Today is the first day of 2016 and my day was filled with so…much love already. I hope yours was the same.

I do believe that love comes from within. If you give love, feel good about yourself and appreaciate everything you see, hear, eat, drink and receive, you will feel loved.

On this first day of the new year, the weather was a little cooler when I woke up this morning comparing to the rest of the week. I had a good sleep last night and woke up feeling fresh. My husband asked if I wanted to go for a walk while it was still cool. The temperature was around 22 degree celcius comparing to the high 30s as it has been all week.

We love going for a walk together whenever we can as we live near the ocean and the river mouth, so walking in the area is quite relaxing. We usually chat about nice things like our next holiday plan, family activities, what we should do with our garden/house or just talking about nothing sometimes. Just having a chat while walking by the beach looking at the calm blue water is what we enjoy.

We walked from our home to the jetty near by and around the little town where we live. It was about 8 AM but there were already a lot of people at the beach and at the local cafes having breakfast, so we stopped at one of the cafes for a cup of coffee as well, just to absorb the peaceful atmosphere while we continued chatting. We had a really good start of the day for sure.

As the weather was so nice, we thought it would be good to bring our grand children to the beach. So we walked back home, made and ate cooked breakfast and went back to the beach with our daughter and grand children aged 4.5 and 3. They love going to the beach and it is such a blessing seeing them play with so…much joy. We stayed down at the beach for a couple of hours and it was just the right time for lunch after that. Our grand daughter came up with fish and chips for lunch and of course my husband (their poh poh) quickly agreed. So that’s what we had. We called our local fish and chip shop, picked them up and took them home to eat in our garden with some home made salad. It was a nice lunch.

About two hours later, we decided to go for a drive with the children to give their mum a little break. We drove a long the esplanade about 45 minutes south from home. The children had a nap in the car which was a good thing so they could play happily without being tired and grumpy. We had another good walk, took them to a play ground and had ice cream after. We had fun while their mum rested at home.

When we got home, it was just the right time for dinner and a family chat at the dining table before bed time for the children. The children were quite happy going to bed by 8 PM even though they didn’t go to sleep straight away as they had a nap during the day.

So there you have it, the first day of the new year was pretty pleasant for us and hope that yours was also just as good.

What I haven’t forgotten is praying for and thinking about people who may not be as fortunate. I hope they are safe and manage to make their day reasonable comfortable.

God Bless Us All.

 

 

It is now 11:30 PM where I live in South Australia, half an hour to go until midnight of the last day of 2015. I have had a good week, having 17 family members spending Christmas day at our home. That’s only my husband’s side of the family as mine live outside Australia. Christmas day was such a blessed day. My brother in-law and my daughters cooked traditional Christmas lunch and my sister in-law made pastries for afternoon snacks. There was so…much quality food and we all enjoyed it very much. Sharing is such a beautiful thing. My grand children aged 4.5 and 3 were the only young children and they loved being spoilt on Christmas day. I don’t have to return to work until 4th January 2016 and I am loving this moment spending quality time with my daughters and grand children.

2015 has been and nearly gone. I am very thankful for a safe, happy, healthy and productive year. We wouldn’t spent our time any other way other than how we’ve done it. Going to work daily has been the biggest part of my husband’s and my life, which is a good thing, as we have enjoyed the opportunity to earn a good living, to grow and to build our future. Every year, we have managed to go on a vacation or two, in or out of Australia. This year, Vietnam and Mornington Peninsula VIC were our highlights. Spending quality times with family and friends have been huge this year. We have enjoyed being part of our special family and friends’ mile stone birthdays. Special 50th, 60th, 70th and 80th birthdays.

The biggest family achievements this year are seeing our eldest daughter being strong, caring gracefully for her beautiful children, and having our youngest daughter completing her scholarship in Bachelor of Music from Berklee College of Music with Suma Cum Laude. I can’t be more proud as a mother and hope that they continue to be such beautiful individuals inside and out.

I wish you all a very happy and prosperous 2016.

 

Hello my loyal readers,

Thank you so…much for your patience. Once again, many family and work commitments have kept me so…busy so here I am again, being able to post these articles to share with you. All I can say, as long as we don’t get disappointed or frustrated when life events take you to different places for a bit of a detour sometimes, we just have to keep going, heading toward the right direction. Afterall, family is always the most important to me and writing this blog is where I find my own little quite moment, sharing my thoughts with you in a different way than when I interact with people face to face which I do a lot of with my family, friends and work colleagues.

Well…I hope you’ve all been well. As for me and my family, we are fine now but there was a period when everyone in our family caught a terrible flu & while one of us fell quite ill overseas and it shook us all for a bit, but she is recovering well now. Thanks to you all who showed concern and empathy. It meant so…much to us. I hope you keep well, as illness can really let us down.

On a more positive note, we always feel so…grateful for being able to recover well from any event that’s not so…great. That’s very important I think. Things do happen all the time in life, good or bad, but when we can recover from the not so…good ones, this means we are strong and capable, and we should be thankful to have the strength to go through the ups and downs of life.

Keep well everyone, drink a lot of pure water, eat a lot of organic fruit, vegetables and good protein, exercise regularly, maintain good attitude, smile a lot, be kind and have courage to do the things for the better of all.

Love you all. xxxx

First of all I wish to apologize for the delay in posting this article. This is the fifth thing to cherish in life. Remember?

What a subject? It’s a difficult one to talk about as we all know that we all like money and most of us spend most of our life doing things to produce money, even when we are not always fully conscious how much money we actully want and what we are doing with it.  Most people are busy on a daily basis simply just making a living, trading their hours for dollars to pay the mortgage or rent, food, fuel for the car, bills, maybe a holiday every now and then.  Others may be lucky enough to be made out of old money that their parents and/or grandparents produced faster than any ordinary workers could do.  Some might be clever enough to make money by doing certain business or investment activities that help multiply their money faster than the ordinary workers.  Some might be struggling of never having enough money to pay their basic daily needs, which is sad.

Well…, where are you sitting? What does money mean to you?

Have you heard about the result of the research completed by the Australian Bureau of Statistic many years ago but still valid today.  Here is what will happen to 100 people aged 65, who were once equal in wealth and health at age 25. 1 of them will be weahty, 5 will be financially independent, 16 still working, 24 dead and 54 on welfare.  That is a very sad statistic right? but I heard that this is still valid today apart from the numbers of ‘still working’ and ‘dead’ may be switched. No matter how we look at it, it does not look good and the Australian Government is worried about it.  That is why the Government continuously changes rules and policies of anything related to money, to make everything sustainable.

As an ordinary worker without any old money left to me or any brilliant skill to multiply my money fast, I have worked in a corporate world for 30 years and now working in my own business as a life coach as well.  Life can be rather hectic but satisfying to know that I at least have capabilities to contribute toward my family’s needs and dreams, as well as to the society and to the Government.  When I started working in Australia, I just wanted to be independent, creative and proactive in this wonderful life of mine amongst other people.  I never thought about how much money I wanted to earn, spend or save, which is not really a good thing to be.  So I just do what I do and spend the money to make things happen for us all as a family, particularly for my daughters’ future and we do like holidays.  Later on I realised that I had better start investing a little so I can have a comfortable retirement.  Little I knew, with lack of skill and knowledge about investing, I lost a lot of money and I got burnt.  You see…! Money is so…funny, NOT.  Initially, I was mad at myself and the people who took advantage of me but I had to learn to move forward and look at the future, enjoying what I have rather than worrying what I had lost. It’s hard, as I actually lost a lot of my and my husband’s hard earned money, which means going backward.

After that, I could have given up and became bitter altogether about money but I decided that it wouldn’t do me any good if I did that.  Instead, I told myself that I learned an important lesson about trust, about money and life in general.  You see…if I didn’t try, I would have probably regret it later why I didn’t do anything.  It comes back to enjoying your journey in life, not focusing too much on the destination, especially when it comes to money.  Money is good and don’t be afraid to talk about it or to acknowledge the importance of money, as long as you don’t love money more than people or other things in life.  Be careful..! The abundance or the lack of money can change a person’s behaviour quite drastically if you are not in control of your money.  Don’t let money control you, you need to control and manage money well, in order for money to do you good.

We all make mistakes and learn different things at different stages.  It’s okay if you don’t have all the money you want, as long as you don’t become bitter about money, saying negative things to push money away.  Remember, money is good for us, it’s the people who often cannot manage the lack or the abundance of money that’s the problem.

Tell yourself that you love your life and you are grateful to live with abundance, regardless whether you have $1 or $1B.  Why? Because, when you are healthy, able to breathe fresh air, eat and drink well, have a happy family, have a job, etc. you actually live with abundance.  There are billionnaires out there who may be troubled.  Just remember though, no matter what, I believe that, if you focus on making sure that you enjoy your journey in life, be creative, proactive, happy,  healthy and don’t be afraid to do things that produces money, then manage your money well, I reckon you can be in the 5% out of those 100 people, at least.

Well…I hope this has been useful for you and hope that you are out there producing and enjoying money with grace and integrity.

Love you all. xx

Let’s talk about “Time”. This is our forth ingredient in our recipe to happiness…:) or the forth item we should cherish in order to have a happy or blissful life.

How often have we heard people say that they don’t have time to do this or that? and they get frustrated or over-whelmed about things. Why do you think that is? Well…I think it’s because most people get into a habit of using their time unwisely and once time gets away from them, they realized that they hadn’t done what they wanted or needed to get done by certain time in their day, week, month, year or their entire life altogether. And then they sit there in their old age saying that they wished they had done this or that before now. Hm….interesting isn’t it? yet, this is so…common and many if not most people have not learned from it. People continue being in the same situation until it is too late.

You see…people think they can put things off and catch up in getting things done later. Little they know that later never comes and later they have more things they need or want to do. In the end, they have too many things to do or they get older and they have more and more in their list to do.

Time is not like money you know and time is not money at all. Time is actually everything you have, which is much more than money. Once your time is gone, it is simply gone. You cannot get it back. You can waste time easily but you cannot save time like you can with money. Once you waste time you can’t get it back. It’s just gone.

For this reason, please be very mindful and be wise in how you use your time. Don’t let your time go by and later think or say that you could have done this or that, once it is too late. If you waste too much time in your life, before you know it, you will be 70 years of age or older and regretting why you haven’t done certain thing in your life before that.

When I say ‘waste’, it means that you have let your time gets away from you without being used for things you love doing or things you should to do in order to achieve certain things you need or want. If you do things you love, even if it’s not necessarily producing something tangible or obvious to others, it doesn’t mean it’s wasted, as long as you don’t regret it later for not other things in your life.

If you like watching television for hours and hours each week and then later you regret for not reading, exercising, walking or doing gardening or painting for example, than you have wasted your time. If you congruently and truly believe that you have enjoyed every minute of watching television and it doesn’t bother you for not reading, exercising, etc. then you are okay.

The problem is, we human beings often want more things in life and to achieve more things we need to work toward them. So it is usually fair to say that if you spend too much time watching television in your day to day activity, as you only have the same amount of time as everyone else, you probably won’t achieve much of other things. This means that you have wasted your time.

To avoid wasting or spending time on things that do not take you toward your goals, you must set goals regularly, put in place a plan how to achieve those goals and most importantly, take action but do it step by step and achieve one small chunk of your goal at a time. Just keep doing this each day and you will be satisfied that you have done everything you possible can to achieve the best for as long as you live.

All the best and stay motivated to achieve what you want in life. You can do it..!

Take Care, 🙂

In my previous posts, I wrote that this is the third thing to cherish for a blissful life.

Love is in you, don’t look elsewhere. Give some of your love away and you will receive.

How often do we hear or feel it ourselves as if others around us don’t love us enough sometimes? This is a very common feeling people seem to have but in reality, we don’t feel the love we need if we don’t love ourselves first and if we don’t freely give our love to others.

Love simply does not come our way if we feel negative about others or things around us, particularly if we don’t love ourselves first. No matter how much someone tells us they love us, we won’t feel it or accept it unless we feel good, positive and confident about ourselves.

Love is a feeling you own, not a feeling others can give you.

When I say you have to love yourself first, it doesn’t mean that you should praise yourself and look down on other people. What I mean by this is to take care of yourself, to stay fit and healthy, to stay motivated and active, to feel good about life and to think positive about things and others around you. Make effort to feel and look good, smile a lot and be generous with your compliments about others. It doesn’t cost you anything. It’s free and it makes you feel good and you give others compliment. When you have the right attitude about love and life, others will love for who you are and you will be surrounded by loving and caring people. The universe will deliver and you won’t know what hits you. It’s that simple. There is nothing complicated and nothing to be resentful about love. All you need to do is concentrating in being happy and loving toward others. Make sure it’s genuine, sincere and congruent.

Take care, love yourself and love others, your life will be filled with so…much happiness…xx 🙂

I am talking about your value system. It is important to realize and understand what’s important to YOU. Believe in yourself, your potential and what the universe can give you. There is enough resources in this universe for everyone. It is just up to each individual to utilize their capacity and potential to seek and receive your luck gracefully and with gratitude. This kind of thing is easy said than done. Sharing articles like this is very important to help each other win in life. Based on my study, research, personal experiences and observations, I found that mind-mapping your likes and passion helps narrow down your real and true value. If you keep doing certain activities linking to specific niche in your life so far, the chance is that you have passion in that niche. If you like a certain celebrity, experts and person and ask yourself what it you love about that person, the chance is that your value system is around what that person’s expertise is. You can also ask yourself questions what makes you feel happy and motivated and what makes you feel miserable and troubled. What would know the type of people. activities and things around you that create different type of feelings and responses. Once you narrow down your answers or results from those methods, you would know what your value system is. The next thing you can do is placing or surrounding yourself around the people, activities and things that match our value system while at the same time please…be mindful of respecting others that different to you. If you do this regularly and make this into a habit. I can assure you that you will be happier everyday of your life.

Take care, live life now in full capacity, respect others and be mindful of your and other people’s safety.

Love, ICDL x

Remember about the 5 things to cherish? Here is the first one and I think this is the most important thing.

It is your Health.

If you want to have a successful life and career then it is important that you take care of your mind and body. A weak body and a lazy mind will never help you do productive things that can improve your way of life. Your safety and health are two important factors that you must not take for granted. Keeping your mind and body healthy seem to be such a simple thing and it is so…easy to say but guess what? some people find it actually harder that it seems and may need guidance from others. We are so…fortunate today, that there is so..much information on the internet that we can search, read and apply to help ourselves.

I know that these are really basic things but unfortunately, as much as we are well aware consciously, somehow we don’t always do these things. Why..? Because our subconscious mind is not trained to make them as our habits yet. Some of the most basic habits to develop in order to have good health are: drinking 3L of water a day, eat a lot of fresh fruit and vegetables and legumes, sleep well and long enough, move regularly and….smile..!..:)

There are many other habits that are important to help maintain your health. How about learning and practicing ways to deal with challenges, to manage your time and money well, to maintain healthy relationships and to improve your resilience.

Being healthy is so much more than just applying a few basic physical habits. Mastering how your mind work is also very important. Learning Neuro Linguistic Programming will help you develop new good habits.

For now, just do the basic habits. As for me, I’d better get to sleep. 🙂

Take care and I will talk about time management next.

1. Health – Mental and Physical Heath to keep your energy up.

2. Value – Believe in yourself and the universe which gives you everything you need.

3. Love – Love is in you, don’t look elsewhere. Give some of your love away and you will receive.

4. Time – Time is not just money, it’s everything, it’s all you have. Once it’s gone, it’s gone.

5. Money – Money doesn’t buy everything but it buys many things including your peace of mind if you use it properly.

I will talk about each topic in separate posts soon and will post articles more regularly.

Bye for now.