Quick intro. Let’s close the year right and let’s get started.

Clean up your space 

Clean your place and collect the things that you never use for the year and the things that have seen better days. Sell, donate or throw it away those items. In short, let it go. Its such a breath of fresh air to be totally free from stuffs. If you need some guide clearing out, you can refer to my previous blog post. 

Clean your heart

It’s not just our house that needs cleaning but also ourselves from within. Let go of all the negative emotions that you have towards other people. Whether you have settled the matter with them or not, do yourself a favor and forgive them. Holding on negative emotions is just an unnecessary baggage. Remember, you cannot control other people, but you can control your thoughts and your thoughts can change how you feel. Tell yourself, “I forgive you because I don’t deserve to carry trash emotions in my heart. I have so many things to be grateful for and I’d rather fill my heart with all those goodness.

Clear your head

Any thoughts floating in your head, just write it down. Don’t let yourself get distracted by pending projects, unaccomplished goals, errands to run. Don’t hold it in your mind. Use a pen and paper or go digital if you prefer and start to brain dump. Write down any thoughts you have and clear your mind.

Know your habits

At this point, I want to say evaluate your success and failure this year. However, I realized that we have tendency to underestimate our success and overestimate our failure. So instead, lets take a more objective route and take inventory of our habits. What habits contributed to your success this year? Is it waking up early, doing food log, working out? It’s the small things that we do each day that shapes our life, and little did we know that these small things bring us success.

Take a look on the failing habits too. Do you still procrastinate? Do you spend money on nonessential, so your credit card bills build up? This is more like digging on the root of the problem than just looking into problem.  Write down your habits, good or bad and get to know your habits.

Count the learning

Recall all the new things you have learned this year. Did you learn new skills? Have you read a good book or attended a lifechanging seminar or training?  Take inventory of your greatest discovery this year.

Know your numbers (finances, health, relationship)

I love numbers because the saying is true, numbers never lie. It tells you exactly whether you are accomplishing something or not. Two numbers we must know before the year end is your net worth and body measurement.

Let’s face it, two common goals we set each year is related to our health and finances. Before setting goals let’s get into our status first.

Net worth is computed as asset less liabilities. Asset is anything that you own (house, savings, investment) while liabilities (mortage, credit card loan ) is anything that you owe. With this I hope you’ll have a positive result. But don’t feel bad if you get a negative result, rather see it as an opportunity for growth for next year.

For the body measurement, aside from your weight, find out your BMI and Body fat percentage too. I won’t go into details as there are tons of resources in the internet on how to compute those numbers.

Plan your organization system

Organizing might be a dreaded task, but as an adult, we all have to master this skill. As Tony Robbins says, “if your life is worth living, it is worth recording”. Plan out how you can plot your days, month, year, how you will keep track your goals and record your progress. I always prefer to go old school with pen and paper, but you can definitely use apps if that’s works for you. Just make sure you know the tolls for organization before a new year begins.

Think of your ideal 2018 (Dream time!)

Setting goals can sometimes scares people or bring them to default (losing weight, earning more). So instead, I want you to imagine your ideal year. A good start is to ask yourself this question, “Wouldn’t it be great if   _______?”. For example, wouldn’t it be great if I weighted 50 kilos in 2018? Wouldn’t it be great if I’m improving my photography skills? Let yourself dream again and believe like a child!

You might be tempted to check online for inspirations, but I would say DONT. This is your life so don’t let the world or the internet tell you what your dreams are supposed to be.  Listen to your inner thoughts and let yourself decide on what you really want.

Write down success habits to go with your ideal year

Remember the habits inventory we did in step 4? Bring it out again and pick those habits that will help you achieve your new year’s goals. Think of the habits you need to form to fulfill your ideal life. Goals are achieved by actions. You don’t need motivations, you need habits. Form habits that will make you closer to what you really want to get.

Be thankful!

Finally, as the old saying goes, count your blessings. You may not have the best year this 2017, you may have had faced huge challenges, failures or disappointment, but remember if you had eaten 365 meals this year, you still live a better life than a thousand of people. There is always, always something to be thankful for. 

I remember a short Goldie and Bear episode I watched with my son. Bear with me, this is good! Bear went fishing with Daddy Bear and Goldie, and he was so upset he can’t catch any fish. What’s the good in fishing when you can’t catch any fish? Daddy bear told Bear that fishing is not just about catching fish. It’s also about getting into the boat, fishing together with your family and friend, enjoying the scenery, enjoying the view and most of all, creating memories.

It doesn’t matter if you didn’t catch enough fish this year. Its good if you accomplished all your goals but It’s still ok if you didn’t. At the end of the day, it’s not just about the goal, its about who you become while reaching those goals.

This will be my last post for the year. I hope you found something valuable in my blog this year. Thank you for spending your time with me and I look forward to having you again next year. May you have a wonderful holiday season. 

Merry Christmas and a Happy New Year!

I’m behind my normal blogging post, but I’m catching the wagon. Let me share with you my four favorites, a book, an app, an organizational tool and an internet find. Let’s get started.

Big Magic by Elizabeth Gilbert

This book belongs to my re-readable book list - list of books that I’ll read again for reference and inspiration. If you wanted to awaken your creativity, this book is a must read. The instant #1 New York Times Bestseller discusses the attitudes, approaches, and habits we need in order to live our most creative lives. Balancing between soulful spirituality and cheerful pragmatism, Gilbert encourages us to uncover the “strange jewels” that are hidden within each of us. Whether we are looking to write a book, make art, find new ways to address challenges in our work, embark on a dream long deferred, or simply infuse our everyday lives with more mindfulness and passion, Big Magic cracks open a world of wonder and joy.

I do love to read books in google play because I can always read the first pages or chapter for free and see if it is something I would love to finish. Big Magic is one of the books I purchased even before finishing the free chapter. You can tell, I really love this book. Big Magic inspired me to call myself an artist (because I never felt entitled to be called as one) and to find joy in creating. You can check the link below for the free sample of the book through Google Play.  

https://play.google.com/store/books/details/Elizabeth_Gilbert_Big_Magic?id=IVMmBgAAQBAJ&hl=en

The subscribers of my blog get an exclusive excerpt from the book. I find it inspirational, especially for creatives who feel like giving up. If you haven’t subscribed yet, clink the link to subscribe now.

link: http://eepurl.com/brS6Cb

Health App & Activity App

One of the habits I’m trying to build for myself is to keep an active lifestyle. Since I became a mom, I stayed indoors most of the time and live a pretty solid sedentary life. Our bodies are designed to move. Studies have shown that people who take fewer than 5,000 steps are considered sedentary or inactive. Between 5,000 to 7,499 steps daily have a low active lifestyle. 7,500 to 9,999 are somewhat active and those who reached 10,000 steps are the active ones. That’s why I love the Health Apps, particularly the Activity App, because it helps me know my numbers, keep track of my movements and eventually reached my health goals.

The Activity App has 3 activity rings which represent your activity goals - moves, exercise and stand goals, that you must close daily by reaching the set goals of steps, minutes of exercise and a number of times to stand in a day. This will ensure that you are living an active life. I’ve been using it for 3 weeks now and I haven’t closed all the rings/goals yet. But hey, I checked online and even active people are having trouble closing the rings as well. The good thing is, this encouraged me to be more active and to be constantly be reminded to move.

This App works with Apple Watch and I can say that the Apple Watch is totally worth it because of this App.

Kikki K Planner

I’ve been eyeing a Kikki K Planner for over a year or two, but I never make it to the website’s Buy button because of the price. But my good husband finally bought gifted this to me when he went to Singapore a few months back! It’s a Pale Pink Leather Personal Planner in size Large that includes an 18-month perpetual calendar and 7 tab sections that can be customized. You can check the link below for details.

I’m a planner person, I’ve been using a planner since grade school (I have a diary and a schedule taped on our wall) and it helped me a lot to stay on top of everything. What I like about the Kikki K planner is its ring bound so you can add pages if you need to and scrap pages that you don’t need. You can customize the tabs by adding separate tabs for Finances, Goals, Projects and others. It’s like having a planner, notebook, to-do list all in one place. Of course, it’s worth mentioning that its gorgeous tool for planning.

On the downside, I find it pricey. However, since this is refillable, you can use it not just for one year, but maybe a lifetime, so taking price per years of use, suppose you will use it for more than a year, makes the price reasonable. The other downside to some could be the size, the Large size is definitely not travel friendly. To me, it’s not really a problem because I don’t bring my planner when I’m out and about. I used it when I’m brain dumping (the process from David Allen’s Getting Things Done method), planning and updating my goals.

A little disclaimer, by no means I’m encouraging anyone to splurge on a planner. I’m even telling you now that you don’t need a planner if you don’t use one. You can go with whatever works for you. But if you are a planner person like me, don’t shy away from quality things that will make you do what you love to do. We ought to find joy in things that matters to us. To me, writing things down is an everyday chore, planning is vital and having my perfect planner gives joy to what may seem to be a daunting task.

 https://www.kikki-k.com/leather-personal-planner-large-pink

Reviews.com

Whenever I want to buy something, I spent hours researching the internet. So when I came across www.reviews.com , I’m totally hooked. The site gives a thorough research, consulted experts and has elaborate reviews. If you are someone like me who tend to go for well-thought purchase by checking a lot of information, go ahead and check their site. Since winter is coming, I’m thinking of updating my skincare routine, so I’m checking on their face moisturizers review https://www.reviews.com/face-moisturizer/

That’s about it for this month. We’re down to last two months of the year, but I still have a lot to share with you. Thank you for visiting my blog. Keep coming and I’ll see you in my next post!