At first, describing them to my friends, I kept calling them endings, but afterward I began to feel as if it was a process of renewal. There is a Chinese saying that goes ‘if the old doesn’t go, the new cannot come’. Keeping that in mind, I’ve begun to view these difficult events as a shedding of things for me to grow forward, and so I’ve come to call them ‘changes’ instead of ‘endings’.

Difficult as it may, I know a friend who is also going through some tough changes of his own. This post is really for him because I want to share with him some tools I’ve found to be useful for me in managing my emotional state to navigate through the difficult times. I’m prone to worry and depression myself so I’ve had to learn how to pull myself through, and the beliefs and techniques from NLP and Solutions Focused Brief Therapy have helped tremendously.

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Jan 10

The Most Important Thing to Do: Stretch

The single most important principle I’ve learnt that has changed my life more than anything else is the principle of stretching:

Stretching is the act of doing something that you know is good for you and/or good for others and it scares you.

Imagine yourself at the centre of a circle. The edge of the circle is the edge of your comfort zone. It is everything that you know and are comfortable dealing with. Once in a while you might encounter an anomaly that hits the edge of your comfort zone, if it’s a little thing you expand to include it. (more…)

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Dec 31

Directions vs Goals

Since we’re nearing the new year I’m sure many of us will be taking this chance to reflect on the year past and renew on the year ahead. I thought this would be a nice time to make a distinction between setting goals, and setting directions.

What is a goal? Simply put, a goal is a target you set that is:

Specific

Measurable

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Dec 30

How has it been a great year?

After reading on somebody’s blog that she had a great year, I started thinking to myself, ‘Did I have a great year?’

Being a somewhat critical person, I realized this was the wrong question to ask because it could only have a ‘yes’ or ‘no’ answer, and my critical voice said ‘no’.

Ok. Restart.

I knew if I wanted a more quality answer I needed to ask a better quality question.

So I applied the ‘What if’ frame and asked myself, ‘What if this has been a great year? What would have made it great?’ Following Paiboon’s post, I came up with 3 highlights for myself: (more…)

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Dec 30

How has it been a great year?

After reading on somebody’s blog that she had a great year, I started thinking to myself, ‘Did I have a great year?’

Being a somewhat critical person, I realized this was the wrong question to ask because it could only have a ‘yes’ or ‘no’ answer, and my critical voice said ‘no’.

Ok. Restart.

I knew if I wanted a more quality answer I needed to ask a better quality question.

So I applied the ‘What if’ frame and asked myself, ‘What if this has been a great year (more…)

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Dec 19

The Hand Pump Story

I visit China regularly, and my recent trip teach me something that I would like to share with you, it’s a “Hand Pump”

Hand Pump

Have you use such the pump before? “I have never seen one in Singapore”. You might say. Yes, because this type of pump is only constructed in the location where drought is common. And Singapore is not known for drought area, anyway there is pipe water in Singapore. …

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Dec 19

3 Things To Do Before End of 2005

Before you start wearing your holiday hat, there are few things you could do before X’Mas eve.

Pull out your journal right now and complete these 3 activities within next 10 mins.

1) List down your 3 highlights of 2005.

Something that worth remembering, something that makes yourself proud, something that happens because you’ve put that effort in, something that makes you smile.

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Nov 29

Prognosticating Procrastination

I wanted to write about Procrastination. You know, the big P word that people have blamed for everything and anything. So many people have written about it…the personal effectiveness people, the Getting-Things-Done camp, the procrastination busters and it makes me wonder if I can offer anything different. So I joined the union.

The Procrastinator United couldn’t take off as a collective force coz I saw the sign when I arrive:

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Nov 8

Attitude Adjustments 1.1.1: The Apparent Reason for No Good Reason

Now that you’ve discovered how you can be empowered as easily as you can find yourself speaking the mantras that you choose. I wonder if you have installed some powerful stuff for yourself?

Some of you may ask whether this a form of self-deceit? Let’s be honest here, when was the last time a belief, an attitude that you hold or a faith that you keep limit you from feeling or doing good? Are those absolute truths like the sun will rise from the east and set the west? Uh huh…I didn’t think so too. (more…)

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Nov 3

Attitude Adjustments 1.1: Feeling Good… for No Good Reason

OK people, besides this being a catchy headline, it’s a way of life…living it anyway. I’ve no idea who to credit for purporting this concept in the very first place and the collective consciousness is kind and will reward such genius!!

Consider how much negativity is out there. Have you considered the pervasiveness of Murphy’s Law in our day-to-day dealings with the world in general? Does it make sense that everything that can go wrong, will? I enjoy lots of Murphy’s Laws and the tongue-in-cheek nature of them all. However, most they are just too fatalistic to my liking.

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