By Design, not by Default

Many of us Singaporeans have our lives all plotted out nicely for us. Generally its, Kindergarden, Primary School, Secondary School, Poly or JC, and some go on to University and continue to do their post-grad studies. After that, we all come out to the working world, slog it out, some build families, and the cycle continues.

Not that there's anything wrong with that, but I think a great majority has forgotten how to decide what they want (usually for the long term) and plan for it.

In Goal setting terms, it says that if you do not have your own goals to achieve, you will be fulfilling other peoples goals. In NLP terms, if you are not 'driving' your own brain, someone else will.

There are generally two schools of thought, some people think that "whatever will be will be" and allow all things to happen by default, others plan and fight for what they want. Sometimes I wonder which type I am..... I guess I'm somewhere in between. Or rather, I'm sometimes one and at other times the other. Confused little fella I am....

But somehow, I woke up this morning and was thinking about this which I read in a book. I don't have the book with me now (I think....) and can't really remember the details of it. What did stick in my mind is about things happening by design and not by default.

So, I'm designing a holiday trip with my parents next year, and hoping that it will turn out well. Perhaps Japan or Australia in Aug period where we have a holiday for national day. (I'm not quite the patriot to stay at home and sing national songs... haha). How will it go? I'm not sure... haha... but I'll do my best.

I'm also thinking of whether I'll have another trip with friends overseas. Its been getting more tedious to plan trips and dog has declared that our last trip up to Fraser's hill was the last he would plan. (Hey bro, thanks. Really appreciate it, at least we had a great time there yah?)

I was thinking what the problem was actually. People getting too busy? Or really is it a matter of priorities? People stop making the effort to set aside a time or period to meet perhaps? Honestly, I think I'm somewhat guilty of that too. We all need to become better designers I guess.

New Year Resolutions 2007

Now I did say I'll probably post what my goals and resolutions for next year would be... haha... (Not exactly a promise... haha)

Anyway, puting into practice what I learnt about goal setting, I shall break the goals up into groups.

Financial
1. To complete building my emergency fund (6 months worth of salary) by Apr/May 07
2. To start learning about investments and actually start investing. If possible, I guess I'll slow pump in some cash to invest. If it requires a lump sum, then it will take awhile before I actually do start putting money in.
3. To set aside about 5% of my pay per month for books, courses, seminars etc. I have a habit of buying too many DVD sets and books etc. So I'll need to budget properly and also to ensure that I do buy some useful books for myself here and there.

Mental & Educational
1. To start reading up books (3 a month) on various topics (self-improvement, finance, management, etc...)
2. To start allocating time to listen to my home study courses (yes, I do have a few of those.)
3. Plan to take up 1 workshop/seminar next year

Health & Fitness
1. To prepare for Sheares Bridge Run and Standard Chartered Run. (Think I'll still do the half-marathon....)
2. To learn one new blading move per month. (not sure if I'll be able to do this... haha, but lets see how it goes.)
3. To achieve ahem... lower levels of body fat... (ok ok... I'm getting fatter this year... sigh)

Family & Home
1. To do some major room packing once every 4 months (that's 3 times a year... and my room does get messy quite easily.)
2. To go out with family once every two weeks. (need to spend more time with family I think.... like going to Ikea, or go some restaurant for dinner... or offer my mum to rebond her hair *yup... she looks quite different!!*)
3. To plan one holiday trip with parents for the year.


There are two other groups to address... Careeraspects and Social aspects.... I think I'll leave those out for now since I really didn't set many goals or at least concrete goals for these areas.

That's all for now... how about sharing some of your goals for the upcoming year?

Back from Fraser Hill

I'm back from Fraser, and time seems to have passed really quickly....

I'm tempted to write an account of what happened during the trip, such as how we finally found our way up to Frasers (Total of 5 bus rides up from Singapore) after ding-dong'ing between Puduraya and the Metro Bus-stop about 2-3 times. The many insects and plants we saw, my first (I think???) experience horse-riding (And its a beautiful horse!) our trekking experience there, the cute little girl whom came over to see dog sms and whom I performed some magic tricks for (the magical 20 cents is still with her! hahah!).

But you know... I'll find some time to write about it later, and I'm sure dog will be able to describe the entire trip in more lucid detail than me.

So I'm just going to shower now, and sleep! Nights!

Merry Christmas!

Christmas is just round the corner, so I’d like to wish everyone:

Merry Christmas! Happy New Year! And many glad tidings!

I’ll be out of town this Christmas and will be up Frasers hill for a get-a-way. I’m still not sure if it’s a wise move given all the floods that Malaysia is now experiencing. Nonetheless, I’m keeping my fingers crossed.

While the New Year shouldn’t be the only time, but it certainly is the most common time when we reassess what we have done for the year, and set New Year resolutions for the new year ahead.

Looking back…. What have I done this year (that I’m happy about)?
-Picked up blading
-Started doing more financial planning
-Took up coaching
-Tried Salsa (haha… I guess one super basic lesson at MOS counts??)
-Been to Japan (Study Trip)
-Been to Michigan (Business Trip)
-Started again on time management and NLP related books

Things that I stopped or have spent less time on this year
-Computer games (reduced)
-Rockclimbing (for later part of the year)
-Guitar Lessons (Stopped)
-Trekking (no trips this year)

Things I intend to do next year….. I’ll think about it and blog in another entry. Hahaha!

I wonder what other people’s list are like….

Volunteering

I had been thinking for awhile about volunteering, well, actually more than a year. I had many reasons for not wanting to do so. I had my weekends fully tied up with rockclimbing, church and guitar lessons then.

Well, things have changed somewhat over the year. I’m more focused on other aspects of how I can improve myself, like working on my time management, reading up on more management related books, project management etc. Time spent on rock climbing and church had been on a decline, but time spent blading has increase somewhat; and guitar lessons has ceased altogether.

So that leaves me with quite some time to read the tons of books I bought but never had time to read, and also some time to think about how I want to spend my time.

I had coached kids (P3-6) once, and think it’s a brilliant experience. Kids are lovable, creative and sometimes just plain pain in the neck, haha. I think the coaching programme is rather good, but in 5 days, it is also difficult to say if much impact has been made. This revived somewhat my interest in volunteering which I buried a year back.

I did another search and found Promiseworks providing opportunities for both Adventure Learning as well as Mentoring. Both activities interest me somewhat, but I was worried about being able to commit. Well, rather than being paralysed by analysis, I decided to give it a shot. I went down to the introductory talk with Daniel-san to check out what it is like and to ask some questions. Overall, it seems like a pretty good organisation with a good vision and mission.

Later, I found out that one of my army friends had been mentoring with promiseworks for about 2 years now! So I asked him more about what the organisation is like, and decided after weighing the pros and cons that it is worth joining.

Yup, so I guess for the new year, I’ll be engaging in voluntary activities. I wonder how it will turn out….

Salsa Sampler

Peihan had some complimentary tickets to MOS for a salsa event/competition where they gave some basic salsa lessons, and the event was yesterday.

That posed a slight problem for me because I was planning to go with Dog to get bus tickets to Fraiser's Hill that evening. So when I was out with Dog to get Christmas presents, I asked him if we were still meeting on Thu. Not very good PR, but when he said that he was probably not meeting, I took up the offer. (Sorry Bro).

Not withstanding the horrible consecutive laptop crashes I had been experiencing at work, I met up with Tammy and Peihan for a night of salsa! Lo and behold, I met Derek & GF there too (His girlfriend is chio….). Well, too bad there wasn’t enough time to really catch up. Over time, the only way we seemed to communicate was over MSN, so I was kind of hoping to catch up. Too bad.

The Salsa lesson was rather basic, but I think the men’s moves were easier. The ladies had a turning move at one point which I though was somewhat more complex than the guys step forward/backward moves. Well, if it is any comfort, the girls definitely look much better dancing than the guys.

Had a somewhat embarrassing moment there too. There was this girl whom after the salsa lesson asked me if I wanted to dance with her, which I obliged of course. I forgot her name, so that wasn’t a good start. Then after awhile, well, those who know me, know that I can’t dance for nuts. Hahaha, that’s strike two. Later she asked me for my age and for me to guess hers, she told me she’s 18, and I kind of froze. Didn’t know if it was a joke, or that she was really 18 or whatever. Think that was strike three. Hahahaha…. Not that I was interested in her anyhow, but it was an amusing experience I’ve never had before.

I had an interesting conversation with Justin, peihan’s friend. We were talking about economic cycles and the next possible downturn, and about the bio-med industry etc… inside MOS. Peihan was stunned that we were on such topics there. Haha. But seriously, MOS is a horrible place to hold a conversation since it has such loud music. I ended up with a slight hoarse throat at the end of it.

The whole group (less Derek & GF and another couple) adjourned to Mac for another round of conversation, which surprisingly lasted beyond 1am, close to 2am I think. But it probably definitely was a good experience (internal joke. :P).

Good night out and now I need to get back to work! Haha!