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I have been writing a few Blog posts talking about goal settings lately. I think it is very important for us to know that we need to write down those things that we want to achieve and set them as goals to get us focus on getting them.

As this is the beginning of the year, it has no better time to set goals and take action than now. We have already reached the third week of January and a brand-new month will be coming soon. Probably it is time for us to review how we are doing so far for the monthly-basis goal setting. 

We should ask ourselves what we have achieved so far. Are we following our goals diligently? Are we on track? Or are we still in the process of procrastinating?

Time waits for no men and women. It passes whether or not we do anything to make changes to our life. Time just ticks………..

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As the Year of the OX is coming, I have bought a few Chinese New Year greeting cards from the stationery store recently. I have written those well-wishing messages and sent the greeting cards out to my friends yesterday via snail mail.

Here is a picture of the Chinese New Year greeting card :

Nowadays, many people prefer to send Chinese New Year greeting cards electronically. But I think it would be more sincere to send the hard-copied greeting cards by snail mail instead of by email.

Although sending ecards via email is more convenient, I believe the recipients would feel your sincerity for taking the effort to select the greeting cards, write the well-wishing messages, paste the stamp and post it in the mailbox.

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The first step in achieving goals is to identify them and followed by taking action. How you achieve your goals usually depends on the amount of control you have and your level of expertise related to the goals.

You have total control over the simple goals and these are the goals that can be achieved easily. Simple goals such as to eat 3 servings of fruits and vegetables per day, to do exercise 15-30 minutes per day, to write an article per day and so on.

The complex or difficult goals are the challenging ones that require a lot of effort to be put in before you can achieve them. Goals such as how to become a millionaire. This is indeed a very challenging goal that requires investing and money management over a number of years.

Some people can really achieve their first million of dollars at a very young age. These people must have the knowledge, time, investment skill and action plan for them to achieve this type of ambitious goal. They determine the number of years that they have to accumulate the wealth they desire and work out a solid plan to achieving it.

Other challenging goal to be achieved is to improve your relationship with another person. This kind of goal is challenging because you can control your behaviour but you can only hope to influence the behaviour of others. Sometimes, you bound to bump into people who just don’t like you no matter how hard you try to make friends with them.

No matter what, it is always easier to accomplish your goals than just relying on chance. Challenging goals can still be achievable if you identify them, work out a plan and take serious action to make them happen.

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I think it is always nice to enjoy some good food with the family especially during the weekends. It has been quite some time that we have not been to the Chinese restaurant to eat Dim Sum. 

So, it’s time to have some before the restaurants are over-crowded with people who have reserved the tables for the Chinese New Year reunion feast.

We went to the Chinatown today to buy our Chinese New Year goodies as Chinese New Year is approaching. We were craving for Dim Sum so we popped in to the Mouth restaurant to order our favourite food.

Century Egg Porridge :

Fried Banana and Prawn Roll :

Fried Dumplings with Salad Sauce :

Shrimp Dumplings (Har Kau) :

Steamed Carrot Cake :

It is always good to eat something first to fill the stomach before you have the energy to walk about. It can really help us to go a long way to shop around after a heavy meal. 

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Goal setting may seem like a “to-do list” to some people especially when it is a daily-basis goal setting. The fact is that goal setting is not a to-do list. Goals are changes or improvement you would like to see in your life.

We all know that how difficult it is to change our behaviour. We may continue to be unhappy with our life if we are reluctant to change our behaviour. How can we expect our lives to improve unless we make changes. 

How should you go about improving your life then? Well, the first thing that you need to do is to use goals to help identify the changes you can make in your behaviour in order to improve your life. 

There are things that you can control as well as things that you cannot control. The fact is that there are many things that we have no control in our lives such as our past, death, weather, traffic, taxes, other people’s behaviour and so on.

Things that we can control in our lives are our behaviour and our future. Thus, it is so important for us to recognise the areas we can control as well as we cannot control. It is no point spending our time and energies focusing on those areas that we cannot control. 

Rather, we should channel all our energies to concentrate on those things that we can control. We will see our lives start improving, things are getting better and we are happier.

From this, you can see that the beauty of setting goals is that they help you improve all areas of your life. Reason being that setting goals will get you thinking about the things you can change and lead you to ideas on how to make those changes. 

So, take action now to make changes in your behaviour if you want to improve your life.

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As mentioned in my earlier post, it’s easier to set simple goals first and followed by the complex ones. So, goals can be simple to complex. You don’t have to think too long and hard as to how to set goals for yourself in order to improve your life.

Some goals can be achieved on the same day that you have written them down. Whereas, some may require years to accomplish. It doesn’t really matter what you have written. The most important thing is that you start the ball rolling and you will gradually build the habit of setting goals for yourself to achieve.

You can set goals on a daily, weekly, monthly, half-yearly or yearly basis. Some of the things you know you should carry out but you didn’t. One of the reasons could be due to you are too lazy to do them. 

So, stop your procrastination and start taking action. What you should do is to jot down those items that you want to accomplish and set them as goals for yourself to achieve to improve your life.

Here are some examples of goal settings :

A) Daily-Basis Goal Settings :

    1) Do exercise 15-30 minutes per day
    2) Eat 3 servings of fruits and vegetables per day
    3) Write an article per day

B) Weekly-Basis Goal Settings :

    1) Attend church / temple every week
    2) Go outing with the family per week
    3) Play golf or badminton or basket ball per week

C) Monthly-Basis Goal Settings :

    1) Read a book per month
    2) Learn a new skill per month
    3) Visit place of interest per month

D) Yearly-Basis Goal Settings :

    1) Attend at least one course per year
    2) Increase annual income by at least 50%
    3) Go for tour with your family per year

You can set goals to make improvements in your life. Just think about how your life currently is. Are you happy with your present life? Also think about how to make your life the way you want it to be. What can you do to improve your life? You will get additional ideas on how you can reach those goals once you write your ideas down as goals. 

It really is that simple. If you still have not set any goals for yourself, it has no better time to do it than to do it right now to improve your life.

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My friend was having her birthday two days ago so my two other friends and I decided to have a birthday celebration for her on 12 Jan evening . 

All of us have not met up for a few months, we take it as an opportunity for us to have a gathering as well as to have a little birthday celebration. So, we decided to go to a Thai restaurant to have our dinner. 

When we got settled down, I realised that my friends had bought gifts for the birthday lady except me. I did not buy anything and it made me feel so embarrassed. I quickly picked up the menu and got myself hiding behind it. I was too forgetful to buy a gift although I had thought about it. 

Anyway, this did not spoil my birthday friend’s mood on that evening. As usual, we talked, laughed and exchanged information while having our delicious Thai dishes. All of us enjoyed the dinner as it was such a memorable birthday celebration.

As for today (14 Jan), I had another gathering with my colleagues at a seafood restaurant. One of my colleagues will be leaving the company soon so we organised a farewell dinner for him this evening. It was quite a big group as there were altogether 12 of us enjoying the steamboat buffet.

It was a stressless night as we talked, laughed and passed around our seafood for each other to eat. I think we should arrange more of this kind of gathering for friends, family and loved ones to get together. After all, work is just a part of our life. We should treasure the time we spend with friends.

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One of the most important things that you should do at the beginning of the year is to set some goals for yourself to accomplish throughout the year. Setting goals is something you can do quickly as it will change your life.

In my opinion, it is easier to set some simple goals first than to set the more complex ones. Reason being that simple and practical goals can be achieved easily. It will encourage yourself to get organised and to stay focus on what you want to achieve in life. It will build up the momentum for yourself to achieve more goals once you have built the habit of setting goals. You will find that you can actually achieve more goals as the years come by. 

Perhaps the most effective way to assure you accomplish your most important goals is to first identify them. The goals have to be specific so as to program your mind to take precedence over other broad topics. Spend some time to think about what you want to do and then set your mind to achieving your goals. 

What set the successful people apart from the non-successful people is that they look into the future. They imagine what they want to accomplish and then they learn what they need to do to reach those goals. From this, you can see that it is so important to have goal settings in order to bring yourself to where you wanted to be in your life. 

Time passes whether you do anything or not. You might as well spend some time to set your goals starting from the simple to the complex ones. So, start to work on your goals and achieve them in a timely manner. 

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Probably one of the best things to do after washing hair is to do some reading. This is because your mind will feel so fresh and able to absorb information very much better as compared with after having a meal.

So, I took out a book to read on a Sunday afternoon. After I did my reading for an hour, my 10-year old nephew came and asked me whether he needed to pull grey hairs for me as I had asked him to do so a few weeks ago. 

Of course, I was more than willing to let him pull my grey hairs for me as I find it an enjoyment to let somebody else to do the service for you 🙂 . Furthermore, my nephew is such a lovely, caring and adorable boy. I will just let him have “some fun” by hunting grey hairs and pull them off.

I think a little gesture would go a long way. My chubby nephew shows his concerns to me in his own way. I would also give him a little incentive by rewarding him with 10 cents for every single strand of grey hair that he pulls out. Then, let him save the money in his piggy bank.

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We all know that animals of different species don’t get along well if they were to put together. Either they will fight with or chase after each other. This is especially true when one acts as the predator role and the other the prey role. Typical examples are dog and cat, cat and rat, etc. 

Just look at the famous cartoon show entitled “Tom & Jerry“. Jerry Mouse likes to disturb the Tom Cat. Therefore, the kind-hearted Tom always chases after the naughty Jerry. In return, Jerry takes revenge by sabotaging Tom and messing up around the household and let Tom get scolded by the house owner for the rampage.

However, there are instances whereby animals of different species do get along harmoniously. Besides the story of the mommy pig adopting the little puppies as published in my earlier post, I have found another video clip featuring rats and cat are getting along well under one roof.

The rat likes to play with the cat very much. Whereas, the cat seems like trying to tolerate the somewhat irritating rat. I’m not sure whether the cat would lose its patience one day or not. Maybe the cat’s nature will force him to do something to the rat if the rat keeps on irritating the cat. 

Anyway, the rat and cat are friends for now and let us not bother about what will happen after that. So, click on the video clip and enjoy the “rat loves cat” scene :

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