Success Without Fulfilment Is Failure.

Recently, one of my students came up to me, and gave me a note that really means so much to both him and me. While I can't share with you about the contents of the letter, I can only say that it sets me thinking about, "how we can live a full life?"

As the saying goes, "It is not the number of breaths you have, but the number of breath taking moments you have."

And this is so true. We have heard about this before that just before we die, we will see our own life flash before our eyes. While that cannot be proven, I believe that it is not our whole life, BUT RATHER, special moments in our life that will appear instead. Moments that have a strong significant emotional meaning.

It could be the day when you took your first step, first fall, first crush, first kiss, heartbreak, loss of a dear one, gain of a new one, hurt, tears, joy, ecstatic moment, etc. Those, I believe, are the moments which you would see. (From hereon, I shall use moments for ease.)

Moments are important to us. It can be likened to the quality of the life we have. It can determine the state we are usually in. It is your life!

And interestingly, if you read my previous articles, you would know that we can create the types of moments we want in our lives. For this article, I choose to guide you to use moments to create a more fulfilling life for yourself.

So, if you want to live with lesser regrets (heck, it is IMPOSSIBLE to have zero regrets), all you need to do, is follow these steps.

1) At the end of each day, spend 15 mins recalling the Moments of the day.
2) Write them out in your Moments Book.
3) Detail it, clearly describing your feelings, the special emotions you encountered.
4) Give gratitude, and say thanks. From the bottom of your heart.

That's all! That's all your need to do for a more fulfilling life. You can be assured that by the end of a week, you will get a momentum to want to do more for life. By the end of the month, you will feel a refreshed outlook towards your own life. And by the end of the year, you will find that you have had a great year and looks forward to a even better year ahead!

Remember, Success Without Fulfilment Is Still Failure...You only deserve your best.

Power To Change.

Dear friends.

Something that I learnt today which I felt I must share. One of the biggest reason to make positive changes in yourself is simply just...Being Honest To Your Self.

The changes I am talking about refers to every aspect of life. But for the ease of explanation, I shall use fitness.

Say, there is this one person who is obese, fat, with arteries clogged to its ream and suffering from all sorts of ailments like heart pain, breathlessness, high blood pressure, dizziness, etc. While this person may not have deliberately caused himself to be in this state, you can be sure of one thing, deep down inside this person, would there be a part of him that is unhappy and depressed about the current state. A part that wants to change, but just "can't". (Note, the "can't") That's human nature. We just can never accept ourselves to be in such a state (or at least, when we choose not to avoid it.)

Now, for most who are in such a state, they usually end up in a vicious spiral. They get upset or frustrated, suffers from even more rejections from society/self, and more hurt/pain. So what happens, they seek solace and temporary escape through eating food, resulting in them getting fatter. And the situation just gets worse and worse. (Hey, trust me, this happens. I was like that once. That, is a story to be told in future. :D)

If intervention is not done immediately, this person would really be in trouble. BIG TROUBLE.

So, what is the best way for this person to start to WANT TO CHANGE, is simply. You may even laugh at what I am about to say. But it is really that SIMPLE.

It is simply HONESTY. Honesty with self.

All this guy needs to do is strip (YES, STRIP) himself in front of the mirror and look at every part of his body that he has been avoiding all these while! Now when I say look, I mean, literally SCRUTINIZE to the finest details. The enormous thighs, flabby arms, double chin, 2 thickly -layered waist line (that makes the michelin tyre mascot pale in comparison) and not to mention the sagging breasts. Imagine, what sort of emotions would this man go through? This guy would most probably break down, cry his heart out and finally want to do something about it.

Of course, this is just the first part. There are alot that this guy needs to do, BUT, he will never be the same again. He will finally want to do something about it. No more avoidance, no more lying to himself, no more built up anger, no more hurt but FORGIVENESS. Yes, forgiveness.

That is the first most important step.

If you ever want to make a change in your life, be it in your relationship, health, finances...First be honest with yourself.

When was the last time you looked into mirror of honesty?

Sincerely,
Ken Koh

Delayed Gratification

Dear all, This is an article which I gathered from Wikipedia. It is about Delayed gratification. Please read it first.
"The marshmallow experiment is a famous test of this concept conducted by Walter Mischel at Stanford University and discussed by Daniel Goleman in his popular work. In the 1960s a group of four-year olds were tested by being given a marshmallow and promised another, only if they could wait 20 minutes before eating the first one. Some children could wait and others could not. The researchers then followed the progress of each child into adolescence, and demonstrated that those with the ability to wait were better adjusted and more dependable (determined via surveys of their parents and teachers), and scored an average of 210 points higher on the Scholastic Aptitude Test.

Another famous impulse control test is the "gift delay," in which children were shown a nicely wrapped gift but told they must complete a puzzle before opening it. Researchers then calculated a "delay score" based on how long the kids hold out. When independent examiners interviewed the test subject years later, they found that boys who had not delayed were "irritable" and that the girls were "sulky." In contrast, the patient boys were "attentive" and the girls "competent."

Isn't that interesting? The fact is, please understand that Delay Gratification is a trait which is proven to help one succeed in life. And more importantly, know that it is also a trait which we can develop in ourselves.

How to do that?

Possibly one of the best way to develop this is just focus on the process and enjoy it. Whichever tasks which is given to us, whatever job we are given, focus on the process and just simply make it enjoyable. Chances are, the outcome will be what you wanted initially, or better.

Isn't there a time in your life, where you worked really hard for something, completed the tasks (delaying the reward), and when you finally accomplished it, the celebration and joy is simply just ecstatic? Well, that is also part of D G. The reward is much more heart felt and remembered.

So, practice this. You will see a great difference in your life.

For students, this is possibly what you need to do now. Just delay playing the computer games for a few days (or a few months), just delay chatting on the MSN chat, just delay going out with your friends for movies, just delay your bad habits. You will find that, the results at the end will be more than worth it!


Simply note, if you can do something like Studies, Discipline yourself for this 6 months (til your final year), you can be sure that you will DEFINITELY be able to achieve great results in life!