“Overwhelm is a sign of misaligned priorities.” was what I tweeted a while back.

Especially if you fail to say no, delegate tasks or have an inability to postpone certain tasks if need be. This reminds me a lot of Steven Covey’s First Things First (if you constantly find yourself putting out fires, something’s terribly wrong) and David Allen’s Getting Things Done (the importance of being able to immediately categorize incoming tasks and file them away somewhere if it doesn’t need to be handled immediately).

Getting myself organized and getting things done are two of the key skills that I constantly need to learn and improve upon. I really loved how David described that it’s like going to a dojo everyday, where constant ritual practice is crucial to master the …

Before starting the project:

Got a great project idea, feel really pumped up about it and getting ready to make that first dash.

Read Seth Godin’s Linchpin and liked the ideas that linchpins ship. Decided to follow Seth Godin’s advice of setting a deadline and ship no matter what.

“Let’s make something out next week then! Just this small tiny feature will do.”

Feel good about being so decisive and get to work.

One week later…

Staring at bits and pieces of stuff that has been hacked together. Everything seems to only barely being able to support itself while it wobbles around like jello. Worse, it does practically nothing while all it does is just taking space.

There I was: dejected and frustrated, staring blankly at the piece of junk that’s …

Let’s introduce the nutty little friend that inside the brain of every one of us: the amygdala. The little friend of ours are a group of small nuclei in our brain, having the size of a peanut. It may be tiny, but it has been a part of us since the very early days of our human species.

The fact is that this little friend of our is so crucial that, without it, we wouldn’t have roamed the earth till this day. It ensures our very survival by triggering two of the strongest emotional responses we had: fear and rage. With that, our ancestors are able to flee from predators as well as fighting against them. This allows us to conquer the harsh odds that were stacked against us in survival and becoming …

I had just got myself a Wacom Bamboo tablet and this is the first card-toon that I had done digitally.

This remind me of a [great article from Dave Navarro][rock], aptly titled Give Up, explains that the reason we met with persistent obstacles and frustrations is because we are unwilling to give up tolerating with them.

Stepping up to owning responsibility and claiming what we rightfully deserve could be a scary thing, hence we allow ourselves to be hindered by limiting beliefs. David really nailed it when he says:

Whatever seems ludicrous, whatever you say “I could never do that …” to, that’s the limiting belief that you are absolutely committed to. In fact, you’re so committed to it that you’ve got a ready-made collection of reasons excuses to support it – and …

Complaining, one of our greatest vices.

Not only it’s easy to do, it’s also extremely enjoyable. Even better, you can weave any sort of excuse to your satisfaction.

The only problem with is such habits is that you may develop learned helplessness: by abstaining from personal responsibility, you may develop a worldview all problems occurs to you and you have no control over your life. Also if you happen to believe in the law of attraction, what do you think you’ll attract more of in your life?

Yes, there’ll be a lot of things that proves to be impossible or extremely resistant towards change: like what had happened to you and its consequences, or hard-headed person you constantly brings you nothing but grief. But that doesn’t equate to you unable …

It’s easy to dream.

It’s easy to prepare and work towards your dream.

However, have that feeling of immense fear that holds you back from pulling the trigger? It happens especially at times when you’d gathered all the resources, waiting just a “yes” from you; it happens when the star are all lined up and waiting for you to take that first step; it happens when that opportunity of a life time had arrived and waiting for you to accept it.

At that moment, you just freeze there: unable to respond immediately as you’d thought you’d. A sense of overwhelming fear gushing within: it’s not just the fear of failure – where you imagine scenarios that you’d screw up somewhere along the way of claiming your ultimate prize; it …

As soon as I read the term “brain fart” in Neil Strauss‘ The Rules of the Game, I’m amused by the term.

In the third chapter of the book, Neil talks about how our voice is our identity and the importance of vocal training and speaking with confidence. The chapter highlights a list of common problems and one of the greatest enemies of speaking with confidence is brain farts, otherwise known as pausers.

He elaborated that we learned to use meaningless utterances of words and phrases like um, uh, like, you know as placeholders to make sure we don’t lose anyone’s attention while thinking what to say next, or as a sonar system to make sure other people understands and agrees with what we are saying.

These pausers, although being convenient, actually …

Fresh out of college, I had always dreamed of becoming a millionaire. “With such amount of money, I’d then be financial free and I could a care-free life!” With that rosy goal brewing in my mind, I would constantly imagine of the things I could do with such an amount of money: the fancy studio apartment unit, the beaches I could go to, how proud my friends and family would be…

So I took the obvious path as all the kind adults has pointed out to me: study hard and land a job at a well-known, large-cap company. And the next thing I know, I got lucky – I got a prize in a programming competition and I landed my first job at one of the most prestigious IT companies in Malaysia. Just the mention …

Nothing beats hard numbers to measure progress objectively, isn’t it?

I find this thought empowering as it highlights the importance of managing my money and my future progress well. It is also a good guide post on how fast am I progressing and tells me the gaps towards my ideal lifestyle.

The word “score” also had the hidden idea that money is just one aspect of the game of life. Every game has our team, our supporters, our opponents as well as the experiences that we create together. It’s not only the competitive spirit but also the aspect of the greater values we treasure in life: teamwork, respect, practice and fun.

With that in mind, that gives me the push to enjoy today and do whatever it takes to grow.