It started with a nice woke up at 6PM eating sweet misua (chinese noodle) believe to give long and sweet life, followed by interviewing couple of people for new employee. Done with that, have a nap which I can't remember when I had one.
Go to Suncity have a nice chinese food together with the whole family and of course no birthday without blowing the candle and make a wish!
Wow now I am 31, next year will be fantastic a lot of new stuff to learn tons of experiences.
Work and life balance, finally enjoying the beautiful dinner with the family, the food was great also. And here I am watching spiderman 2 and almost ready to close the day.
No resolution no goal just enjoying the day.
Saturday, December 6, 2008
Wednesday, May 21, 2008
Hereditary my a**
For years I have a very high cholesterol and I don't seem to be surprised with the abnormal numbers for my age range. I always have a reason (more like excuse) saying that it is because hereditary, my dad has a very high cholesterol and so do my sisters.
2 Years ago I moved to Copenhagen and develop a totally different habits.
1. I walk to the office around 3km back and forth
2. I play badminton twice
3. I run near the pond once a week at least
4. I eat lots of veggies on lunch time
5. I don't eat after 8 pm
6. I start having small breakfast (oatmeal)
And guess what? Yup, my cholesterol went down and I am in the normal range and all other test shows perfect health. I have never been this healthy before. So whenever somebody said hereditary to you, look them in the eye and say "Hereditary my A**!"
It is easy to find reasons than to do something about it. I was lucky being provided with such environment but it doesn't mean we stop when we are not provided one.
2 Years ago I moved to Copenhagen and develop a totally different habits.
1. I walk to the office around 3km back and forth
2. I play badminton twice
3. I run near the pond once a week at least
4. I eat lots of veggies on lunch time
5. I don't eat after 8 pm
6. I start having small breakfast (oatmeal)
And guess what? Yup, my cholesterol went down and I am in the normal range and all other test shows perfect health. I have never been this healthy before. So whenever somebody said hereditary to you, look them in the eye and say "Hereditary my A**!"
It is easy to find reasons than to do something about it. I was lucky being provided with such environment but it doesn't mean we stop when we are not provided one.
Saturday, May 17, 2008
Change and Transition
Transition became popular after being introduced by William Bridges in his book called "Transition". According to him transition is deeper than just changes. Even physical reappearance can be considered change while transition talks about overall changes which include mental and emotional. (Source from: Anthony Dio Martin - HR Excellency)
Inspired by his writing, I gathered some of the symptoms I had when I "changed" without "transition" during my expatriation time.
1. Dissociation, unlike normal experience as a second person when listening to someone talking. I had the outer body experience where I see myself having discussion with someone else. I became third person watching me having conversation with someone. You can read more about this in NLP (Neuro-Linguistic Program) book.
2. Lack of attention and easily distracted, ability to focus decrease. My mind wandered around thinking of my hometown even on my busiest day in the office.
3. Forgetful, easily forget things and could not remember simple task. Short terms memory was not functioning.
4. Slower response, ability to think slows down and inability to make decision. Fear of making mistakes.
5. Overwhelm, having feelings that there just too many things to be handle at the same time. Can prioritize what needs to be done first. All seems important and urgent.
6. Negative, always think that anything will not work,nothing is possible and that include even a simple task.
On my next blog I will discuss each point and how to handle it.
Until then have an exceljoy!
Inspired by his writing, I gathered some of the symptoms I had when I "changed" without "transition" during my expatriation time.
1. Dissociation, unlike normal experience as a second person when listening to someone talking. I had the outer body experience where I see myself having discussion with someone else. I became third person watching me having conversation with someone. You can read more about this in NLP (Neuro-Linguistic Program) book.
2. Lack of attention and easily distracted, ability to focus decrease. My mind wandered around thinking of my hometown even on my busiest day in the office.
3. Forgetful, easily forget things and could not remember simple task. Short terms memory was not functioning.
4. Slower response, ability to think slows down and inability to make decision. Fear of making mistakes.
5. Overwhelm, having feelings that there just too many things to be handle at the same time. Can prioritize what needs to be done first. All seems important and urgent.
6. Negative, always think that anything will not work,nothing is possible and that include even a simple task.
On my next blog I will discuss each point and how to handle it.
Until then have an exceljoy!
Friday, April 25, 2008
Ask and you shall receive
I'm sure there are moments in our life when we just sit and imagine what if I ask that a year ago or two years ago. There are numerous moments in our life where we decided not to ask something simply because we assume that is not appropriate questions. It is not appropriate to ask such questions. My mentor used to say "Wicky, the worst case you could get when you ask something is a big 'NO'". I am not sure whether culture has something to do with it but I have seen instances where an employee was not treated right but he/she just succumbs and not even questioning the reason behind the treatment given. There are breaks here and there where your superior might spot it but it is our own responsibility to make sure that we are treated fair. What is fair? (I will elaborate more about fairness on my next blog).
Asking questions has a lot to do with:
1. Timing, it is important never ever ask questions when your boss is in a pile of deadlines.
2. Privacy, nothing more powerful than a one on one meeting, try to avoid asking questions publicly as most of the time the answer you would get would be vague as it is intended to all people hence it will not answer the core of the problem.
3. Be professional, it is business save your tears and emotions for drama movie, please.
4. Give and take, have you fulfilled the other end of the bargain? Have you contributed enough to the company? (What is enough? You judge yourself.)
5. Level of appropriate questions? Is there any level for that? I think not I have found that most questions are more to "how" you say than "what" you say. Even the most ridiculous and offensive questions may not appear to be one when you know how to wrap it.
6. Patient, if you have raised the questions wait. It takes time to give you a quality answer.
7. Persistent, if it was not answered to the level you would expect re-address it in a different time with different ways. There is a subtle difference between nagging and persistent.
8. Flexibility, what you ask may end up with different answer or solution as long as it is closer to the end goal it should be fine.
9. Good intention, always reach a win win solutions there's always one if you look hard enough.
10. Listen and move on, sometimes we just have to move on and stop dwelling in the same topic or should I say the art of understanding a big 'NO' means. What is important is that you have raised the questions and sufficient follow up.
Do you have burning questions that you would like to ask?
Remember worst case is a 'NO'.
Asking questions has a lot to do with:
1. Timing, it is important never ever ask questions when your boss is in a pile of deadlines.
2. Privacy, nothing more powerful than a one on one meeting, try to avoid asking questions publicly as most of the time the answer you would get would be vague as it is intended to all people hence it will not answer the core of the problem.
3. Be professional, it is business save your tears and emotions for drama movie, please.
4. Give and take, have you fulfilled the other end of the bargain? Have you contributed enough to the company? (What is enough? You judge yourself.)
5. Level of appropriate questions? Is there any level for that? I think not I have found that most questions are more to "how" you say than "what" you say. Even the most ridiculous and offensive questions may not appear to be one when you know how to wrap it.
6. Patient, if you have raised the questions wait. It takes time to give you a quality answer.
7. Persistent, if it was not answered to the level you would expect re-address it in a different time with different ways. There is a subtle difference between nagging and persistent.
8. Flexibility, what you ask may end up with different answer or solution as long as it is closer to the end goal it should be fine.
9. Good intention, always reach a win win solutions there's always one if you look hard enough.
10. Listen and move on, sometimes we just have to move on and stop dwelling in the same topic or should I say the art of understanding a big 'NO' means. What is important is that you have raised the questions and sufficient follow up.
Do you have burning questions that you would like to ask?
Remember worst case is a 'NO'.
Saturday, February 16, 2008
Emotions
There have been so many articles about happiness about joy in life as if it is the positive thing in life. Somewhat I agree, it just that couple of days ago I read article about "against happiness". At first it sounds ludicrous, why would somebody against happiness? It has given me a different view of the world it is okay not to be happy there are no right or wrong. There are many times I put logic to emotions, this emotion is wrong that one is right, I can feel this I should not feel that. There are a whole stacks of governance inside my little brain, standard procedure of how to handle this situation how to handle that all syntax intact. This stimulus against that response what and what not.
Why can't I just embrace my feelings, why don't I dare to feel the grieve, the sadness, being melancholy. Who in the hell said that happiness is the best thing in life? How can you appreciate the light if you have never been in the dark never experience and even enjoy the dark? Being in grieve or sadness can be addicted but a drop of simple doze may just be what we need just to let ourself be better grounded.
Afterall we are just human. Hack I even don't care about spelling and grammar error and I just wrote. To err is human!
Why can't I just embrace my feelings, why don't I dare to feel the grieve, the sadness, being melancholy. Who in the hell said that happiness is the best thing in life? How can you appreciate the light if you have never been in the dark never experience and even enjoy the dark? Being in grieve or sadness can be addicted but a drop of simple doze may just be what we need just to let ourself be better grounded.
Afterall we are just human. Hack I even don't care about spelling and grammar error and I just wrote. To err is human!
Sunday, February 10, 2008
Habits
I always admire people who run at anytime and day. Sometimes in a cold dark windy night and sometimes when the sun is scorching like crazy but they keep running no matter what. Why don't they take a break when the weather is not okay? Obviously, they understand the power of "momentum" what stays will stay and what moves will move. It is easy to start running today but to keep running everyweek at exact time no matter how the weather condition would be that is a different story. I even saw one of my friends still running on a treadmill after a long hard course while I was drinking next to the hotel poolside.
Actions would become natural just like brushing your teeth every morning once you have developed the habit. It will be hard at first but there will be time when you will do it unconciously yes if you do it often enough it will become that way and the key is never ever skip even for one time. This is why you will see people are still exercising even on their vacation.
2 weeks ago in a dark cold morning, I decided to snooze for another 30 minutes and next thing I know it becomes habits now I have 30 minutes time wasted everyday just because the momentum has kicked in. I even try to fight it by not having this 30 minutes but it end up I could not concentrate in the office because of lack of sleep. Today is the biggest setback I end up waking up at 10.46 AM and I excuse myself by saying that it is weekend. Having this bad habits would mean that I need to readjust my sleep gradually by decreasing the length of snooze until it fades away from my system.
It is much easier to create bad habits than to create a good habits (stronger momentum). It is much harder to eliminate bad habits than a good habits (stickier). So always check and re-check your habits, are there other bad habits that keep holding you from your dreams.
I have spotted some of my bad habits and it ain't pretty, time to work on it!
Discipline, discipline, discipline
Actions would become natural just like brushing your teeth every morning once you have developed the habit. It will be hard at first but there will be time when you will do it unconciously yes if you do it often enough it will become that way and the key is never ever skip even for one time. This is why you will see people are still exercising even on their vacation.
2 weeks ago in a dark cold morning, I decided to snooze for another 30 minutes and next thing I know it becomes habits now I have 30 minutes time wasted everyday just because the momentum has kicked in. I even try to fight it by not having this 30 minutes but it end up I could not concentrate in the office because of lack of sleep. Today is the biggest setback I end up waking up at 10.46 AM and I excuse myself by saying that it is weekend. Having this bad habits would mean that I need to readjust my sleep gradually by decreasing the length of snooze until it fades away from my system.
It is much easier to create bad habits than to create a good habits (stronger momentum). It is much harder to eliminate bad habits than a good habits (stickier). So always check and re-check your habits, are there other bad habits that keep holding you from your dreams.
I have spotted some of my bad habits and it ain't pretty, time to work on it!
Discipline, discipline, discipline
Sunday, January 20, 2008
Office Boy Syndrome
Purnomo, who is an office boy, was working with a decent salary of Rp 300.000,00. After one year he had an increase of 10% that would be Rp 330.000,00. The second year he had another 10% increase doing as expected job no additional job, learning, skills or knowledge outside office boy speciality. At 10Th year he was happy earning Rp 770.000,00 while he was doing the same old job. Until one day when all office boy are outsourced, poor Purnomo had to find another job but he didn't have any other skills. "No worries I have 10 years experience as an office boy, I should be able to find another job", he comforted himself. Unfortunately most company do not have permanent office boy anymore, all office boy are outsourced. He had to apply to one of outsource company. Alas! Nobody would hire him with the same salary he had before. All outsource company can only offer him Rp 250.000,00 because he is old and his productivity is lower then a young man. This is an example of "office boy syndrome".
Do we enrich ourselves with knowledge and skills? Are we prepare to move to other company at any given time? Remember there are no lifetime job guarantee even the biggest company can collapse or downsizing. So whenever you feel comfortable with your life, it's time to do a reality check. Is it time to move? Is it time to learn something new? By not taking a decision is a decision in itself. Don't let another office boy syndrome ever happen again let poor Purnomo's experience be our lesson.
Do we enrich ourselves with knowledge and skills? Are we prepare to move to other company at any given time? Remember there are no lifetime job guarantee even the biggest company can collapse or downsizing. So whenever you feel comfortable with your life, it's time to do a reality check. Is it time to move? Is it time to learn something new? By not taking a decision is a decision in itself. Don't let another office boy syndrome ever happen again let poor Purnomo's experience be our lesson.
Wednesday, January 9, 2008
State of Mind
There are many times when I was caught in the swirl of stress. So many times I have fought these battles. So many books, tips and guidance that I have tried to stay away from stress but none really succeeds. Until one day I had a simple question from my friend, she asked me "What kind of things do you do back home to stay away from stress?". I replied spontaneously "What are you talking about? Stress? Most of us back home are lucky to even get by another day with 3 meals a day. We simply don't have time for yellow mellow stuff"
My own answer struck me like lightning, the reason why I got caught in stress mode is because I have so much time too waste, too much time to spend on enjoying the misery and getting addicted to it. Now everytime stress state of mind comes (you can actually tell when it's coming) you just have to smile and say " Stress, I am sorry but I don't have time for you now, yesterday and tomorrow." Yes it is that simple nothing fancy no degree needed to follow this process.
There are 2 occassions where I had the same stress situations. One was handled by meditation, taking a deep breath. listening to slow music and try to focus on something else. It did not work at all the mind still lingered around the problems and I even got moodier. The effect was getting larger and larger by the minute, it's like a snowball effect it got bigger and bigger to a point of overwhelm. The second time was handled in a very simple manner more like an accident. I was in the stress situations but at the same time I was on a deadline to prepare and perform a meeting so I concentrated all my mind to make sure all are done in professional manner (one of the reason of course to make sure I still have job). By the time I finished the meeting, the stress was gone. It was gone because the stress failed to take the momentum needed to become a big snow ball.
Always know when the stress is about to come and simply do a pressing deadline job to kill the momentum and you have won half of the battle. Do you have time for stress? If not please repeat after me "Stress, I am sorry but I don't have time for you now, yesterday and tomorrow".
Disclaimer: This is just a simple tips which may not suitable for everyone and the effect of stress may vary from person to person.
My own answer struck me like lightning, the reason why I got caught in stress mode is because I have so much time too waste, too much time to spend on enjoying the misery and getting addicted to it. Now everytime stress state of mind comes (you can actually tell when it's coming) you just have to smile and say " Stress, I am sorry but I don't have time for you now, yesterday and tomorrow." Yes it is that simple nothing fancy no degree needed to follow this process.
There are 2 occassions where I had the same stress situations. One was handled by meditation, taking a deep breath. listening to slow music and try to focus on something else. It did not work at all the mind still lingered around the problems and I even got moodier. The effect was getting larger and larger by the minute, it's like a snowball effect it got bigger and bigger to a point of overwhelm. The second time was handled in a very simple manner more like an accident. I was in the stress situations but at the same time I was on a deadline to prepare and perform a meeting so I concentrated all my mind to make sure all are done in professional manner (one of the reason of course to make sure I still have job). By the time I finished the meeting, the stress was gone. It was gone because the stress failed to take the momentum needed to become a big snow ball.
Always know when the stress is about to come and simply do a pressing deadline job to kill the momentum and you have won half of the battle. Do you have time for stress? If not please repeat after me "Stress, I am sorry but I don't have time for you now, yesterday and tomorrow".
Disclaimer: This is just a simple tips which may not suitable for everyone and the effect of stress may vary from person to person.
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