Self Acceptance and Self Improvement

Self acceptance is a virtue. You accept your strengths and weaknesses. You are happy as what you are. The weaknesses do not affect your self-worth or your self-esteem, you are confident of yourself

Self improvement means you get better in your life. You are more productive in the office. You are able to write more appealing articles. You exercise more frequently. You are getting better and better in every way with each passing day.

Does it mean that when you accept yourself you don’t have to improve yourself?

You are a smoker and you enjoy your daily puff. You admit that the habit is not good for health but you find the craving for a few sticks a day is something that you cannot give up.

You enjoy your favorite snack and a few cans of beer in front of the tube daily. You realize that physical activities are important for your obesity, but you accept that your current lifestyle is your weakness.

Self acceptance in the above cases does not mean you can ignore self improvement. If you do, you don’t really care too much about yourself. You allow your health to deteriorate. When you don’t care about yourself, nobody will.

The right attitude is that you may be obese, but you make an effort to exercise and take care of your diet and you make an effort to change to a healthy lifestyle. Likewise, you are conscious of your smoking habit and you are determined to reduce the number of sticks per day until you get rid of the habit completely.

Self acceptance and self improvement means you love yourself as what you are and at the same time you do your best to improve yourself for the better.

Living in the moment

“Life is a succession of moments. To live each one is to succeed.” – Coreta Kent

Have you ever had this experience? I had. One day, when I was driving out of town, I was ‘awakened’ after driving for quite a while. Before I knew I was driving without knowing it. My mind was somewhere else.

Is your mind thinking about something else while you are working? Your thoughts perhaps are in the past or the future. All these tell us that we are not mindful of what we are doing. We are not living in the moment. We just carry out what we are supposed to do mechanically with no thought of it. When we are not living in the moment we miss a lot of things in life.

Working: Working without mindfulness means you will make mistakes. When you have too many things in your mind, it will deprive you of your focus. You are there but not your mind. The best thing to do is to write down the things that are in your mind and allow your mind to be in the moment with what you are doing

Eating: Enjoy food. Let your mind think about the taste, the aroma, and the texture while you chew each mouthful. When you eat allow your mind to savor the food as well.

Fun time: Can you really enjoy yourself while you are there but your mind is thinking about the work in the office? You have to loosen up and allow your mind to be in the moment there and then to really have a good time

Someone is talking to you: Are you listening when someone is talking to you? You are hearing the words but your mind is not there. You have to ask the person to repeat his words and that pisses him off.

Exercise: Tai Chi is an exercise that needs to be very mindful. Your mind and the movements work together. The moment when your mind is thinking of something else you will not know where you are and you will miss the movements in the correct sequence. I have found out that to reap the full benefits of Tai Chi your mind, your breathing and the movements must be in the moment.

Living in the moment or mindfulness means you intentionally pay attention to what you are doing at that moment. It brings you happiness as you and your mind are there to savor and really live and enjoy the moment.

“The secret of health for both mind and body is not to mourn for the past, worry about the future, or anticipate troubles, but to live in the present moment wisely and earnestly.” – Buddha

7 Ingredients of a Fulfilling Life

Start Living a Fulfilling Life

Only those who have learned the power of sincere and selfless contribution experience life’s deepest joy: true fulfillment. -Anthony Robbins

How do you find your life? Are you happy and satisfied? Do you look forward to each new day with confidence and high expectations? Do you find meaning in life? Here are the top 7 ingredients that make up a meaningful life:

1. Happiness and positive emotions: Start a new day with the right note. When you get up in the morning fill your mind with positive emotions such as happiness, enthusiasm, and hopefulness. Reinforce your good feelings by thinking about all the good things in life. Begin a new day with the right frame of mind that will cheer you up throughout the whole day.

2. Goals: You have set your goals and you are happy that with each passing day you have achieved the daily tasks that bring you closer to your objectives. You are getting what you want in life, the things that you value and treasure the most.

3. Learning: You are delighted and exhilarated to discover new things in life. You are curious and happy to learn something new every day. As an example, I am always delighted to know that I can always learn something that I don’t know about blogging.

4. Relationships: Your family is your heart and soul. A happy home life gives you peace of mind and warmth. The support from your friends and relatives makes life worth living

5. Motivation: You are encouraged by the progress that you have made in your life. You have made advancement at work and your contributions are valued You are thrilled and motivated

6. Health: You will find that your life is filled with zest when you are healthy and fit. Every day you live life calmly and you are mindful of what you are doing and you enjoy every moment of it.

7. Appreciation: You are appreciative of what you have in life and you are grateful to those who have helped you in one way or another. Whenever you do random acts of kindness you love yourself even more for what you can do for others.

A fulfilling life is about loving yourself, loving others, achieving your goals, an appreciation of what you have and what you can offer, enjoying good health, being motivated, and having a healthy and fulfilling relationship with the people around you.

You are the only real obstacle in your path to a fulfilling life. -Les Brown

7 Tips to Get and Stay Ahead

To Get and Stay ahead

The secret of getting ahead is getting started

Mark Twain

In this fast-changing world driven by accelerated advances in information technology, the only way to stay competitive is to get and stay ahead. Here are the top tips to help you stand out in the crowd. 

 1. Read: Continuous learning is the only way to keep abreast of the ever-changing time. Read widely articles, newspapers, magazines, and journals. Surf the Net for the latest information relating to your field.  

2. Develop: It is about self-improvement. Aim to be more efficient, more effective, and more productive. Harness your strengths to a new height and reduce your weaknesses. 

 3. Express: Continue to write articles about your passion and interest. You have a competitive advantage especially when you write an article on your blog relating to your expertise. You impress and get noticed by people in your industry. The more you write the more you will be recognized as an authority in your chosen field. 

 4. Plan: To get and stay ahead you have to plan ahead. You chart your future direction and you get things done daily as guided by your long ranch goals and in this way you stay focus.

 5. Connect: Be closely connected to people of your niche. Be in the know for the latest happenings in your field. 

 6. Exercise: To stay ahead, you have to stay healthy and fit all the time. Physical fitness allows you to work harder and stay alert longer. In the long haul, your state of health determines your success. 

 7. Manage: Continue to manage your time more effectively. Time management is about life management. You know how time passes by very quickly. The main point is that you always need to strike a balance in every aspect of your life. Do not overlook yourself, your work, your family, your friends, and the community. 

  Success is not a destination, it is a long and winding journey to get and stay ahead of all the way.

10 Things to Teach Your Children about Money

Money

“If you wish to get rich, save what you get. A fool can earn money, but it takes a wise man to save and dispose of it to his own advantage.”― 

Brigham Young

Money is not everything but you can’t live without money. Talk to your child about money as soon as possible so that he can start young to manage money wisely. Here are the10 points to teach children about money.

1. Time is money: Promote the savings habit when your child is young. Show your child the wonder of compound interest when you start saving early. As an example, just save 100 dollars at 10% interest and keep it for 50 years and your money will grow into $11775.91 without doing anything on your part.

$100/=	Compound Interest @ 10%
YEAR	PRINCIPLE	INTEREST	BALANCE
1	100.00	10.00	110.00
2	110.00	11.00	121.00
3	121.00	12.10	133.10
5	146.44	14.64	161.08
10	235.91	23.59	259.50
20	611.58	61.16	672.74
30	1589.21	158.92	1748.13
40	4125.23	412.52	4537.75
50	10705.38	1070.53	11775.91

2. Live within your means: Set examples for your children. Do purchases for your child according to his needs. Don’t follow other parents what they buy for their children. The financial resources of each and every family are different

3. Happiness is not about the possession of material things: Instill in your child’s mind that happiness is not necessarily wearing branded shirts or having a PS3. Happiness can be achieved by having a good time with your child. Your presence with your chills brings much more happiness than your presents

4. Avoid wastage - Cultivate the good habit in your child to conserve energy by turning off the lights or air-conditioning when not in use. Do not allow the tap to keep running. Lead the way at home for your child to follow to prevent wastefulness.

5. Use the pocket money wisely: Pocket money should be given at the beginning of each month. This will allow your child to budget for savings and spending for the whole month. If your child needs a big-ticket item he should keep aside and accumulate an amount every month until the desired amount is obtained for the item.

6. Set limit for the purchase of each item: Specific an upper limit for the purchase of each item especially clothing and shoes. Look for comfort and durability and not brand

7. No impulse buying: Make it a habit that shopping is done according to the shopping list only Allow you, child, to learn about self-control

8. Gifts on special occasions only: The best time to send a gift is when your child has done well in his year-end examination. It is a recognition of his effort and achievement

9. Limited resources: Your child needs to know the financial resources of every family is limited. There is a budget to follow every month so that the limited money can cover monthly expenses as well as savings for rainy days.

10. Borrowing: A very important lesson for your child to learn is that borrowing money to buy things you want is a bad decision. Borrowing means incurring interest and paying more for an item. The best thing to do is to save enough to buy in cash.

When your child is able to apply what he has learnt about money, he will be able to accumulate wealth.

Do It Now – A Wonderful Habit

Do it Now

“If you spend too much time thinking about a thing, you’ll never get it done.” ~ Bruce Lee

When an opportunity presents itself do you grab it immediately and act on it or you delay and allow your enthusiasm to die off? When there is something to do and you know it is beneficial to you, do you do it at once or you tell yourself to wait?

When it is time to exercise, don’t tell yourself that the weather is gloomy and it is going to rain. Change to your jogging shoes immediately and start jogging.

When you are thinking of writing a thank you letter to someone who has just done a great favor to you, don’t wait until this evening. Send an email right away or else your appreciation will never be heard.

When the children are free and you are at home with nothing else to do, take them to the park or to the shopping mall. Have a good time with your children; you never know when you can do it the next time.

When you are busy in the office and you get a request to fax a certain document. Do it right away. It just takes a moment of your time and you avoid forgetting to do it later and your prompt action is appreciated.

When you are requested by your spouse to help up in the household chores, respond right away, don’t watch TV anymore. It is a good way to kill your inertia and show your alertness.

Where there is nothing to lose by TRYING, And a great deal to gain if SUCCESSFUL, by all means, TRY. DO IT NOW - W. Clement stone

Self-Improvement in 7 Areas of Your Life

Self-Improvement

“The key to happiness is really progress and growth and constantly working on yourself and developing something.” —Lewis Howes

Even though September is Self-Improvement Month, you do not have to wait for this particular month to do it. Any time is a good time to improve yourself. Self-improvement does not mean there is something wrong with you that needs to be changed. The fact is that we all want to get better and better in every way in our life. Here are the 7 areas of your life that you can look into for further improvement or strengthening 

1. Health: Do you need to improve your eating habit? Are you enjoying a balanced diet? Do you want to sleep early and get up early? Are you thinking of an active lifestyle- exercise more regularly? Is your life stressful? Learn to relax to reduce your tension. 

 2. Career: Are you happy at work? Can you find ways to be more efficient, more effective, and more productive? Are you getting along fine with your boss and your co-workers? Are you developing yourself for career advancement? 

 3. Money: What are your financial goals? Are you saving enough for your retirement and children’s education funds? Are you in debt? Can you manage your credit cards? Do you live within your means? 

 4. Family: Do you find serenity and happiness at home? Are you getting well with your children? How often do you spend time with your children? 

 5. Spirituality: Do you find inner peace? Can you get peace of mind? What is your emotion now? Can you generate positive emotions such as happiness, enthusiasm, and love? Is your mind filled with negative emotions like hatred, vengeance, and anxiety?

 6. Continuous learning: Are you constantly updating yourself? Do you find new things to learn to enrich your mind? 

 7. Relationships: Are you connected with your friends and relatives? Do you get support from them? Are you giving to them so that you can receive from them? 

 Pick only one item at a time and focus on it. It is more likely for you to achieve than having too many areas to look into. Start with the one that is the most meaningful to you as it is the one that you are fervently interested and so it is so much easier for you to improve or strengthen. Happy improving!

Be Happy and Healthy During Festive Period

Festive Period

A national festival is an occasion to refine and rebuild the national character.     

Narendra Modi

Malaysia is a cosmopolitan country. Towards the end of every year, you will find everyone is in a festive mood because all Malaysian celebrate all festivals together. Just look at the line-up of major festivals for the next few months starting in September:

Hari Raya Puasa September 20 and 21, 2009

Celebrated by Muslims throughout the world to

mark the end of Ramadan, the holy month of

fasting

Deepavali October 17, 2009

Hindus celebrate the Festival of Lights.

It is a celebration of the victory of good over evil;

the uplifting of spiritual darkness.

Christmas December 25, 2009

Celebrated by Christians around the world

New Year’s Day January 1, 2010

Celebrated by everyone to usher the New Year

Thaipusam January 30, 2010

Thaipusam is a Hindu festival celebrated mostly by

the Tamil community on the full moon in the

The Tamil month of Thai (Jan/Feb). It is a celebration

of the birth of god Murugan

Chinese New Year February 14 and 15, 2010

Celebrated by Chinese all over the world

As of this month, there will be occasions for merrymaking and feasting. How do you enjoy yourself and at the same time maintain your health: Here are the seven tips:

1. Fewer cookies: Eat fewer cookies, cakes, and pastry items. They are loaded with sugar, white flour, and butter or margarine.

2. Less meat: Balance your food intake with vegetables and fruits. Too much meat means too acidic for your body.

3. Less fried items: Too much fat and too little physical activities during festivals are bad for your health.

4. Drink more water: Take a less carbonated drink and consume more water to keep your body hydrated.

5. Avoid overeating: Don’t pile up your plate at the buffet line. Eat a little of everything but more on fruits and vegetables.

6. Go to the park: Whenever possible take your children to the park, breathe in the fresh air and do some exercise to move your limbs. Your children will be delighted to play in the open field.

7. Do not drink and drive: Do not enjoy yourself to the extreme. Be able to control the intake of alcoholic drinks.

Selamat Hari Raya Aidilfitri to all Muslim friends.

Instant Article Writing Ideas

Article Writing Ideas

A professional writer is an amateur who didn’t quit.”

— Richard Bach

Article writing is about writing for interested readers. The trick is to find out what the readers are looking for.

Rfintentindex

According to www.ruderfinn.com, they have found out that 96% of the surfers want to learn and educate themselves. Out of which 32% want to learn about eating healthier, another 32% want to find information about a healthier diet, 31% want to learn about a specific disease or condition, 27 % want to get health advice from experts and 26 % want to improve themselves. When you are in the self-improvement or health niche this is a goldmine as to the appropriate article writing ideas.

Google Analytics

To look for more ideas there is no need to look anywhere else but to look at your own site. Take a close examination of the following statistics from Google Analytics of your own site:

• Content by title
• Keywords

The information in these areas tells you which of your articles are popular with the readers and what are the keywords used to arrive at your site. These are the clues for you to write more articles on similar topics but present them in different perspectives or add more information to the same subjects.

Statcounter

The same information can also be extracted from Statcounter. Look for the following statistics to get ideas to write suitable articles for the readers:

• Popular pages
• Keyword analysis

Newspapers

When you know the kind of articles that the readers are interested in your niche, the best place to get ideas and inspiration is in your daily newspapers. In a newspaper, you will notice the latest happenings and also the most popular subjects being discussed. Look for an item relating to your niche and you can come up with appealing articles for the readers.

Social networking and bookmarking sites

Look for popular articles and hot topics at Technorati, Delicious, StumbleUpon, Digg, Mixx, and Reddit. You can get great ideas and subjects relating to your niche for stimulating articles.

Please share your article writing ideas.

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5 Ingredients of Creativity

Creativity

I have no special talent. I am only passionately curious. ~Albert Einstein

The 5 ingredients of creativity are intention, know-how, thinking, perseverance, and environment

1. Intention: Without a goal or an objective to work on, nothing will come out of your creativity. There must be something that you have a passion for it and you are interested to create and discover.

2. Know-how: You can’t be creative on certain subjects without a foundation of a particular kind of knowledge. With a store of the information of what you know you can then work from the known to the unknown using your imagination.

3. Thinking: Intense thinking allows your mind to link the store of information to create new ideas. Ideas come like a bolt of lightning at any time, provided you feed enough thoughts into your mind

4. Perseverance: It took Thomas Edison for many years and thousands of failures to invent the light bulb. Creativity is to possess the will-power to continue after many failures. Be confident to know if there is a will there is away.

5. Environment: To be creative a little pressure is better than none at all. You will not take things easy and you will concentrate fully and intensely on the project. There should be no disturbance to interrupt your train of thoughts.

Ideas are brewed from your creative thoughts and you need the five favorable factors for creativity.

Related post:

Getting Creative – 7 Tips

5 Secrets to Build a Strong Personality in Your Child

• “The best way to make children good is to make them happy.” – Oscar Wilde

According to the Oxford Advanced Learner’s Dictionary, personality is the various aspects of a person’s character that combine to make them different from other people. Personality is what others perceive you by the impression that you have given to them. Psychologists believe that it is during childhood that lays the foundation for the healthy development of a person’s personality. How do you promote a strong and healthy personality development in your child? Here are the 5 secrets:


1. Promote physical development: A healthy body with agility and flexibility in movement is a prerequisite for balanced development in your child’s personality development. It is important to ensure your child is sufficiently nourished with nutrients to build up his health. Encourage your child to play games and take part in physical activities to train his bodily capabilities.

2. Warm and tender love: It is during the infant period that the mother should satisfy the psychological needs of your child. The warm embrace and tender stroking of your child is the right way to love your child. Avoid hurting your child. All these will facilitate the positive development of his personality.

3. A conducive family environment: A strong relationship between husband and wife will create a peaceful and serene situation at home. Apply a democratic style (see related post at the end of this article) to bring up your child. Provide appropriate motivation and reward your child accordingly. Let your child experience success so as to enhance his personality development.

4. Learn social networking techniques: One major development in childhood is to encourage a healthy relationship with his friends and classmates. A child’s social networking skills will benefit his relationship with others.

5. A happy learning environment: School is not only a place to develop children academically but physically and their character building. Teachers should identify the strengths of each and every child and provide affirmation. Positive feedback will instill in a child a sense of concern for his family, society, and promote self-worth and a feeling of personal responsibility.


Personality is a combination of a person’s character, appearance, mental and creative outlook, and the way he gets along with others and how he adjusts himself to the environment. It is also his motives, goals, interests, belief, and his value judgment

Related post:

3 Parenting Styles

3 Parenting Styles

Parenting Styles

Children have never been very good at listening to their elders, but they have never failed to imitate them. - James Baldwin

Are you a democrat, a dictator, or an independent? What is your parenting style? 

  Democrat: You respect the views of your child and at the same time, you insist on your child to do what is right. You communicate freely with your child and you expect nothing less in his appropriate behavior in line with his age. When you bring up your child this way he will grow up to be independent and self-assured. He is curious about self-control and likes to mix around with others. 

  Dictator: You exercise your absolute power as parents and you do not encourage opinion from your child. You do not show much affection. You child will grow up to be unsatisfied, unsecured, worried, suspicious and he will not like to make friend with others.

  Independent: There are no rules at home and you don’t expect anything from your child. There are no clear guidelines for reward or punishment. You do not take the trouble to promote the spirit of self-reliance and self-supporting in your child. Your child will very much rely on others. He is unable to control himself and hesitates to act. 

 The way you rear your child will shape his or her future behavior.

“Encourage and support your kids because children are apt to live up to what you believe of them.” — Lady Bird Johnson, former First Lady of the United States

The Golden Rules in Investing

Investing

"The individual investor should act consistently as an investor and not as a speculator." - Ben Graham

Phil Town, a stock market investor and author from Wyoming, United States travels frequently teaching stock investing seminars. In 2006, he wrote the book Rule#1 which reached the New York bestseller list. Now as an ’Investment Guru”, his opinion is sought by many, as he is often interviewed on financial news media. According to him, successful investors look at stocks as businesses and find a few wonderful businesses. Then they wait for inevitable market drops and buy them when they are available at attractive prices.

The Rule #1 formula comes from Buffett – find a wonderful business and buy it on sale. His teacher, Ben Graham said the key to investing is to not lose money. The three most important words in investing according to Warren buffet are ‘margin of safety”. This is why they insist on finding the value of the business and then buying it at a big discount – like 50% off what they think its worth. According to Phil Town, you ask 4 questions to research a company before putting your money in it.

1. Do I understand the industry?
2. Does the business have a durable competitive advantage?
3. Is the CEO honest, investor-oriented, and passionate about the business?
4. Can I buy it 50% off its value?

If it does, you are guaranteed to make money.

The above is extracted from an interview of Phil Town by Gerald Chuah as reported in the New Straits Times.

Some Health-Related Problems in the Workplace

Health-related problems in the workplace

“Sufficient sleep, exercise, healthy food, friendship, and peace of mind are necessities, not luxuries.” ~Mark Halperin

To be working is wonderful. I hope the job that you are doing is what you like and you get paid to spend time meaningfully. However, you have to take care of your health because you work long hours in the office. Here are some of the health-related problems: 

 • Stress: You don’t feel well. When you go to the doctor, the doctor can’t find anything wrong with you. The crux of the matter is to organize yourself and your work to avoid or reduce stress. Have a to-do list and prioritize the work in terms of importance. Take your breakfast to provide you with energy and take frequent breaks to clear the clutter in your mind. 

 • Dry eyes: The air in the air-conditioned office is dry. To top it off, you are facing the PC 8 hours a day. So the dryness of the eyes is not unusual. Take frequent breaks and get away from the PC. Massage the surrounding area of the eyes and look at distant places to exercise the eyes. Apply eyes drop for dry eyes when you feel uncomfortable. Use your handkerchief to cover a piece of ice and apply it to your eyes for a cooling effect. Eat food rich in vitamin A such as carrots. 

 • Digestive problems: Does workload prevent you from eating regularly? Do you try to complete an assignment and skip your lunch? Over time you will develop stomach disorder. The wise thing to do is to eat less and more frequently at regular intervals. Train your stomach to expect food at certain times to burn calories. You avoid digestive problems and at the same time, you also avoid the accumulation of fat. 

• Hair loss: As you move higher up the ladder, the hair is also getting thinner at the same time. The prolonged stress, anxiety, and too much thinking are reasons for hair loss. Learn to relax and meditate so that you can stay calm at work. Sleep 8 hours at night. Wash your hair with warm water to clean the pores. Use the fingers of both your hands to massage the scalp three times a day to promote blood circulation. The massage helps feed the hair follicles, preventing hair loss, and restoring healthy hair. 

Living a healthy lifestyle is the best way to beat health-related problems in the workplace.