My 2012 in Review :) A Year of New Milestones, Creation of My Self-Identity, and New Beginnings

Now that it’s the end of the year again, it’s time to share my end-of-year review, in true PE fashion. I hope doing so will stir you guys into reflecting how your year of 2012 has been and to plan the new year of 2013 ahead. :)

My End-of-Year Reviews from 2008–2011

• 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
• My Review of 2010 (Big Thank You and Onward to 2011!)
• My Review of 2011 (And Moving On To 2012!)

Key Accomplishments for 2012

2012 has been quite an interesting year for me. I returned from San Francisco in end Jan this year after a seven-month-long travel around Europe and U.S. and picked up my life in Singapore where I left off in Jun 2011.

There has been new business milestones achieved, new levels of awareness in the area of relationships, and new relationships forged and existing relationships strengthened as I pour my energy into fostering connections.

1. Transited to a Passive Income Business Model

In the area of business, I’ve finally transited fully into a passive income model for PE. I now get a healthy monthly income even if I don’t work at all; when I do work fully, it’s not difficult to achieve a five-figure income for the month.

Outsourcing has been instrumental in making this happen. For everything I have to share on outsourcing: Why You Should Outsource and How to Get Started

2. Influx of Media Interviews

Media appearances have truly been abundant this year, something I’m very grateful for.

In the last five months alone, I’ve received over 20 media coverage, most of which happened in the last two months. A quarter of them were due to the 14-Day Kindness Challenge in November (a big success with over 800 participants).

In the last two months in particular, invitations for media interviews came on a weekly basis, from different media outlets each time. They ranged from TV, to magazines, to newspapers, to radio stations.

In fact, I was just interviewed this morning (Dec 31) on Channel News Asia, AM Live! on setting new year resolutions, which you can check out here. Definitely a great way to end off the new year for me, as I’ve always been a big fan of the prestigious Channel News Asia brand. If there’s any one media outlet I would ever want to get on, it would be CNA itself.

I’m very grateful for these interviews and the opportunity to reach out to new audiences. The media outlets could have chosen to interview other experts and personalities, but for some reason they chose me, so I feel both honored and flattered.

To all the media outlets that have featured me this year, from Kiss92, 938LIVE, Channel News Asia, Channel 8, Lianhe Zaobao, Lianhe Wanbao, My Paper, UFM 100.3, Cosmopolitan, Singapore Woman’s Weekly, Her World, Asia One—thank you so much!!

Those of you interested in getting media coverage: How to Get Media Coverage for Your Business, Blog, or Startup — Constantly (Secrets Behind My Frequent Media Coverage, Revealed)

3. Networking; New Social/Business Connections

In the area of relationships (friendships), I made a deliberate effort to network, be it in the entrepreneurial circles or other social circles, in the last quarter of this year. Consequently, I’ve gotten to know at least 100 new people in the short span of time. It has been pretty fun knowing new faces and getting acquainted with new people locally, as opposed to 2011 when I was socializing massively with people outside of Singapore during my world trip. I’m sure my relationships with all these people will blossom in the years ahead.

4. Friendships

Some pretty amazing friendships have been fostered this year. My friend Karl has become quite a dear friend after I returned to Singapore, along with my friend Saj who has sadly migrated to New Zealand with her husband a month ago.

Some unexpected friendships this year include that of W and Daniel. W was a long-lost distant contact who re-entered my life this year and somehow evolved into a great, reliable, and trusted connection in the past months. Daniel is someone whom I had connected on Twitter for a while and finally met this year (after I returned from my trip); we bonded over random stuff over the past months and got to know each other better in the process. Look forward to more great meetups ahead. :)

Other friends whom I continued to grow closer to this year include C, Banana (not real name), KM, and Rita, just to name a few. There are countless other people whom I’ve fostered budding relationships with this year whom I can’t wait to get to know better in the year ahead.

5. Romance & Revelations in Area of Romance

In terms of romantic relationships, I’ve met many new guys in the last quarter of the year as I opened myself up in the area of love. Consequently, I’ve arrived at many new self-realizations about myself and my relationship attitudes.

I realized I had many anxieties surrounding relationships which I never knew were there. My dating immersion since September has helped me to uncover them and work through them, one at a time. This will undoubtedly help as I work towards a conscious romantic relationship. As they say, 10,000 Hours To Develop Talent. (‘Talent’, in this context, refers to ability to foster a conscious romantic relationship).

I’ve not met someone whom I want to be with yet (i.e. in a relationship). (Or if he’s already in my life, I’m simply not aware of it at this moment.) For the record, I do not have a problem attracting guys or with dating, just that finding someone I like is more elusive than I would think. I know that many of you have been excitedly waiting for me to share good news in this area (by the incessant questions I get about it), and I guess it’s just something that’s going to happen by itself, when it happens.

To be honest, for a period of time, I felt like the whole world was exerting pressure on me to find someone. This pressure isn’t from who you might think it is actually (my parents do not butt themselves into my love life)—this pressure actually came from you guys. When I frequently get comments like “Celes, I can’t wait until you find THE ONE for you!!!” or “Celes, have you found THE ONE yet??” (be it on Facebook, via Ask Celes, or Twitter), it inevitably adds weight on me to find someone quickly in order to serve as an inspiring example to others out there. I guess that’s to be expected when I embarked on the Lunch Actually thing publicly, blog about my singlehood and experience with love openly, and essentially live my life in a somewhat public manner.

It also did not help that my previous date coach subconsciously exerted pressure on me as well with passing comments like “I’m going to set you a challenge to get a boyfriend by X’mas day”. It made me feel like I was broken for not being able to get into a relationship (obviously with someone I found fitting, and not just with anyone) when others do not seem to have problems in that area. I know better now though.

The past four months have been an interesting experiment for me in dating and love, and have undoubtedly bettered myself in this area. Moving forward, I’ll continue to open myself in the area of love, but I’m not going to actively pursue love or deliberate about it anymore. I’m going to just return to being myself, living my life as I would, and just enjoy being who I am.

I hope you guys can give me the necessary space for me to develop in this area; if for some reason you feel anxious or curious about my love life, perhaps it’s an emotion you are projecting from your personal desires for yourself and is something to look into. I haven’t felt right about any of the guys I’ve met/dated so far, so I’m going to just live my life and let things unfold by themselves now.

Whatever will happen will happen, and whatever won’t, won’t. :)

6. Miscellaneous Accomplishments

(In no particular order)

• (in Dec) Landed a clothing sponsor for all my media and public appearances. Thanks so much to Cassis Collections and Angela for your kind sponsorship—your clothes are amazing! :)
• Achieved higher business revenue this year than 2011.
• Successfully launched and conducted the 14-day Kindness Challenge in November, with over 800 participants from around the world. The challenge also received great media coverage in local media (Singapore).
• Launched online group coaching and webinars on PE, starting with the Emotional Eating course in July (available as a video product in the Courses section), then followed by Self-Esteem webinar in August, then Passive Income Course in October, then finally the Blogging Bootcamp in December. All courses/webinars have been great success and were very well received by the participants.
• Launched the members portal on PE. Live a Better Life in 30 Days, Be a Better Me in 30 Days, How to Stop Stress Eating Program and How To Achieve a 10/10 Self-Esteem For Life Webinar are all available for 24/7 self-administration in the portal. With that, the past live runs of 30DLBL and 30BBM have been retired, which will give me time to create more great content and activities for you guys moving forward.
• Strengthened my connection with my intuition. (2012 was meant to be my year of intuition.)
• Naturally lost 8kg after working through my emotional eating issues.
• Let go of past anger.
• Reached 8,888 likes on my Facebook page. To all of you following me on Facebook, thank you so much for your support!! ♥ Next up, 10,000!
• Rounded up the year in a beautiful manner with the recent 13-day 2013 Countdown Challenge.

Development of My Self Separate From Business, People, and Relationships

Perhaps my biggest milestone this year is that I have developed my self-identity separate from my business and other aspects of my life.

Previously, I had (unknowingly) defined a large part of myself based on my career and personal achievements. This was the case in school (scholastic achievements were a strong measurement of my worth), and later on at work (my pay, the company I was in, and my accomplishments in the company were important measurements of my worth). Later on, after I started PE, PE itself and its success became part of my identity.

I only realized this when I transited to a passive income model this year. Suddenly, I didn’t have to work anymore to earn my keep. There was literally no need for me to do anything, any day. I could do whatever I want and not have a care or worry in the world. So, what should I do then? What should I do with my life? Who am I, really? Who is Celes? Without having to work and without my business (or anything else for that matter), what was my life to become?

It was a few months of self-reflection in the area of existentialism, but my final answer was that I still want to allocate a chunk of my life to helping others grow, because this is simply my passion and what I love to do. It’s funny to come full circle with this passion after four years of doing it, but the good thing is that it reinforces that I am indeed on the right track in terms of where I should be in life.

The other chunk of my life, I want to spend on growing (developing myself), connecting with other people (as people is a big passion in my life), and personal pursuits (be it health and fitness goals, traveling which is part of growing, and romantic pursuits).

I’d say this year has been a nice experiment in helping me figure out the real me (independent of my work, PE, and life achievements) and really know what I stand for. I’m now clearer than ever about who I am, what I stand for, and what I want to get out of living.

My 2013 Plan Moving Forward

Since 2011, I’ve been receiving many comments from people who would remark that my life seems perfect. It was this year, especially in the past couple of months, when I concurred and realized that my life is indeed right where I want it to be. If I look back, I’d say that my life today is the epitome of what I envisioned for myself three, four years ago. I can’t wish for more.

Of course, all this didn’t come by itself—it was through conscious creation on my part. And also support from blessed souls such as all of you along the way.

Continuing to Live in Intuition

If any of you recall, 2012 was meant to be my year of intuition. It has been an interesting experiment in that regard, as I lose control, stop using logic in my decisions, and simply trust that my intuition will guide me to the right place. There has been enough evidence (e.g. accidental landing of a clothing sponsor, influx of media invitations, lovely PE reader Willie (yet to be launched) offering to create a mobile app for PE right when I’m thinking of getting someone to do it, and the accidental landing of my videographer contact earlier this month (paramount to the start of my video channel for next year)) to justify me continuing on this journey.

Moving forward, I want to continue to follow my intuition and strengthen my connection with it.

There are times when I revert to logic and force to make my decisions, and I need to constantly remind myself to trust my intuition and know that it will guide me to where I need to be. Being comfortable with not being in control has been an important lesson for me. I look forward to relinquishing hold over my life and seeing where my intuition (read: my higher self) takes me.

Key Goals (Read: Intentions) for 2013 Moving Forward

1. Start my online video channel to help others grow and live their best lives.
2. Continue to expand PE.
   1. Convert past courses (passive income course, blogging bootcamp) into product versions as part of expanding my passive income streams.
   2. Seriously explore collaborations with large-scale platforms. IMO, this will be necessary to bring PE to the next level.
   3. Develop PE as a business, and not as a self-employed person. While I guess I can be considered doing ‘okay’ when compared to the ranks of the employed, PE is actually just a tiny baby as a business. It’s time for me to stop handling PE as a sole-proprietor and look at it as a CEO, a true business owner and grow it as such, such that it can achieve its maximum potential.
   4. Achieve at least six-figure income (annual) for myself and my business in 2013.
3. Continue traveling—this time to South America, India, and South Africa, which are places I’ve never been to before.
4. Live life as myself, in line with my vision, values, passion, and purpose.
5. Be there for the people who need me.

Happy New Year 2013!

That’s that! Here’s a wonderful, wonderful 2013 to all of you. I look forward to sharing more of my life and growing together with you guys in the coming years ahead. :D

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