15 Quotes to Live Your Dreams

Here are 15 inspiring ways to realize your dreams:

1. Nothing happens unless first a dream.     

~Carl Sandburg

2.      All our dreams can come true if we have the courage to pursue them.

~Walt Disney

3.      Go confidently in the direction of your dreams. Live the life you have imagined.

~Henry David Thoreau

4.      Without dreams, there can be no courage. And without courage, there can be no action. ~Wim Wenders

5.      A Goal is a dream with a deadline.

~ N. Hill

6.      The key to realizing a dream is to focus not on success but significance – and then even the small steps and little victories along your path will take on greater meaning.

~Oprah Winfrey

7.      The only place where your dream becomes impossible is in your own thinking.

~Robert H. Schuller

8.      So many of our dreams at first seem impossible, then they seem improbable, and then, when we summon the will, they soon become inevitable.

 ~ Christopher Reeve

9.      The future belongs to those who believe in the beauty of their dreams.
~Eleanor Roosevelt

10.  We all have dreams. But in order to make dreams come into reality, it takes an awful lot of determination, dedication, self-discipline, and effort.
~Jesse Owens

11.  When you cease to dream you cease to live.
~Malcolm Forbes

12.  Without leaps of imagination, or dreaming, we lose the excitement of possibilities. Dreaming, after all, is a form of planning.
~Gloria Steinem

13.  A dream becomes a goal when action is taken toward its achievement. 

~Bo Bennett

14.  To accomplish great things, we must dream as well as act.

~ Anatole France

15.  It's the possibility of having a dream come true that makes life interesting.
~ Paul Coelho

Just remember the powerful words of Martin Luther King – I have a dream. Have you? 

Image source:https://www.womanandhome.com/health-wellbeing/sleep/meaning-of-dreams/

20 Delightful Ways to Boost Your Well-Being

"I believe the recipe for happiness to be just enough money to pay the monthly bills you acquire, a little surplus to give you confidence, a little too much work each day, enthusiasm for your work, a substantial share of good health, a couple of real friends and a wife and children to share life's beauty with you."

~J. Kenfield Morley

According to the Oxford Advanced Learner’s Dictionary, well-being is general health and happiness. I like the simple explanation and I can think of many ways to promote your well-being:

1.      Positive mental attitude: It is about looking at the bright side of things. When you face a problem you take it as a challenge and look for a solution instead of dwelling on the issue. Be willing to accept constructive criticism and make changes for the better. Instead of fear, you fill your mind with confidence and take quick action.

2.      Eat healthily: You are what you eat. Have more vegetables and fruits. Drink a lot of water instead of sugary beverages. Eating simple food at home is better than fast food outlets. Eating right will give you energy and health. Eat less but more often and do not skip your breakfast.

3.      A close-knit family: What do you get at home? Peace of mind, sanity, the laughter of your children, and your pet dog wagging its tail waiting for you. A home is a heaven on earth when you play an active role as a husband or wife and a father or mother and friend to your children.

4.      Friendship: Enjoy and treasure the relationships. Friendship is to share, care, have fun and be together in happiness and sadness.

5.      Exercise: The greatest wealth in life is your health. To be healthy and happy is to exercise every day. As an example, it’s uplifting to jog and sweat it out.

6.      Sleep well: A good night’s sleep is the best thing you can do to restore damages done to your body after a stressful day at work. You will regain your energy and freshness after sleeping soundly for eight hours. 

7.      LOL: As we grow older we do not laugh as often as we used to be. Visit Facebook and Pinterest and look at funny quotes and images. You will be amused and laugh out loud.  

8.     Something to do every day: My dream is to be the No. 1 blogger in Malaysia. I am excited and enthusiastic about it. Go after your dreams.:Life is about living your dreams passionately. Dreams give you direction and hope in life, something to look forward to each day.

9.      Work: Happiness at work is to like what you do and enjoy it. Work diligently with your heart and soul, look after your reputation, keep promises and build trust. When you work hard and smart, you will feel good about yourself.

10.  Live in the moment: Happiness is here and now and not in the future or the past. Be mindful of what you do and enjoy the process of doing the task at hand. When you are eating savor the food and don’t watch TV or do anything else. When you play you play hard.

"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

11.  Financial independence: Financial well-being is debt-free and having sufficient amount to live the golden years.

12.  Gratitude: Filling your heart with thankfulness and appreciation is the way to get spiritual well-being. The key to wellness is kindness, forgiveness, and contentment. 

13.  Balanced life: Work is important so is your family. Strike a balance between the two to enjoy your work and your family.

14.  Choose: Your life is the sum of all your choices. The wise thing to do is to choose things that bring you happiness.

15.  Be with nature:  The best thing in life is free. Go outdoors and enjoy the sunshine and fresh air. Take a jungle trek, enjoy the sea breeze on the beach and walk along the river bank and watch t the boats pass by. Jog in the park, walk the dog, and watch the moving clouds. These are some of the marvelous things you can in the open.

16.  Change: Doing the same old thing every day is boring.  Do things differently and make changes in life. Take on new challenges to stretch your capabilities and live a more interesting and rewarding life.    

17.  Just do it: Instead of delaying, take immediate action to drive away fear and anxiety. Acting builds confidence.

18.  Go away: See new places and people. Experience new things to enrich your mind. 

19.  Be inspired and motivated: Read and be inspired by stories of disabled people who are able to live normally and happily.  Be motivated by quotes from famous people. Read daily and you will look at life more wisely.

20.  Keep learning: Life is about learning, when you stop learning you stop living. 

Life is about health and happiness. Are you living in a state of well-being?

Secrets of Share investment

This is an extract from Public Bank’s latest annual report as of December 31, 2011:

“If a shareholder of Public Bank had bought 1,000 shares in Public Bank when it was listed in 1967, and assuming the shareholder had subscribed for all rights issues to date and had not sold any of the public Bank shares, he would have, at the end of 2011, 135,398 Public Bank shares worth RM1,811,625 based on the share price of Public Bank (Local) shares of RM13.38 at the end of 2011. In addition, he would have received a total gross dividend of RM776,137 whilst having only invested a capital outlay of RM48,760, including subscription for all rights issues. The dividends received and the appreciation in value translates to a remarkable compounded annual rate of return of 19.5% for each of the 44 years that this shareholder has held the shares in Public Bank since it was listed in 1967.”

The corporate mission of Public Bank is equally impressive:

“To sustain the position of being the most efficient, profitable and respected premier financial institution in Malaysia.” 

The take-home message:

·         Share investment is for the long term. 

·         Select a winner.

·         Get in on the ground floor.

·         Stick to it

·         Go all the way.

Have you found a winner yet and are you willing to keep for the long term? 

Writing Articles that R.O.C.K.S.

When something can be read without effort, great effort has gone into its writing.

 ~ Enrique Jardiel Poncela

The key to effective article writing is to express and not to impress. Say it in your own words precisely, concisely, fully, and clearly. Simplicity is the way to write that rocks:  

Relevant: Write an article relating to your niche. Visitors come to your site because they are interested in your topics. When you write, your content must be able to match the headline perfectly. Find out what your readers are looking for and write accordingly.

              

Outstanding: Pay much attention to your headlines. Your title either attracts or discourages the readers to read your content. Be original and write your own ideas. Insert a suitable image at the top of the article to capture readers’ attention and read your content. Start your article with a bang like a famous quote. Write content that provides value to your readers. Inspire and motivate your readers to take action in your last paragraph.

Correctness:  It is a good idea to engage another person to proofread your articles. You do not want others to catch you with grammar and spelling mistakes. Use appropriation punctuation in the right places. Use simple words and the right words to convey your message.   

Knowledge: The best policy is to write what you know. You build trust in what you are good at. Write and provide full and helpful information. Write and solve readers’ problems. Add value to your article by linking to your old relevant posts and other authoritative sources.

Scannable: On the Net, people are in a hurry and if you want others to read or rather scan your articles you have to highlight keywords and use numbering or bullet points. Write short sentences and short paragraphs instead of writing a big chunk of text.

Your writing gets better when you read other people’s writing often and you write every day. 

10 Productive Ways to Adopt

Ways To Be More Productive

Focus on being productive instead of busy.         

 ~Tim Ferriss

There are simple habits to acquire, but the benefits are far-reaching in your life. Here are 10 ways to achieve efficiency and effectiveness in your life and be happy:

1.       Look for solutions and not looking at the problems: Do not ask yourself why it happens to you because life is never smooth sailing. If it were so it would be very boring. Look at a problem in a positive frame of mind. Take it as a challenge and be resourceful and creative to overcome it. The more problems you encounter in your life and the more ways you are able to solve them the more confident you will be. Come to think of it, problems in life are good for you.

2.       Think possible: As the saying goes, if you think it is impossible you are right and if you think it is possible you are also not wrong. To adopt a can-do attitude and take immediate action to do what needs to be done is the best policy. The longer you delay and hesitate, the more likely it is for fear to take hold of your life.  

3.       Write it down: Whenever you need to remember something, do yourself a favor, write it down. It is a simple and yet very effective way to get things done without fail.  

4.        Listen attentively: To listen effectively is to listen attentively and stop doing anything else. Get the message precisely and do things accordingly. Not paying attention is a sign of disrespect to the other person.

5.       Daily review: At the end of every day, take stock of the things that you have done and

find out how productive it has been. The key is to learn from past mistakes and make an improvement. 

6.       Smile: Be cheerful, be lighthearted. Every morning greet yourself in the mirror with a broad smile and smile at people you meet. You uplift people’s moods and you are likable. I do not see people smiling perhaps they think they cannot change their life anymore, but when you change your attitude, you change the way you look at life from a brighter perspective. Just do it.  Smile and the world will smile with you.  

  

7.       Be Confident: Confidence is believing in yourself. It is a powerful positive thought that you will see the light at the end of the tunnel. The most important thing is to take action and do what is right. 

We gain strength and courage, and confidence by each experience in which we really stop to look fear in the face... we must do that which we think we cannot.

~Eleanor Roosevelt

8.       Keep promises: Do not let people down. Promise only when you can do it. Protect your reputation so that others can trust you and count on you.

9.       Be prepared: Do the most important things first even when it is not urgent. You are prepared and you are ready to meet any eventualities. Know what you want in life and work diligently every day.  When an opportunity presents itself you are ready to grab it.

Always be prepared in advance to start a new day on the right note. Be organized, be productive.

The secret of success in life is for a man to be ready for his opportunity when it comes.

~Disraeli, Benjamin 

10.   Be early: Do not wait and do things at the last minute. You will rush about working under stress and encounter problems and make errors. Be an early riser, start a new day ahead of others, calmly and energetically. Be early for appointments and meetings. Show others that you respect them to get things as planned and you are also capable of managing your time efficiently.

Take action to make changes and be productive.

Image source: https://www.troopmessenger.com/blogs/how-to-be-more-productive

7 Ways to Work Your Happiness

Sustainable happiness is attainable if you are prepared to do the work.

~Sonja Lyubomirsky

Getting happiness requires effort. Yes, you can be happy when you make up your mind to be so. However, lasting happiness depends on how much effort you put into your daily life because you will find happiness in what you do. When you pay attention and work on it, happiness will follow you.  Here are 7 ways to get committed and work on your happiness:

1.       Work on your health and fitness: Not working on your body requires no effort, but you will not be feeling good or fit. To be healthy and energetic is to exercise daily such as jogging. You have to sustain your effort daily and not just once in a while. Health is a source of happiness.

2.       Work on your job: You will not find happiness if you do not put effort into your work. You can work smart, but you still need to work hard. Getting happiness at work is about enthusiasm, commitment, and doing the best you can.  You will be trusted, valued, and appreciated. Happiness is what you get when you work hard for it.

3.       Work on your finance:  Spending gives you enormous pleasure, but you will be miserable when you just spend and spend. You will get into debt and perhaps bankrupt. Happiness is to be able to spend and yet there is still left over for a rainy day. Again, you have to work out a wise budget and stick to it so that you do not overspend.

4.       Work on your family: The easier way out is to be a couch potato. It does not need any effort and it yields no happiness as well. You have to do work in order to enjoy happiness at home.  Wash the dishes, walk the dog, and water the plants. Get involved in your children’s homework.  Happiness has to be earned.

5.       Work on your relationships: Just to get connected you still need to call.  You have to do more to show your care and concern. Putting effort into your relationship building will make others happy and you will be happy too.  

6.       Work on self-improvement: Giving up bad habits like smoking and developing good habit such as getting up early call for determination and persistent effort.  Happiness is achieving your goals.

7.       Work on your attitude: Making changes needs sustained effort. Changing attitude requires constant effort such as appreciating what you have instead of getting more wants in life. Getting into a positive mental attitude like optimism, forgiveness, living now instead of worrying about the future needs constant practice. Develop and sustain an attitude of gratitude is the happiest thing you can work on in life.

Are you working hard to attract happiness?   

How I Reduce My Clothing Expenses

According to the latest Nielsen Global Survey of Consumer Confidence and Spending Intentions, Malaysians have started to cut down on telephone expenses as a means to manage their budget. At the same time, consumers are switching to cheaper grocery brands. It is because of their concern over the economy, job security, and increasing food prices. Spending less on new clothes and out-of-home entertainment remained the top two strategies to manage discretionary spending.

This is how I control effectively my spending on new clothes and accessories:  

1.       Shop less: I shop only once a year. It is done before the Chinese New Year. Chinese believe that you have to start New Year with everything new. So, it is auspicious to get brand new clothes and shoes to usher in the New Year. 

2.       Do it during Sales: Just one or two months before Chinese New Year shopping outlets are promoting their goods aggressively.  It is the best time to shop for your new wardrobe at rock-bottom prices.

3.       Look for durability and comfort: Do not just look for brands. Durability and comfort is the primary consideration for new clothing. In this way, you pay less for items of similar quality.

4.       Be a member of the outlet:  Take advantage of outlets with a loyalty program. Be a member so that you can reduce your clothing bill further. I am a member of Padina; it gives a rebate of 5% on all your purchases. As an example, when you spend RM500/= you are given a voucher for RM25.00. You can reduce your next purchase by the same amount. You are also given a 30%- discount card on your birthday.    

5.       Pay with your cash-back credit card: I settle all purchases with my CIMB MasterCard. I get cash rebates on all my purchases, so I reduce further my clothing expenses and other items charged to my card as well.

How do you cut your clothing expenses?