Still Hinging On LUCK?

Still Hinging On LUCK?

Interesting topic once we talk about LUCK.  WHO does NOT want to be LUCKY anyway?  BUT are you Still Hinging On LUCK?  Please DON'T get me wrong.  NOTHING wrong to still hinge on LUCK as long as you DON'T breach that thin line between what is normal and WHAT seems not within the acceptable norms and practices in life.  If we seem to picture ourselves like this man swaying lazily along the beach, then and if you're hoping and hoping for LUCK to fall on your lap, then you could have potential issues ahead📗📙📘

How often do we hear someone blurt out like, "YOU're SO LUCKY"?  BUT hey, each of us, wherever we stand in life now, LUCK isn't WHAT got us WHERE we are today.  Whether you stand prominently OR abysmally, there could be more legitimate reasons WHY you're either hugging the cellar OR near/atop the totem pole and very certainly, LUCK has got NOTHING to do with it at all💧💧💧

Whether it's in our personal life OR even in our business OR work life, the eventual end result is and will NOT be your burden to bear BUT what matters is the PREPARATION piece.  Perfection in the moments leading up to WHATEVER decision you're making is your burden to bear.  While the outcome may NOT be in your control, the actions you take leading up to that point are absolutely up to one's sole discretion.  So, WHEN you take the time and energy to PREPARE, you become ready for the unexpected.  You become hyperfocused and are able to respond in a heightened state of functioning.  Thing is, PREPARATION is a way of life, a lifestyle skill set to build💦💦💦

So, how can get over that LUCK dependency?

CULTIVATE ETHIC TO TO LEARN - Preparation is nearly synonymous with learning.  So, if you have a difficult OR high stakes scenario approaching, consider to invest time up front to learn as much as possible about the options, people and even the possible outcomes involved

ASK FOR HELP - Connections are built through authentic conversations and most conversations are sparked with a question OR list of questions

Our takeaway:  Nothing should stop us from figuring out our own forecast and anticipate the probable results.  Thing is, we got to stop relying on talent and start leveraging from within.  No matter HOW talented you may think you are, the reality is that the talent is the very force witnessed in the moment while PREPARATION is everything leading up to to the SUCCESS.  Let's set aside LUCK💥💥💥

What's Your BASELINE In Life

What's Your BASELINE In Life

Oh yes, do we need a BASELINE In Life?  WHAT's BASELINE in the first place?  BASELINE represents a person's core nature.  WHEN you establish your BASELINE, you define the metrics and norms you need to achieve and live with on a barest minimum.  Circumstances may push you to breach it but by and large, you expect yourself to live life within the pre-determined criteria of your established BASELINE

BUT the catch here is that BASELINEs are a huge gaping hole in life.  And since our daily life lives around emotions, let us go through that emotional BASELINE stuff.  Thinking of your emotional BASELINE as the emotional state you would naturally gravitate toward WHEN NOT under significant stress OR influenced by external factors.  Essentially, it is your emotional 'HOME BASE'.  Understanding that BASELINE is a crucial step in building emotional resilience as it serves as a reference point for tracking changes in your emotional landscape

So, does this matter?  Psychologists tell us that our emotional BASELINE is never fixed at all.  Over time, it can shift as a result of one's experiences, life events and personal growth.  By recognizing your BASELINE, you can gain insights into your default emotional state and create your own 'warning system', so to speak.  And that awareness will enable you to detect those early signs of distress OR imbalance and even detect any unhelpful coping skills which sometimes creeps in way beyond one's consciousness

Experts encourage us to consistently reinforce our awareness to build that resilience from within.  Identifying your emotional BASELINE ISN'T just about categorizing emotions as good OR bad.  Instead, it's about fostering understanding and self-compassion.  WHEN you know WHERE you typically stand emotionally, you can approach life's challenges with a much clearer mindset and greater emotional stability

Our takeaway:  Let us NOT overlook that emotional BASELINE is the confluence between nature and nurture [as per studies by experts] briefly summarized below:

BIOLOGICAL FACTORS - That is our genetic makeup that can predispose our emotions

EARLY EXPERIENCES - Childhood experiences, family dynamics can leave a lasting imprint on our emotional BASELINE

Bottomline, let us be aware of our emotional BASELINE as it sways and swings in life

Life's BALANCING ACT

Life's BALANCING ACT

Life's BALANCING ACT.  Will this be a boring thread?  I hope NOT.  Because in life, everyone and everything in life needs a balance.  Whether it's about value VERSUS investing, saving VERSUS spending, receiving VERSUS  giving, demanding VERSUS acquiescing, being soft VERSUS being tough, being malleable VERSUS being agile and flexible, being short-term focused VERSUS long-term focused, being a hardliner VERSUS being non-compromising, OR it could be as trivial as maintaining healthy diet VERSUS accommodating junk food sparingly.  We can go on and on BUT this will be a very long list we CAN'T complete this interchange within today📗📙📘

Fact is, BALANCING ACT is a damn tricky thing because if you push yourself OR something to one side or area without being BALANCED, the weakest area will always hold you back.  That is the tricky thing that traps most of us many times in our life.  In fact, whenever BALANCING ACT is touched on, by default it tends to reference Work-Life BALANCE [but hey, WLB is just one tiny fraction of the whole pie of life.  In fact, no matter what's the most relevant topic on hand, the notion of BALANCE comes up almost all the time, with more questions than answers though📌📌📌

Again, the NOT so obvious truth here is that life's BALANCE seems like a mirage, the closer you think you get, the further away it goes.  And while many of us [that includes me many times [even till to date]] keep on aiming for it, finding the BALANCE seems so elusive.  Maybe you would feel disappointed because that's HOW most people initially react WHEN you perceive that you're NOT having the right OR optimized BALANCE.  BUT in research studies by experts, they state that BALANCE is NOT something we can get.  Instead, it is a STATE OF MIND.  It's the realization that life is NOT stable BUT in constant motion💧💧💧

In layman's terms, the experts are telling us that as our life is in a constant motion, this is akin to us riding a bicycle.  BUT again, WHAT confuses many of us is that much as we all want a BALANCED life, why does BALANCE feel like an elusive concept.  The paradox of BALANCE is that, the more we pursue it, the more things seem to fall apart.  Our worries tend to make us worry more.  Even from a semantics perspective, the word 'BALANCE' is both a noun and a verb.  So, this should NOT surprise us as we struggle to find it💦💦💦

Our takeaway:  BALANCE is bringing things in harmony and it's NOT something that you can get BUT something that you continually do on a consistent basis.  You could have effectively BALANCED your time between work life, personal life and social life the past month, NOT until when your other circle of friends would cajole you to join them in their social forays [like all the booze and alcohol] and at that point, your seemingly BALANCED life would reset immediately and that throws you back to square one.  In truth, our BALANCING ACT stretches throughout our lifetime💥💥💥

Seize The Moment

Seize The Moment!

I might sound nostalgic BUT many times in the past, I always lived with a SEIZE THE MOMENT mindset.  WHEN my CV/Resume profile was active in the market, headhunters would reach out to me left, right, center, rear, name it.  And during those 'cold calls', although I am happy and satisfied enough with my current jobs [at that time], I received those 'cold calls' with an open mind.  And if you think I was too greedy as I never refused and said 'NO' to those juicy offers, I had that kind of mindset because I always reminded myself that I'LL CROSS THE BRIDGE WHEN I GET THERE"📗📙📘

Please DON'T get me wrong.  I was never a job-hopper or a career butterfly, NOT at all.  BUT rather, I thought that I'd be fair to the market, to listen to the market demands.  At the end of the day, in Economics 101, it all boils down to that law of supply and demand.  And when those headhunters start reaching to me via their 'cold calls', I knew it, their candidate pipelines might be drying fast❎❎❎

To cut a potentially long narrative short, WHAT happened was that those numerous opportunities offered me those inroads to various career options that widened my horizons based on the capabilities I managed to acquire through the years.  Starting my technology career as a technical support, I moved up to management roles, then veered into project management, ERP implementations, Data Center operations and eventually Design and BCP/DRP, before I took on the PMO Head role covering Asia Region and later on managing the regional infrastructures across fourteen Asia-Pacific countries.  At one point, my CV/Resume was 'hijacked' by my own boss as it was peddled to a project proposal for HSBC India [then I ended up working out of India for eleven months]😄😄😄

Looking back, if I DIDN'T SEIZE THOSE MOMENTS, I am quite darn sure those opportunities would NOT have become available for me in my career.  BUT before I get suspected of encouraging workers to be job-hoppers, let me swing back to the flip side.  Setting aside that scenario of looking out in the job market, I can share my narratives right within the organization WHERE I'm with for about thirteen years.  And given the global footprint of our customers, if and when your boss pulls you in for help in another regional project, HOW can you say NO?  WHEN more operations teams are pushed under your wing, HOW to say NO?  WHAT dividends did I gain by SEIZING THOSE MOMENTS?  It widened and deepened my presence and importance.  And WHEN you are valued enough, you CAN'T ask for more💥💥💥

Our takeaway:  To be alive is to make choices.  Every day passes, choices have to be made.  And many of those choices may seem relatively insignificant. On the surface, they appear to NOT have any real bearing on HOW our lives will turn out, especially in the long-term.  However, often times, many of those seemingly small choices do in fact, influence in a great way the trajectories of our lives.  So, EVERY MOMENT MATTERS, seriously.  Some moments, we may choose to NOT show up fully, be it in the work place OR in your business.  And WHEN you DON'T show up FULLY, we subtly impact the type of opportunities that gravitate towards the the people WHO are prepared and ready for their MOMENT.  In other MOMENTS, we may choose to allow ourselves to be negative OR neglectful in our relationships with others.  And in so doing, potentially weaken the strong ties that one day we may need to rely on for support.  To SEIZE THE MOMENT is a subtle reminder to us that EVERY MOMENT MATTERS✅✅✅

Why All The FRUSTRATIONS?

Why All The FRUSTRATIONS?

Yes Yes yow, Why All The FRUSTRATIONS?  If each of us will 'inventorize' all our FRUSTRATIONS in life, I'm sure even if you burn the 'midnight oil', you'll NOT be done yet.  I could volunteer BUT I'm afraid I need to pull out tons of sheets to list it down.  BUT hey, HOW often have we heard 'THERE IS NO USE CRYING OVER SPILLED MILK'.  WHEN it comes to stress and anxiety, many times we are our very own WORST enemy.  We tend to grip on to events that we really need to let go of

We seem to have locked ourselves into a prison of hurt and YET we also hold the key to it.  Furthermore, stress has been shown to be incredibly bad for NOT only your emotional and psychological health BUT equally important to your physical health.  Through the years, I did bear witness to people I know first hand who have succumbed to serious medical conditions, mostly of which were traced to the enormous weight of FRUSTRATIONS in life they carried on their shoulders.  And sadly, till their worst moments when they are clinging for life, most of them were unable to rise up and recover, no thanks to the pile up of compounded FRUSTRATIONS they seem to have gone through the years.  

BUT here's a glimmer of hope for those so overwhelmed with FRUSTRATIONS.  There is a short list WHICH we ourselves can rid of it, with little effort, if at all, to name a few:

WHEN YOU KNEW YOU WERE RIGHT - and no one believed in you.  WHAT else can we do except to remind ourselves that everyone makes mistakes

YOUR UGLY BODY PART - BUT dude, NOBODY IS PERFECT, right?  Even the supermodels are NEVER flawless at all.  So, EMBRACE YOUR FLAWS

THE JOKE THAT WENT TOO FAR - And you were the butt of it.  And you were red-faced.  Think that most likely the person did NOT intend to take the joke too far

GETTING CUT WHILE DRIVING - Oh Oh Oh I'm a zillion times guilty of this.  Driving through a traffic gridlock comparable to Bangkok, Mexico, Istanbul, Mumbai and Jakarta, I've spewed out expletives countless times BUT did it help me?  NOT AT ALL.  So, I had to change myself, telling myself this is the harsh reality

WHEN YOU WORKED FOR IT BUT SOMEONE ELSE GOT CREDITED - C'mon dude, give that away as a bonus gift.  You will earn more credits along the way

NOT TAKING THE CHANCE - yes yes yes, it happens BUT if you missed the boat, so be it, pat yourself on the back that another chance will come

Our takeaway:  Let's be true to ourselves.  You can be scion of the rich and famous.  OR your parents could be just struggling factory workers BUT that does NOT make you inferior as compared to that scion.  Both of you will go through the gauntlet, with similar trials and eventually FRUSTRATIONS.  WHO will end up with his neck still sticking out?  WHOEVER is resilient enough to weather storms of FRUSTRATIONS.  WHOEVER is less onion-skinned to the brickbats in life.  WHOEVER is hardened enough to chug-chug-chug like that old locomotive train till it reaches the rail station.  FRUSTRATIONs?  Everyone has his own fair share.  WHY feel so hopeless and hapless when you can easily turn things around by pulling the bull by its horn💥💥💥

WHAT IF You're At Your LOWEST POINT?

 WHAT IF You're At Your LOWEST POINT?

We all see successful people, all the fame, all the fancy cars and big mansions BUT we never realize that even themselves, they also had their LOW MOMENTS in life which may even be worse than most of us had WHICH made them into WHO they are.  WHAT IF You're At Your LOWEST POINT?  Frankly, we all had our LOWEST MOMENTS and it's that ability to pass through those moments that make us stronger📗📙📘

Yes folks, NEVER be hopeless like I was once in the past at the LOWEST POINT in my life.  Through those ordeals, I have to admit I learned my lessons the harder way than what is normal BUT if I need to go and rewind the past all over again, I firmly believe I made myself to be much stronger and resilient to face off again IF EVER I'll skid down and hit rock bottom💥💥💥

Allow me to humbly share how I managed and get over those most difficult humps in my life:

THINK ABOUT YOURSELF - Ask yourself HOW can you solve it and mistake you made.  Then, lay down a concrete plan whether it's cutting down spending, working 2 more hours, talking to your spouse without that PRIDE

THINK ABOUT THE SUCCESSFUL PEOPLE - Our ability to stand back will make us stronger and successful, trust me

BE GRATEFUL - Remember all the good people that you have in your life and feel that gratitude of having them in your life

ACTION ACTION ACTION - Even if you feel the gratitude of all the things you possess and the ability you have to do much more, if you DON'T put it into ACTION with persistence, it WON'T have much effect to make it better😀😀😀

Our takeaway:  You have NO reason to give up regardless of the severity of the issues you have at hand.  Even if you're akin to a ship that has grounded and skidded to the ground, the fact that you're alive, breathing and kicking till now, that gives you enough arsenal to weather and overcome things even if all the cards are stacked against you.  WHEN do you think you become a 'LOST CAUSE'?  It is WHEN you give up on the pretext that you CAN'T handle things anymore just because YOU'RE AT YOUR LOWEST POINT???

Find Your Strength

Find Your Strength

Is this true? THAT we need to Find our strength?  Yes dude, we need to.  WHY? Everyone gets hit with life's more serious [and sometimes life-changing] problems, whether it is in one's relationship, at work, one's health, one's finances OR even a combination.  WHAT happens when we find our strength?  Then, that reinforces our 'arsenal' where we will draw our strength WHENEVER we are tested, sometimes even beyond our limits.  The worst thing in life is WHEN you are overwhelmed with these life-changing problems and yet, you are NOT equipped with your personal 'arsenal' [WHICH is no less than an equvalent of one's ARMORY of STRENGTHs].  This is to prepare yourself WHEN/IF your life falls apart and you're left to pick up the pieces💴💷💵

Oh, I came across this sometime back.  YOU CAN'T FIX YOUR LIFE BEFORE YOU TAKE RESPONSIBILITY.  When I stumbled across this one-liner, a light turned ON within me.  IF I wanted a job, it was UP TO ME.  IF I want to support my family, it was UP TO ME.  If I wanted to scale up my career's trajectory, it was UP TO ME.  In summary, I realized that everything about me was really UP TO ME.  To translate all these in street-level simplicity, first, NOT to wish for BUT it helps WHEN you do get hit with a ton of bricks because that will shake you, that will wake you up from your deep slumber.  Bottom line is, you are responsible for your life [and NO ONE ELSE]📗📙📘

And to take on that responsibility in your life, you got to prepare yourself as a gladiator always ready for any war or enemy attack that may hit you.  YES, that means that sometimes you need to do the HARD things the HARD way.  You CAN'T even quit and ask for bailouts as you need to start trusting your own abilities.  NOT only that it is UP TO YOU but most importantly, you got to start firmly believing in yourself no less💧💧💧

In life, we are comparable to the ship which must stock itself with all the food and provisions before it leaves port in case it gets stuck in the middle of storms in the high seas.  Experts advise us to consider the below:

STOP PLAYING THE BLAME GAME - that will never help.  You got to be forward-looking

START WITH SMALL STEPS - to pick up the pieces, you CAN'T be a SUPERMAN💥💥💥

Our takeaway:  All the lifelong journeys we went through will teach us that climbing out of despair requires more than just the desire for CHANGE.  Instead, it demands actionable steps toward improvement.  On the flip side of whining and complaining in life, we are encouraged to to start saying loud everything you are grateful for, even the littlest things because according to studies, that will make you feel better as it will lead you towards the path of GOODNESS TO GRATITUDE💚💛💜

Breaking A Loop

Breaking A Loop

Per se, there is nothing wrong with LOOP BUT let's think about it.  WHAT IF after graduating from university, you finally landed a job as a clerk and you went through that daily routine between home and office.  WHAT IF you DIDN'T break that LOOP for years?  Obviously, you will remain in that clerical job through all those years.  This is WHERE Breaking A Loop makes sense!!!

The thing is, I'll be the very first one to admit that it's just damn hard to stop doing the same thing you've been doing anyways, simply because you've always done them.  True, ROUTINE is a powerful tool to reinforce habits, both longstanding and even the new ones.  And the more regularly you do something, the more likely you'll stick with that behavior even over time.  True, you probably want to maintain your positive traits, like having a glass of water WHEN you wake up, finishing up your lunch break with a short walk OR reading every night💦💦💦

Having said this, if you've got some habits you'd like to CHANGE, though, you might have realized breaking them ISN'T that quite as easy as you imagined.  Yes, that HABIT LOOP is a framework for thinking about the formation [and even destruction] of habits.  Experts claim that the HABIT LOOP has three components namely:  the CUE, the routine and the REWARD.  The CUE is a.k.a. REMINDER, the trigger that kicks off the habitual behavior.  The ROUTINE refers to the HABIT or repeated behavior while the REWARD refers to WHAT the behavior does for you💧💧💧

YES, here's the thing.  The bottom-line is that breaking the LOOP is really that tough, if NOT impossible.  HABITs often prove difficult to break since the process is usually much more complicated than simply quitting the behavior.  Maybe you'd love to stop picking up your phone every time there's a lull in your workflow BUT you probably WON'T have much success UNTIL you unpack the entire HABIT LOOP.  YES, CHANGE is possible BUT HOW?  Let me cull from experts' advice here and it starts by first identifying the ROUTINE you want to break.  BUT yes, identifying the ROUTINE is the easy part since the ROUTINE just refers to WHATEVER HABIT you want to break💥💥💥

Our takeaway:  To quote experts, HABITS generally develop WHEN specific actions yield rewards.  Then let's explore the TRIGGERS   Identifying the specific cues that prompt your routine is an essential step of breaking a habit.  And those cues could be either a location, time, emotional state, people around you OR the last action.  Finally, we got to figure out finding our way around those CUES and experts counsel us that some people may have more trouble breaking HABITS than others BUT we should take up that challenge of BREAKING A LOOP dude!!! 

How's Your CHOICES?

How's Your CHOICES?

How's Your CHOICES?  This is NOT to overstep on your toes.  Instead, we'd like to take a sneak peek at your own scorecard.  WHO knows we can pick up some insightful lessons from you?  Having said this, you might wonder, WHY should we discuss about CHOICES today?  Simple.  Many of us end have been judicious enough to make decisions on CHOICES but look back, WHAT's the percentage of ill-advised CHOICES you ended up [regardless if you've done it on your free will OR was it made under duress?

Yes indeed, making CHOICES and DECISIONS is part and parcel of life.  Simply put, the way life unfolds, with all those unexpected twists and turns, starts and stops, it requires us to make CHOICES and DECISIONS every step of the way.  So, ISN'T it a shock  [i'll call it PERPLEXING] that by the time young people grow to become adults, many have NOT mastered DECISION-making.  Instead, WHAT I observe is that young people dread change because it means they will have to contemplate something that is different from WHAT they're used to and maybe even be required to initiate [and embrace] CHANGE.  So, it's NOT surprising if we come across young people get stalled in a suspended state of DECISION-making

So, the bigger question is, WHY IS THIS SO?  True, there are many factors that determine WHY some people can just dive into life and do WHAT is required with enthusiasm and excitement while others are paralyzed at the thought of having to step up to anything that might require taking action.  A person's temperament, disposition OR nature may contribute to the way they view life.  Some people are fearless, enjoying risk and adventure WHILE others are fearful of making CHANGE and even making mistakes, preferring to stay close to WHAT is familiar [in their comfort zones] and NOT wandering too far [and that includes their choices and decisions they need to formulate

Truthfully, several times in the past, I did bear witness to some people WHO have been 'BURNED' in the past as a consequence of their POOR choices and/or ill-advised DECISIONS.  And to compound matters, many times we end with a specific choice because the other alternative choice has some attendant RISKS [and we're afraid to take that RISK].  Worst, some will decide NOT to make a DECISION, on the [FALSE] hope that the CHANGE will work itself out OR simply go away and dissipate in thin air OR that somebody else will take care of WHAT needs to be done.  BTW, in the interest of time, we WON'T dissect as to WHY even children end up handicapped in DECISION-making

Our takeaway:  Our CHOICES and DECISIONS dictate and influence the progress of our journey in life.  What is quite disconcerting is the widespread perception that for CHOICES and DECISIONS, the scenarios are limited to you making the right OR wrong CHOICE or DECISION.  This is a HALF-TRUTH though because WHAT is missed out is that NOT making a CHOICE OR NOT making a DECISION leads you to a higher probability to suffer the consequences and implications, because you LOST BY DEFAULT, simply by your INDECISION!@#$?

Why REGRET Gets Into The Way?

Why REGRET Gets Into The Way?

Reality check.  Have you ever made a DECISION that you later regretted?  YES, you're NOT alone, dude.  I've been in that boat ride many times in the past.  And most people are familiar with that feeling of emptiness mixed with that hint of anger [to yourself].  And then, your mind speeds through alternative timelines in which you did something different and things turned out better.  So, the question to us today, Why REGRET Gets Into The Way?  BTW, you might ask, WHY does REGRET deserve our space for today?  Yes, if only to find an answer to this unanswered question till to date💥💥💥

Although many REGRETS are small and quickly forgotten, like WHEN you made that 'stupid' comment in social media, there are some REGRETS that endure.  They become salient 'SLIDING DOOR' moments for WHICH you can easily envision a better storyline for your life. Reflecting on the most enduring REGRETS is important because they usually link back to major life DECISIONS in the future.  Each of us are in control of these DECISIONS so we can potentially avoid the worst REGRETS by having a plan.  BUT WHAT are the DECISIONS we're most likely to REGRET?  A recent study in the United States found the most commonly reported REGRETS involved romance [19%], family [16%], education [14%], career [13%], finance [9%] and parenting [9%]💧💧💧

Experts recommend another way that we can learn about life's biggest REGRETS is to listen to those WHO care for the dying.  In the U.S., the carers for the old persons in hospice have that more holistic perspective because in their interaction with the hospice residents, they would listen first hand unfiltered narratives about the various sharings about REGRETS.  Listening to those narratives:

• I WISH I'D HAD THE COURAGE TO LIVE A LIFE TRUE TO MYSELF , NOT THE LIFE OTHERS EXPECTED OF ME.

• I WISH I HAND'T WORKED SO HARD.  
• I WISH I'D HAD THE COURAGE TO EXPRESS MY FEELINGS
• I WISH I HEEDED MY FAMILY'S ADVICE
• I WISH I WAS NOT THAT UNSELFISH AS I ENDED UP NEGLECTING MYSELF
• I WISH I PICKED UP AND LEARNED LESSONS FOR EACH ILL-ADVISED DECISION I MADE

So, WHAT leads to REGRETS?  Psychologists say that feelings of REGRET in the long-term are more likely for DECISIONS involving inaction.  That is, choosing NOT to do something.  Examples would be an overseas job offer you ignored because you DON'T want to be away from your family OR you wanted to ask a very important work-related question BUT decided to keep mum on it, until you fumbled in the task you processed at work.  All is NOT lost, however.  WHILE REGRETS are a fact of life, we can lower its probability if we take that high road in our DECISION-making✅✅✅