Sarah Tan – Personal Development

Saw Jeanette’s blog about Top Ten Great Pleasures on things that make you happy, and I came up with a list. I did my own list when I gave a writing assignment some time ago, but I’ll type them out here. I got greedy and came up with 30 things.

1. Seeing a beautiful rainbow in the urban area. (just saw one recently and everyone was crowding to see it)

2. Buying new books. (my job allows me to buy hundreds of books, so I also love the process of choosing them!)

3. Receiving magazines I like in the mail. (love 8 Days for the latest TV show synopsis and gossips, Time and Economist for their current affairs, and Fortune for money)

4. Reaching home on time to catch my favourite drama serials. (I’m a TV addict.)

5. Chatting on the phone with my husband. (Sometimes we chat for an hour before I go to bed)

6. Finishing an entire drama series within 3 days. (TV junkie alert – Desperate Housewives, Jumong, The Legend, and this year alone)

7. Surfing the net. (Especially excited when I check out the deals, and the tips and everything else)

8. Reading a book lying down. (Bad for eyesight, but I love reading)

9. Getting the resident stray cat’s attention. (I’m a closet Cat Lady. Only I don’t feed them. I like to tease the cats by making some sounds, and it’s cute when they turn their heads to look at me.)

10. Getting great response from the people I work with. (Sometimes I have great ideas, and I try them out at work, and they enjoy the sessions.)

11. Laughing at jokes. (Some of my friends are very interesting people.)

12. Helping my friends analyse and visualize their dates. (I get so excited doing this.)

13. Eating cheesecake, warm chocolate cake or chocolate soufflé. (Yum, yum.)

14. Seeing my face or my article in the newspapers. (twice this year already. The next I want to see is my own book published. And lots more!)

15. Seeing my favourite car – Daihatsu Copen. (even if it’s not a good idea to own it)

16. Working out at the gym. (get to exercise)

17. Chatting with my brother and coming up with funny and cool suggestions. (too bad we seldom see each other even though we live in the same house)

18. Watching people’s pets on the Internet. (I used to sit in front of the computer and watch people’s pets on webcam. I don’t own any pets, so I compensate by looking at others’. Plus I even made a video about a friend’s Schnauzer playing.)

19. Reading my favourite blogs. (Quite a lot of favourite blogs such as Beverly, Karen Cheng, Valska, Jeanette among many others)

20. Listening, playing or doing something with music. (I want to write music. Maybe when I get my own work studio when my new house is ready. I’m a lazy singer who only sings once a week at my teacher’s place)

21. Travelling to beautiful places by aeroplane. (I like taking the plane, since I was a kid.)

22. Listening to waves lazing at the beach. (been to Bintan, Redang, Tioman, Hua Hin and Sibu, resorts in Malaysia, Indonesia and Thailand)

23. Having a massage. (lots of money spent on these.)

24. Discovering something interesting or new. (From internet, or my books. Love self-improvement books)

25. Getting room service at the hotel. (Coz I don’t have to tidy up. And I like eating in the room, plus I like having food delivered to my doorstep. I like staying at good hotels)

26. Checking my bank accounts, investments and other streams of income. (I love money! And having money to spend!)

27. Chasing celebrities from different fields from Asia. (My favourite is Ryu Si Won, Korean actor, I even appeared in some Korean entertainment show because I went to his fan club gathering. And another thou shalt not be named Asian Champion in some sports.)

28. Getting flowers from my husband! (When he has time, he will get them for me from the nursery.)

29. Getting a parking lot in a crowded place. (How can I forget this? 95% of the time I get the lots I want quickly and near to the place I’m heading.)

30. Working on my blogs. (I love blogging. Check out my main blogs at Singapore Profit, Wedding-Breeze and a few others.)

Tell me about your great pleasures, and leave a trackback to your blog! What makes you happy? What are the little things in life that cheer you up?

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There are so many tools that show you how to relieve stress and it is no wonder. There is so much stress in the world today. Generally people are so busy they have little time for anything.

We are victims of a world gone mad. Think about it. We chase around hour after hour every day and we end up without any time. Money, success, careers and family are what drives us to keep going day in and day out and as a result we have become ‘stressed out’; ticking time bombs ready to blow at any minute.

Disease, chronics illness, hypertension and even heart attacks are just some of the symptoms of stress. Most of us don’t even realize the kind of stress we put ourselves under. We have built in mechanisms in our bodies that help us when we are confronted with stressful situations. We were not however supposed deal with stress all the time.

So, what do you do to relieve stress and the effect it can have on your body? In a moment you will get a chance to read 5 tips to effective stress relief but before you do there are two things that you should be doing on a daily basis to help you deal with stress.

The first thing is to get off adrenaline. One of the best tips on how to relieve stress is to plan better. Life happens and there are always going to be surprises you can’t avoid but it doesn’t have to be like this all of the time. A little planning can be the best thing you can do to keep your stress levels down. Your health and well-being could be at stake.

The second thing is to drink less caffeine and if you are a smoker to cut back, or better yet, quit smoking. Nicotine and caffeine can cause harmful stress to the body. Try to limit your intake where possible.

Ok so let’s take a look at 5 things you can do to help your body and mind better deal with stress.

1. Get regular exercise
It doesn’t really matter what you consider exercise. It could be jogging or taking a long brisk walk or even doing a workout at the gym. Regular exercise is what is important and so is making sure you are relaxed while doing it. There is no point in exercising if you hate every minute while you are doing it.

2. Relaxation and meditation
I know it sounds easy to say just relax or chill out but most people don’t know how to. You don’t have to know the art of meditation in order to just get a little uninterrupted time for yourself on a consistent basis.

3. Go out and spoil yourself
This doesn’t mean you go out and start shopping ladies. It does mean doing something for yourself. What you could do is go to a spa and enjoy a relaxing massage or you could sit down to a good book and a little alone time.

4. Video and board games
Games can be excellent stress relievers. You may want to choose careful the people you play the game with so as to avoid tension because of competitiveness. There are some great free software games you can download off the internet that are great to help relieve stress

5. Get some decent sleep
Make sure you get enough rest. When you interrupt your sleeping patterns you put unnecessary and potentially harmful stress on your body. If you are constantly thinking you are not resting. It may not sound possible but you can turn off thoughts about worry simply by not reacting to them.

You do not need to do all of the above right away but you should start with one, get in the habit of doing it regularly and then start the next one. Relaxing is what is important not what you do. Start today.

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People with full schedules and busy lifestyles tend to get more prone to a higher rate of stress. Stress and its nature vary from simple to complicated. For instance, taking care of your children can cause stress while facing debts and financial commitments can do the same thing as well. Because the various stressful matters differ slightly than one another, almost everyone wishes to stray away from any stress-generating source. Stress management teaches you how to get your stress lessened to the minimum while dealing well with it.

Basic Methods

When it comes to stress management, a lot of us tend to imagine aromatherapy, Yoga or any other type of spiritual therapy. However, stress management brings about a much deeper meaning. Stress management methodology offers you a wide variety of choices to pick from. This can easily get you to do without Yoga. You should know that some of these ways are simple while others require more perseverance. Read on to check some of the simple various stress management routines.

Stay organized and try to avoid doing everything at the last moment. Stress management starts at something as simple as getting the clothes you are going to wear next morning ready just one night earlier. Also, you can always make use of an organizer to remind you of important meetings and events. Organizing your day shall set your head clear and get you to avoid more stress as you would not be very concerned about your weak memory anymore. The most effective element in such a stress management method is that it allows you to get every single step well organized on your mind leaving you almost nothing to be stressed about.

Furthermore, try some brain exercises and you would notice how that would positively affect your stressed out head. You should know that even little stress could have the worst impact on you. Hence, via stress management related exercises, both your brain and body would learn how to naturally unwind and calm down. Being extremely stressed out has a negative impact on your body’s muscles and in turn it affects your overall performance. There are a great number of exercises from which you can pick the best and the most enjoyable for you. All sports and workouts can be effective stress management methods. So, enjoying your time while coping with stress at the same time would become much easier now.

Both organizing your day and exercising are considered part of the stress management program that allows you to deal with stress and get the control over it. Organizing your time and tasks should minimize the level of stress and over pressure that you are dealing with in your everyday life. On the other hand, Resorting to exercising calms you down both; physically and mentally. Stress is a common problem affecting us all, yet you can always rely on the different stress management routines.

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My husband told me about a book ‘Eat That Frog!’ and I was wondering what kind of weird book it was. Apparently, someone in his course mentioned this book about combating procrastination. I absolutely need it. I had already managed to psyche myself about work, so I’m quite happy for the past six weeks. However, I have not done that for one critical part of my work, and I’m simply procrastinating. It’s Sunday and I brought my work home, but I had been doing other things.

So what does ‘Eat That Frog’ try to say? Well, there are always things we dislike doing everyday. Think of the frog as that thing we dislike. So, we should start our day by eating that frog. Get to the dirty task right in the beginning of the day. You need to know what is vital and at the same time it may be tedious. So once you get it out of the way, the rest of your day is lovely.

Although, I think the title isn’t really apt for Chinese, because frogs are delicious! I think I might have eaten frog legs before, and they are soft, and a little chewy. However, if I see the frogs that are still alive, I think I’ll avoid eating them. I don’t need to see how my food used to look like.

I guess I’m going to get to work since I have another 4 or 5 hours to go before the start of tomorrow, and more work that is going to pour in.

Check out the first few pages of the book by clicking the link below. That’s what I love about Amazon.com.

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For the past few months, I had been seriously contemplating a career switch, or at the worst case scenario, I’ll just stay at home and do my own stuff. I had been feeling very stressed at work, and I did not look forward to going to work. I would cry when I drive to work, but after reading Awaken The Giant Within by Anthony Robbins, I decided to do something about it.

To get rid of negative thoughts, play the scenes where you feel really lousy about yourself. See those experiences like a movie. It could be that of a bad breakup, or your boss scolding you, or any experiences that you have extremely negative vibes about.

After that, replay the scenes backwards at extra fast speed. Distort the scenes and make one person’s head big, or if someone had said something nasty, watch how they swallow their words and imagine the words rushing out from the years like steam. If someone had been nasty, imagine their faces being distorted, or their ears growing till Dumbo’s size. Make the faces green or purple. Then, fast forward the movie, and then backwards many times, until the entire negative experiences become cartoonish and laughable. Add your favourite cartoon’s funny sounds or soundtrack with as much exaggeration and humour.

If you can do this effectively, whatever that has been affecting you for years will no longer affect you. You have broken the pattern of associating such images to pain. Instead, you will see such situations differently.

I tried that, and while I cannot say whether it is hundred percent successful, I already feel so much better about going to work, and even though the workload is still very heavy, I’m actually enjoying myself. I still have some way to go before I resolve my issues about my career path, but for now, I am feeling way better than I did a few months back.

By doing this, you get to break the negative thought pattern. You scramble the sensations. Try it and let me know in your comments. It could be about your phobia towards creatures such as cockroaches and lizards, or an unhappy relationship, or fears about public speaking.

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I wondered why it took me so long to discover Shopaholics the book series. When I read the first few pages, I totally couldn’t stand Becky. She was such a weakling who kept buying clothes and useless stuff. It was later then I realised there were other things we had in common.

My weakness is books. I’m always buying books and borrowing them. I borrow my husband’s library card, and I borrow 20 books at one go. Sometimes, I borrow from the public library at the same time, and borrow a lot more. Then I end up not having enough time to read them, and I just have to return them. I have bought a number of books which had not been unwrapped. My book shelves are full and I tried to bring them to my workplace and put them in the shelves, but even then, when my companies hold condemned library book giveaways, I bring back so many more and they are left unread.

Sometimes, people lack the discipline to know what they need and what they want. They think that everything is important. When I borrow books, I go for the cover, the feel of the book, the font of the book, the author, and sometimes I read a few pages to see whether I liked them. However, when I buy and borrow so many at a time, they lack the attention.

Whether it is an addiction to shopping or books, many of us have such momentary lapses of judgement. I am a bookaholic. I have a lot of work piling up and I still spend so much time on them. Other people are workaholics. It is a disguised legitimate way of caving in to our addictions. People who spend a lot of time at work say that they are doing their best to move up the ladder, to bring home the bacon and because it gives them satisfaction when they are doing well.

Look at it this way. When a student is addicted to computer games, the parents will scold the child and threaten to take away the modem, or the computer. However, this does not help much. It only spoils the relationship because the child refuses to comply with the instructions. Each time they spend on the computer, they want to move up just one more level, buy one more weapon, kill one more soldier or monster or just earn more points to buy food for the pet. Isn’t this similar to workaholics who just want to get one more promotion, one more month of bonus, one more hour to touch up the presentation?

You may say that by touching up the presentation, you will gain the clients’ confidence. By spending that one more hour or two or more at work, you prove to the boss that you can move up. This is just similar to the computer addiction, and yet, have you thought of the detrimental effects? Your relationship with your family gets affected. Your eyesight deteriorates because of that long hours of not blinking in front of the computer. You pile on fats around the waist. You keep falling sick because you refuse to rest. You are stuck in a rut because you failed to upgrade yourself or relax properly. 

Think through what you can do to cut the addictions out of your life and get a balanced life. It’s time to smell the roses.

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Wake up early and prepare for 2 solid hours before you start the day’s work. I heard this from two different people, John Di Lemme (a motivational speaker) and Marc Yu’s mother (Marc is a child prodigy in piano) this week, and I think it’s a great idea. I wake up early, but I spent my time on reading newspapers, eating breakfast and showering, so by the time I get to work, I arrive on the dot, and head straight into work without preparation.

John said that he would not speak to people or answer questions if he did not have the time to prepare. Each presentation or coaching session that he does comes from time spent on researching, rehearsal and preparation. He also uses the time to put himself mentally into the right frame of mind. Hence, he has pushed away engagements that require him to speak at 8am, because he cannot wake up early enough to prepare. In addition, he does not like to speak on the spot to somebody, because he feels that the time spent on preparation is very important, so that the people can fully learn from what he has to say.

Marc Yu is a child prodigy who receives homeschooling. He learns about history of music and other topics that children his age have no interest in. Science, mathematics are some other subjects he learns, so his mother needs to spend time to go through the topics for the day, and to fully prepare in anticipation of the inquisitive questions that he will ask. If she doesn’t spend the two hours to read up, then it will be wasted time for the boy. She will also use the time to plan how the lessons for the day develop.

From these two people’s experience, I realise that I have been jumping right into the day’s work without sufficient preparation. Sometimes, I meet with my clients right at the start of the work day. On other occasions, I have one or two hours to prepare before I see them. There is a difference. When I do not have time to prepare, I am able to produce a presentation on the spot, but the standard is not good enough. When I have time to prepare, I have time to read more in-depth, ask more thought-provoking questions, and engage them better. I am also in the mental mood to go through the day. This is especially important as I tend to wake up with low energy and enthusiasm. Regarding this, I’m taking steps to overcome that. Before I can do that, I must make sure that my standards do not suffer.

Some people think that they can just rely on what they have been doing for the past few years to take them through. However, there is new information in the world everyday, and it takes time to digest. If we do not set aside time to reflect, to think through the day’s events, then ultimately, our work suffers.

Since not everyone is a morning person, perhaps you can find a time that suits you. If you are able to plan your time in the office, perhaps you can schedule meetings with people later in the morning, or in the afternoon, so that you have enough time in the morning to go through your ideas, your pitches and other important things before you meet your co-workers or clients.

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The young kids know this very well. Whenever they want a toy or something, they will keep pestering the parents till they succeed. When I read the One Minute Millionaire, by Mark Victor Hansen and Robert Allen, there was a story about a woman who overcame rejection to get what she wants.

Usually, there are three rejections that a person will face before succeeding. However, too many people give up after the first rejection. When the topic is breeched for the first time, the decision-maker will not be receptive yet, because it takes time for the thought to be in the mind. The second time the request is made, the decision-maker will say no again, but this time round, the thought has taken root in the person’s mind. However, even more people give up after the second rejection. If the person dares to try again, and faces the third rejection, the decision-maker will start to waver. As long as the person asks the person what it will take for a yes, half a battle is won. Usually, there is a way to meet the demands.

Actually, this idea corresponds with the Chinese way of demanding their way. This dramatic way has three steps too. The first step is to cry. The second step is to create a scene. The third step is to pretend to hang herself, or to use death as a threat. Of course, this is a little over the top, but the philosophy is the same. Usually, a person will cave in after saying no for three times. If you look at this on the flip side, getting teenagers to stay out of trouble, such as smoking, drinking, drugs or sex, is quite tough when they surround themselves with people who constantly badgers them to try something new.

If we use this to our advantage in getting our way without bringing harm to others, then this psychology will be useful. It is just like fire. We can let fire engulf us, or we can control fire to cook food. Anyone who uses psychology to do bad things will not be able to stay successful for long. 

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Mental Association is something that you cannot ignore. I was going through a near meltdown just two days ago, because my holiday from work was ending, and I was going back to work. I had come to associate my work with a lot of negative stress. One reason is that I cannot cope with the amount of work.

Even though I was on jugar a la ruleta rusadownload casinocasinos espana portales webganancias casinos pagina webjugar seguro portales webpremio portalesslots comjuego instantaneo internetjugar seguro pagina internetganar dinero portales internettragaperra internetjuego interactivo portal internettragaperra paginas internetjuego interactivo internetcasinos la?neajuego casino pagina web,juegos casino paginas web,juego casinojuegos seguros pagina webpromocion casino portalcasinos paginas internetapostar jugar portaljugar paginas internetonline gamesapuesta dinero pagina internetjugar video pokerplay video pokercasino online ruletajuegos instantaneos paginas webslot machines spielenroulette online spielenslotmaschine spielenonline kasinoscasino video pokerroulette gratis spielenwww roulette detop online kasinosslots gamecasino net pokervideo poker spielecasino spiele downloadkasino gamesjack black online spielenonline casino roulettekasinospiele,casino spiele,kostenlose casino spielegambling onlinegratis casino spieleonline casino forumbest online casinokostenloses kasinosfreeware spiele casinokasino on net a short break, I still had work to do. I had associated the end of the break with working through the night and morning just to complete an assignment, right before the deadline, and maybe even missing the deadline. So, instead on starting on the work much earlier, I went to play my favourite computer game, Civilization IV, for four days non-stop. I’m still thinking about my game, but I decided that I had to do something about it.

I still had to complete my work and there was no way I could run away from it. I went for a meeting before my break was over, and the bosses stressed how important meeting the deadline was and the quality of the report determined how our performance would be graded. I felt myself squirming in my seat. Another colleague showed us his report for us to take a look, way before the deadline.

Instead of going through the same problem that I face all the time, I decided to change my mental associations. It’s called mental disassociations. Instead of associating writing reports to high stress levels, I changed that. I decided to visualise how easy it was for me to find the information, and how easy it was for me to write a report based on the information. I also decided to break the steps down into easier parts, and get started. Usually, I faced difficulty in starting on my work because I had this mental association of how tough it was to find the information I wanted.

To my surprise, I found the information I wanted quickly. It was the second google attempt, and the first file I clicked on that got me what I wanted. Now that I have shifted my mental association, I am going to find the next piece of information as easily as I did, and I am sure I will complete the work by tonight. After all, I had already visualised myself completing that, and working on something else the next day.

Update: I probably need more practice. I took an extra day to complete that, but throughout doing this, my stress levels were extremely low, and I still managed to meet the deadline.

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I had been reading The 4-Hour Work Week by Timothy Ferriss and some of the ideas simply astound me. Much had been said about outsourcing work to India and other countries, and people losing jobs as a result. Why not make use of this trend to your advantage?

It is rather affordable for individuals to hire virtual assistants to help you do work. If you need to find some research, they can do it for you. If you need them to help you select a few good places to eat near your place, they can do so too. Let’s say you need to buy an anniversary gift, and you want to find out which watches are nice and within your budget. They can do the research for you in table form, and even order it for you.

One man who lost his job due to outsourcing to India actually found a job by outsourcing his own interviews arrangement to India. Another one simply got the VA to call him to remind him to pay his parking tickets and drive slower.

The best part is when you are sleeping, they can do the job for you, so when you wake up, the work is all done.

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