2009.

What a year.

2009 marks the first year whereby I’m full fledgedly pursuing my passion to help others achieve excellence and live their best life. Subsequently, 2009 marks the first year where I’m in a total state of “flow” in every single moment I live. Everything feels so natural and surreal. It seems as if 1st Jan 2009 was light years ago, as if I’ve been doing what I’m doing now for the longest time ever. I don’t remember when’s the last time I ever felt this way about anything. It feels… like I’m living in a dream. It’s so amazing that it’s indescribable.

I learned many things for myself this year. Some of these have been documented in my articles throughout the year. Many have been duly recorded in my life handbook as part of my personal journey of growth. All the learnings I have gotten – I intend to share on the blog in the future, in its own time and place.

Rather than flood this post with a tsunami of realizations and learnings, I decided to share the two biggest things I have learned for myself this year.

Two Biggest Things I Learned in 2009

1. I realized helping others is what I want to do for the rest of my life.

If you have read my personal story of how I discovered my life purpose, you might have noticed a large part of how I arrived at my life purpose was through logical deduction. In 2006, I realized the pursuit of monetary, material possessions and recognition as ends in themselves was meaningless, because these were impermanent and would disappear one day. From there, I concluded I would focus on personal growth as my life mission – developing consciousness of myself and others, since it is the only thing that is permanent in the world.

Today, 1 year after pursuing this passion/mission/purpose, I can now conclusively say that apart from mental resonance, I’m now in full emotional resonance with my desire to help others grow. I don’t just know it. I feel it in my heart, fully and wholly now. There’s nothing in the world I would ever trade for to stop doing this.

The continuous, heartwarming feedback from readers, 1-1 coaching clients and workshop participants have affirmed my realization. Since the start of the blog, readers have continuously told me how the articles have empowered them in their journey of personal growth, such as taking action on their dreams, getting over life’s setbacks, loving themselves, making bold & necessary changes in their lives and quitting their full-time jobs to do what they love. Clients have told me how amazing they felt after the coaching sessions, how they discovered more about themselves through the sessions compared to all their life so far, how they have created changes they never thought possible before. All these are the best rewards I can ever get for what I do today.

2. I realized the reason why I do what I do every day is because of you.

This realization really came as a result of a serendipitous and spontaneous question that popped in my mind a month ago or so. “What if one day, there is nobody else in this world but me? Would I still be as driven towards life and personal growth as I am now?”

The answer that came back was a quiet, yet resounding, “No .”.

It then struck me that the primary thing that drives me every day is really, you. In the past 2 years since discovering my life purpose, I had been equally driven towards my personal growth and growth of others, with slight inclination towards the latter. Today, it’s clear that it’s the love for all of you out there and the desire to help you live your best life that drives me. As I shared last week, the reason why I openly share about myself and my life to the media and the world is because of you. If none of you exist, I wouldn’t be as driven or passionate toward my own growth as I am right now. The real reason why I strive to grow and be my best self every day is so I can better help you and others grow and live your best life.

15 Key Highlights of 2009

Passion/Career/Business

1. Decided not to return to corporate work and fully embrace my passion now (March).

• From there, turned my passion into my full-time career

2. Started my training business, The School of Personal Excellence (TSOPE), in September

• TSOPE is the first school to help you achieve your goals and dreams. If there is only 1 thing I have to single out as my key achievement for this year, this will be the one

  (Update Oct ’11: I’ve since the blog and my training business as 1 entity – “Personal Excellence”, and I now focus on driving the message of growing and helping others grow via online, as it is a high leverage medium where I can reach out to many people at one go (vs. physical workshops, where I can only train X number of people in 1 session). In the future, I intend to tap on other high leverage mediums, including traditional TV at some point.)

3. Built and established Personal Excellence, reaching out and touching the lives of people around the world

• To date, we have over 140 350 free, quality personal excellence articles (as of Oct ’11) , almost 2k over 20k unique readers every day and 1.7k 26k subscribers! (as of Oct ’11)
• Started Facebook Fanpage, with over 2.7k 3.5k fans currently! Do join us if you haven’t already!

4. Became a full fledged life coach and established myself in the profession

• Equipped myself with coaching skills through self-learning and experience and became a better coach through the year. Developed my own robust coaching system based on my learnings in life and personal philosophy.
• Gave personal 1-1 coaching to nearly 50 clients this year, helping them transform their lives and achieve results in their personal goals and dreams
• Since I started coaching in Apr, 1-1 coaching rates have increased by over ten-fold due to the overdemand. The 1-1 coaching continues to be overbooked today, though I plan to remove the waiting list in 2010 due to urgency behind some clients’ requests

5. Started officially speaking and training in the area of personal excellence

• Gave speeches, trainings and workshops in various schools and organizations
• Spoke to an audience of almost 1,000 people
• Became a better speaker through self-learning and direct speaking experience. Look forward to more developments in this area in 2010

6. Interviewed and featured in local and regional media 12 times

• It first started with My Paper in late March, then everything rolled on from there To date, I’ve been covered by almost every media outlet locally and it’s something I’m extremely grateful for.
• Check media section for a full list of media coverage and the clippings/recordings of the interviews

Health / Fitness

7. Experimented with raw veganism for 21 days (May-June)

• Decided to return to cooked vegan food for now since it’s too hard to upkeep a raw vegan diet in the modern society

8. (Almost) achieved my desired weight / look

• Still a few pounds left to lose and toning to do. After that, I gather I’m finally done with weight loss goals after all these years

Relationships

9. Improved my relationships with my parents!

• Hugged my parents for the first time since I was a kid! Also gave my family members each a personal card expressing love and gratitude for everything they have done for me. This was a huge deviation from the norm since we hardly ever talk, especially between me and my brother. I think they must have thought I was popping pills.

10. Initiated and re-established contact with people from my past

• Most of these were people whom I had negative encounters with previously and didn’t continue contact afterward. Figured that as I’m going to be coaching others to release personal blocks, I needed to first walk the talk

11. Established and fostered strong friendships in the personal development industry

• I’m very thankful for the work I do, because it enables me to become acquainted with such incredible people. Moving forward in this journey, I look forward to meeting even more of such people.

12. Got to know over 2k new readers and friends on both Facebook and Twitter, thanks to the blog

• If you have FB and/or Twitter but haven’t added me yet, please feel free to do so

13. Mutually parted with my best friend of 10 years

• Our friendship had served its role in the earlier years, and it had come to a point where it was preventing us from living in full alignment with purpose and our highest selves. In the end we mutually parted to progress in our life journey. Read: Why I Parted Ways With My Best Friend of 10 Years

14. Forgave and finally completely let go of someone who had been in my heart for the past 4 years

• I never did realize this was preventing me from receiving new people into my life. When I finally realized that, I consciously let him go from my heart, and what resulted was a feeling of liberation I had never felt before. Read: How I Moved On From A Heartbreak (Series)

Spirituality

15. Strengthened my connection with my higher self (subconsciousness)

• While I had not actively worked on my spirituality this year (deprioritized for now as I want to solidify the foundations of my personal growth first), my intuitive connection has definitely strengthened over the year. This becomes especially apparent through my 1-1 coaching and new people I meet. This actually doesn’t come as a surprise, since everything I’m doing now is directly aligns myself with my higher self and hence strengthens my connection with my subconsciousness.

A Huge Thank You to All of You

Thank you so much to all of you who have reached out to me at one point or another to send me your well wishes, feedback and appreciation, whether through email, facebook, twitter or in person. Thank you to all of you who have helped spread the word about Personal Excellence and/or my message to others around you, be it your friends, your family and other people. Thank you to all the personal development bloggers – Armen, Kristi, Vincent, Jonathan, Dragos, Dani, Mark, Albert, Luciano, and many others who have in one way or another helped drive awareness of this blog to many others.

Thank you. Thank you to all of you for your continuous support. Thank you for giving me the chance to do what I do today. Without any of you, I wouldn’t be who I am or what I am today. Because of you, I’ve become a better person than before. Because of you, I’m living the best life I’ve ever lived. You guys are my strength, my pillar and my life. Thank you for being who you are and for being alive. Because of you, I will go on to create even bigger things, things I never thought I would achieve.

Reflecting on Your 2009

Just like I have been doing 2009 reflection with my coachees the past couple of weeks, I would like to invite you to do the same. There’s always something to learn from everything, and what’s most important is to crystallize the learnings so you take something valuable from all the past experiences. Reflecting enables you to bring these learnings forward and improve your experience of life. It’s all about living your best life! :).

Take out your pen and paper and think about the following in the context of 2009:

1. What are your major achievements and notable events this year?
2. What have you learned for yourself this year?
   
3. What are your key goals for 2010 to make it a huge blast?

Many readers and clients have told me they found 58 Noteworthy Resolutions For The New Year very helpful for them as they set their resolutions/goals for 2010, so you might want to check that out too as you set your 2010 goals.

Comments are open if you would like to share your reflections with the rest!

Goodbye 2009, Hello 2010! Let’s work together to make 2010 a BIG BANG! I’m feeling so excited about 2010 ahead – I have absolutely no doubt this is going to be the best year ever for all of us

Related Posts

• End of 2008: Reflection, and Moving Onward to 2009 :)
• The Best of Personal Excellence 2009
• My Review of 2010 (Big Thank You and Onward to 2011!)
• My Review of 2011 (and Moving On To 2012!)

As 2009 draws to a close, I thought it will be good to look back and take a trip down the blog memory lane: By recapping the noteworthy articles of 2009, especially since we have seen an inflow of new readers towards the 2nd half of the year! It doesn’t really matter when the articles are written, by the way – All articles at Personal Excellence are not time bound. This means the principles, ideas and concepts shared will apply to your life regardless of whether you were reading them earlier this year, right now, or even years down the road.

So without further ado…

Top 10 Best Articles in 2009

It was tough picking the top 10 for this category, simply because there were many articles which had very strong messages in their own right. Ultimately, I picked these articles based on the value of the content and reader feedback I received on the articles.

• 10) What’s On Your Bucket List? 101 Things To Do Before You Die
• 9) Writing A Letter To Your Future Self
• 8 ) Create Your Life Handbook
• 7) Does Your Room Inspire You?
• 6) How To Increase Your Self-Confidence
• 5) How To Deal With Disappointment (4-part series)
• 4) Are You Looking For A Relationship To Complete Yourself?
• 3) Passion or Money?
• 2) Discover Your Real Purpose (7-part series)
• 1) Are You Sleepwalking Your Life Away?

Without a doubt, Are You Sleepwalking Away is the top article in 2009! I wrote this article at the end of 2008 and published it as the first post in Jan 2009. Within the same month, it hit Digg frontpage and shortly after, Delicious.com frontpage – both of which are the top social media sites online. In total, this article has driven over 53k pageviews this year alone, generated the most reader responses (whether it’s the number of comments/emails/link backs) as well as driven transformational changes in readers’ lives (based on their personal testimonies and responses). There were so many follow-up questions and feedback I received on this article that I had to write a part 2 to answer the most popular queries!

This article has another level of significance – it is the first article that placed Personal Excellence on the internet radar. It was the first definitive proof that I was making headway in my passion and gave me the added impetus moving forward.

Top 10 Most Popular Articles in 2009

(Based on number of pageviews)

• 10) 9k views: Why Earning Money Is Not Your Real Purpose
• 9) 11k views: Are You Looking For A Relationship To Complete Yourself?
• 8 ) 12k views: 25 Brainstorming Techniques
• 7) 15k views: How To Find Out If You Are Living Your Real Purpose Now
• 6) 15k views: You are Average of 5 People You Spend the Most Time With
• 5) 17k views: Why I Wake Up Early (And 9 Reasons You Should Do So Too)
• 4) 23k views: 21 Tips To Wake Up Early
• 3) 53k views: Are You Sleepwalking Your Life Away? – Hit Digg and Delicious.com FP in Jan ’09
• 2) 54k views: 5 Reasons To Quit Drinking Soda Drinks (And How To Do It) – Hit Digg.com FP in Mar ’09
• 1) 105k views: 101 Most Inspiring Quotes of All Time – Hit StumbleUpon FP in Jun ’09

Happy reading and here’s to even more transformational articles in 2010

Related Posts

• End of 2008: Reflection, and Moving Onward to 2009 :)
• 2009 Reflections: 2 Biggest Things I Learned, 15 Key Highlights and A Big Thank You To You

Importance of Setting Goals

A few days ago, I was chatting with a long-time friend. She was telling me how she and her friend were discussing about the upcoming new year and they felt 2008 seemed to have just slipped past their fingers, without realizing or making any significant accomplishments. There were certain sadness and nostalgia that accompanied that remark.

That is why it is important to set goals and resolutions. With clear goals and objectives in mind, you can orientate your energy, time and efforts towards a singular point, instead of drifting randomly from day to day. Only by setting goals will you have clarity on what exactly you want. No goals, no focus. No focus, no nothing.

If you are busy beating yourself up over a barren 2008 because you did not set any goals or pursued them, forget about it. It doesn’t matter. If anything, not setting clear goals or following through them in the past would have made you realize the importance of setting them and taking them seriously. There is always a reason for everything; always a lesson to learn from everything that happened. Look onward and start setting your goals for 2009. The future is in your hands! Focus on the present and starting set your goals for the future These goals will be the seeds that will shape the future to come

In line with this, I just wrote a new goal achievement series which I will be sharing over the course of the next few weeks. It is a 5-step robust framework which I have developed on how to go about achieving goals (that has worked very well for me), from goal setting as the first step, all the way to review, which is the last step. I’m very excited about this series and have invested a lot of time in writing it; I am sure all of you will find value in it as you apply it to your lives

Update: The Goal Achievement Series (7-part) is up! Start here: Part 1: Introduction to Goal Achievement

Wrapping up 2008

Here is a topline of my accomplishments for 2008:

Health

• Became a full time vegetarian starting 1st wk Jan 08, for non-cruelty, personal development and environmental reasons
• Lost 13 lbs!!!
• Started weekly exercise regimen alternating among gyming/jogging/badminton
• Picked up tennis and realized I don’t like it (valuable learning! I wrote about it in Quitting To Win )

Career

• Left my full-time job in brand management to pursue my purpose in full throttle
• Kickstarted my personal development career and planted the seeds for my long-term career
  • Started Personal Excellence (Dec 08)
  • Started my coaching practice (Dec 08)

Spirituality

• Increased my connection with my subconsciousness/universal source

Personal

• Became a better person overall; More grounded, more positive, more empathetic, more conscious of living, more effective/strategic
• Picked up writing skills for blog through self-reading and directly writing. Read: Skills Development and Leveling Up

Relationships

• Made more new friends!
• Strengthened quality of existing friendships
• Started to be able to communicate with my mom/dad

Miscellaneous

• Traveled across Asia Pacific, including ASEAN, Australia (thanks to my previous job!) and China
• Learned to rollerblade
• Wanted to learnt ice skating but deprioritized the goal due to other commitments

My goals for 2009

Here is the broad overview of my goals for 2009 (and moving forward)

Health

• Start daily morning exercise regime
• Continue jogging and badminton; Include resistance training in the mix
• Shift towards 50% raw vegan diet to further increase mental clarity and be healthier
• Lose another 5~10lbs of weight (will see how it goes)

Career

• Establish Personal Excellence as one of the leading personal development sites/blogs
  • Build an extremely strong foundation of quality content
  • Drive disproportionate awareness and traffic
• Potentially introduce podcasts (depends on user demand/response)
• Return to corporate work for a few more years; Identify the best job assignment that allows me to bridge my current status and my long term vision to be a personal development educator; Will explore a relocation assignment – Update Mar ’09: Evaluated the situation and decided there’s no longer a need for me to return to corporate. Read more: Embracing My Passion

Habits

• Wake up at 6am everyday (will subsequently blog about the benefits of waking up early and how to do it, after I achieve this goal) – Update: Read: Why I Wake Up Early (And 9 Reasons You Should Do So Too)

Spirituality

• Start daily hourly meditation (in the morning) – Read: 10 Reasons You Should Meditate
• Be able to communicate with my subconsciousness freely
• Be able to lucid dream freely
• Be able to astral project freely

Personal

• Strengthen the following skillsets:
  • Self discipline
  • Increase my productivity (writing; day to day activities)
  • Become more organized
  • Strengthen coaching skills
  • Public speaking
• Continue to immerse in personal development materials to learn/grow/become better

Social

• Continue to make new friends
• Strengthen my existing friendships
• Further improve my relationships with my parents/family
• Get into a relationship if/when I meet someone whom I like

Miscellaneous (Low Priority)

• Continue traveling beyond Asia (top choices being US and Europe)
• Get better at rollerblading i.e. be able to rollerblade freely
• Learn to ice skate

How about you?

Spend the next 10 minutes to think about the following:

How has 2008 been for you? What have you achieved in the year? What are your big goals and dreams for your life and future? What are the goals you can start setting for 2009 as you move towards those big goals and dreams?

Write them down and place them somewhere which is always in your sight; this will be the first step towards achieving your dreams! Stay tuned for the goal achievement series in Jan ’09 which will help you conquer and bust those 2009 goals! (Read: Goal Achievement: Introduction)

I’m leaving my home now to join my friends for our new year’s eve party! It’s a tradition that we established almost a decade ago to celebrate every new year’s eve together with a sleepover party at a friend’s place, and it’s something I have come to anticipate and look forward to every year. Have a very happy new year 2009 and 2009 will be an absolutely fabulous year EVER YET for all of us!

New posts will resume on 2 Jan 09. See you guys then!

Related Posts

• 2009 Reflections: 2 Biggest Things I Learned, 15 Key Highlights and A Big Thank You To You
• My Review of 2010 (Big Thank You and Onward to 2011!)
• My Review of 2011 (and Moving On To 2012!)
• The Best of Personal Excellence 2009