End of 2008: Reflection, and Moving Onward to 2009 :)

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A very very happy New Year’s Eve everyone!!! :) As 2008 is drawing to a close, I thought it would be good to wrap up the results of my goal pursuits and my achievements for this year and set specific goals for 2009 as we move onward to the new year. :)

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 direct your energy, time and efforts to a single 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 :)

Wrapping up 2008

Here is a topline of my accomplishments for 2008:

Health

• Became a full time vegetarian starting first 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 Level 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 learned 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
• Improve 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 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 skill sets:
  • 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!

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. :D 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 2009. :) See you guys then!