SOMC Lifestyle

Renewed Faith in SOMC Lifestyle

noreply@blogger.com (Rian Aznani) — Sun, 18 Nov 2012 06:41:00 +0000

Dear beloved readers,

I have been away for a few years. A few of you still comes and visit me here sometimes and I am thankful for that. Many have left and I truly understand them. But all must have wondered why I had stopped writing.

I have temporarily abandoned writing in this blog to soul search. I halted because I have doubted myself. I did not truly know if the self-improvement ways and methods I preached here could really be of help to people. I did not want to just write about what I feel might work. I rather would write about what I know for sure would work. I was unsure if I am living the SOMC Lifestyle myself and did not want to teach about something I half understand and did not fully adopt in my life. So I stopped writing to you.

I have spent the last few years figuring out the whys and what of this thing I call the SOMC Lifestyle. It is a concept that is truly complex and hard to fully understand, let alone continuously and effectively embrace in your daily life. It is even more difficult to figure out ways to explain and teach it to others. And also to make matter worst, there was nobody around to guide me.

I had myself planned, tested and measured the methods and ways of the SOMC Lifestyle. Most of the time, I had to wrestle with the main fundamental ideas and purpose. Self-doubt became a loyal friend that came and visit me once and a while. The years were spent in hard labor of finding the truth about the SOMC Lifestyle so that I can share it with the world.

Until one day, I saw the truth. I walked through it, and found myself outside and free.

Beloved readers,

I have not truly abandoned you. I am now back on this pages with a renewed understanding and faith. With them I hope to teach the world of the SOMC Lifestyle and bring peace and happiness in the hearts of men. I have returned to share with you my journey.

Photo by Jonathan Benson

Reaching your full potential – exploring what it truly means

noreply@blogger.com (Rian Aznani) — Wed, 13 Jan 2010 08:06:00 +0000

Only read this post if you want to reach your full potential.

Most of you will hesitate after reading that line. That is because it gives you an option which is difficult to choose from, especially if you don’t know if you really want or should, “reach your full potential”. Here, I will try to help you answer this question.

The term “reaching your full potential” have been used again and again in speech and writing and yet very few are quite sure on what it truly means. You can ask people around you and will get different answers each time. Everybody has some kind of a vague idea on what it means but could not agree on a definition.

You see, the main reason most people could not quite grasp on a definition is because they perceive the term from afar. They felt disassociated from it – they write or talked about it as if it doesn’t concern them. This explains why there is a lack of a strong definition on the term, and because of this, the term has been conveniently used all over the place to describe and illustrate many things:

In athletics and sports, reaching one's full potential means reaching one's maximum point of physical performance. Sometime before a sports competition, an athlete will train and condition his body up to until when the competition day comes his body would be able to produce out its best performance. Reaching one's full potential in sports is also often called "peaking".
In religious or spiritual speeches or texts, reaching one's full potential could mean reaching a point of contentment in one's life. It also marks the point when you would feel satisfied with what you do in life, with your relations with others and with God.
In Buddhism, reaching one's full potential may be interpreted as reaching the point of "enlightenment" or the highest level of consciousness. For a Yoga practitioner, reaching one's full potential may be interpreted as reaching the highest level of synchronization of the mind and the body.
In certain professions like for example in dancing or acting, reaching your full potential means reaching the highest point of excellence in your ability to perform.

As described above, the term “reaching your full potential” is widely used by many and for quite a diverse type of communication. These many uses may confuse you and it will be quite impossible for you to reach your full potential if you do not have a strong hold on its true definition.

However, if you take into consideration of all the above uses you will notice a trend: the term is used again and again to motivate people to achieve a desirable result in them. This helps us to clearly define the true meaning of the term:

Reaching your full potential is achieving what you desire in yourself.

This is the ultimate definition to the term. Learn it and then learn it again until you truly understand.

The second part of this post, which will explain you why you would like to reach your full potential, will be published soon. In the meantime, feel free to drop me any related comments or questions.

Photo crédit : he(art)geek

3 ways to deliver your work on time

noreply@blogger.com (Rian Aznani) — Fri, 06 Nov 2009 23:42:00 +0000

Have you ever voluntarily delayed delivering your work only to later realize that you should have submitted it earlier? I have done this on numerous occasions and have regretted it each time.

Here, I am not referring to work that has an externally-imposed deadline, such as submitting homework, or paying bills, etc. These have really simple causality-effect: if you don't do these you will be punished in some kind of way - you will either have to pay interests, delay fees, or get into some serious trouble. So you don't really have much choice.

What I am referring to here is work with self-imposed deadlines, such as updating your resume, posting on your blog, watering your garden, etc. Because the deadlines are really up to you to fix, you will have the tendency not to respect your deadlines and delay doing or finishing these type of work.

Often enough, you actually have finished doing the required job but you delayed to deliver it. This is the worst kind of procrastination, one which must be avoided at all cost.

What made us delay delivering our work? So far I have managed to identify one simple main reason - overkill perfectionism.

Overkill perfectionism

You don't need to be a perfectionist all the time. You can try to do a perfect job if you really have the time, but in most cases, believe me, time is not on your side and you will just have to be satisfied with what you already have. Overkill perfectionism will lead to procrastination.

Below are three ways you can try to avoid overkill perfectionism and deliver your work on time:

Stop worrying on what others think of you and your work

When there is no deadline involved you will likely to worry if your work and you will be able to please others.

Just be yourself and do your part with whatever skills that you have at the moment. Stop worrying too much on the results of your work and of what others think of it - and you will improve on your delivery.

To illustrate, imagine yourself as an actor in a theatrical play. You will not be able to do your acting if you mind the people who are watching you and the play. You put them out of your mind and immerse yourself in your character and lines. Remember, you focus on your viewers/readers during the planning, but during the execution focus only on delivering what you planned.

Do not plan for too long

While planning is a must, it should never take too much of your time. Usually when there are no deadlines for your work, you will likely spend a lot of time planning.

Adopt the 20/80 rule - your planning should occupy 20% of your allotted time and 80% should be spent on delivering.

Do not worry if your plans did not work out later - just re-establish another plan. Remember that a plan is a guide and is not an unbreakable law. Just be flexible about it - bend it and change it to your whims along the way. And don't let people tell you that "this is the ultimate way to do something" - kick that mindset away and create your own ways of doing things.

Do not sit on your stuff

A lot of people did not deliver their work on time because they think that their work are not yet finished and ready to be delivered or that they themselves are not yet ready to deliver their work. This may likely happen to you when you are the one who fixes the deadlines.

The answer to this problem: actually, other people don't care much if your work is ready or if you are ready. They just want to see the thing done. Surely, they will form their opinions about it, but you can just never ever satisfy everybody. Just ignore the "readiness" of your work and go deliver it. Get it out there on time.

Remember: A masterpiece is never finished.

I hope that the three methods I've described above will be of some help to you to fight overkill perfectionism and deliver your work on time. Do you have any experiences or other methods you have been practicing that would also fight off overkill perfectionism?

What you absolutely need to write well

noreply@blogger.com (Rian Aznani) — Wed, 21 Oct 2009 06:53:00 +0000

Photo: Rita Banerji

Some people may tell you that you need passion to write. Others may want you to acquire some copywriting skills. There are also others who cannot write without their muse. While all these people could be speaking the truth, I would rather tell you that what you absolutely need to write well are words.

In form, words are strung together to make a sentence. A few sentences are group together to make a paragraph of an article, letter or a sonnet for a poem. This we all know.

But in essence, words are much more. They represent ideas, thoughts, emotions, personality, culture, beliefs and so many other things. Words can also be written or spoken, and can also be communicated to another with gestures or even with a simple look. Words are one's ultimate means of self expression.

Of course, it helps to be passionate, to have some copywriting skills and to have your muse around to be able to write. However, you still need words to write and they are the only thing you may ever need: words are inspiring all by themselves. They can give you passion, better your copywriting skill and tickle your muse - should you need these elements to write well.

To those who love writing and wish to excel in the craft I have only one advice for you: master your words!

Failure is a part of life

noreply@blogger.com (Rian Aznani) — Thu, 21 May 2009 15:22:00 +0000

I have not written a post in this blog for nearly two months. The reason is because I was too occupied redefining the blog's concept and design. If you have been visiting this blog regularly, you may have noticed the many of the changes.

It all started with envy

It started out two months ago when I visited a new blog belonging to a friend, and was surprised to find it to be very trendy and modern, or some may use the term very "web 2.0". There were interactive sliders, sleek navigation links, buttons, up-to-date widgets, the works. My blog looked dull and very boring compared to this.

Then I began to wonder if I am ever going to succeed in increasing my readership with a very "simplistic" looking blog. This is when I decided to totally change my blog's concept and design - a decision that illustrate well my conviction and devotion to the "SOMC spirit", stepping out of my cave and do something challenging.

I later went to several websites in search of a new Blogger template that would suit my blog's magazine concept and finaly settled for the Zinmag Primus 2.0 template. It was originally a Wordpress template created by Jinsona Designs and was converted into a Blogger template by Falcon Hive. It took me huge efforts and quite sometime to apply it on my blog. When I was finished my blog looked fantastic!

Short-lived success

However, I was not happy for long. After a week or so I've noticed some loading problems on my blog. Not only that it took longer for the blog to load altogether, sometimes a few of the images did not load at all. At first I thought that the problem may have been caused by my blog's image hosting site Photobucket. Later, it crossed my mind that it could probably be the Zinmag Primus template's fault - being originally designed for Wordpress, the template depended heavily on self-hosted images (most Wordpress blogs are self-hosted I believe). It could be that the template is just unsuitable for Blogger hosted blogs.

Whatever the reason that caused the problems, and after a very long and hard battle, I finally decided to call it a quits an reverted everything back to before.

Lesson learned

Why am I telling you all this? Why am I admitting to you here that I have failed my attempt to redesign my blog? And why am I not ashamed to tell you about it?

The very important lesson I've learned here is that, if we already tried hard enough but did not acheive the results we wanted, we must at some point of time admit to ourself that we have failed, close the book and move on. My point is that it is completely okay to fail. There is no shame in failure because success and failure are both equally important elements of life and of the SOMC spirit. If we are afraid of failure we will never going to be able to step out far enough from our cave and from the things that we are familiar with. How can we progress to our next level of potential in life if we are hindered by our fear of failure? I will go as far as telling you that failure is a must.

You must fail in order to succeed and you must be successful in order to fail.

Ponder upon this and tell me your thoughts.

Update: I am currently working on another design project on this blog and am trying to apply the Professional Template from Our Blogger Templates. Wish me luck!

Dangers of high fat intake in our diet

noreply@blogger.com (Rian Aznani) — Tue, 24 Mar 2009 23:42:00 +0000

Mmm... yummy!! (Photo credit : Zakkety3000)

Fat is essential to the human body. Other than shielding us from cold, fat helps nutrient absorption, nerve transmission and maintaining cell membrane integrity. However, when consumed in excess amount, fat contributes to weight gain and heart disease.

If we eat food containing a significant amount of fat daily, not only we are going to increase the amount of fats in our body and resulting to obesity, but also we are going to increase the amount of fat in our blood.

Excessive fat in blood may be the cause of tiredness and overweight

High levels of fat (triglycerides) in the blood decreases the oxygen carrying capacity of the blood. Triglycerides are naturally sticky and will cause the red blood cells to stick to one another thus reducing their capacity to carry oxygen throughout the body.

When our body lacks oxygen, we will often feel tired because our cells, muscles and organs which need a certain amount of oxygen to function in an optimum way may not be able to do so. A lack of oxygen may also make us gain unnecessary weight as our body will be unable to burn stored fat, which is a process requiring a considerable amount of oxygen.

Excessive fat in blood may also cause heart attack

More seriously than weight gain, when there is a significant amount of fat in the blood, you will have a higher risk of getting a heart attack:

the thickening of the blood will cause platelets (blood clotting element) to become more active and to suddenly form clots. A clot in the heart artery will cause a heart attack,

also, if you suddenly become active or stressed - a situation where your body needs a jumping dose of oxygen, your heart will be pumping like crazy to circulate the very little oxygen left in the blood and this will cause a heart attack.

Reducing our fat intake

Most people are currently in a high fat intake diet and should be very concerned of the above health related problems and cut back on their fat intake. Here are a few effective ways, as proposed by most experts, to reduce our fat intake :

Use skim or low fat dairy products.
Use less butter, margarine, salad dressing, sauces and gravies.
Choose lean meat and trim all viable fat from meat and poultry prior to cooking or eating.
Bake, grill, roast, boil, or broil foods instead of frying them. Fry very occasionally and use olive oil.
Beware of the hidden fats in snacks : biscuits, cookies, cakes, doughnuts, chocolates and pastries.

While it is very beneficial for us to reduce our fat intake by doing all the above, in order to stay healthy we must also eat more vegetables and fruits, and exercise often.

Are you already doing some of the above to reduce your fat intake? Have you seen or feel any changes for doing so in your daily life? Send us your comments.

10 Most Popular Resolutions for 2009

noreply@blogger.com (Rian Aznani) — Sat, 17 Jan 2009 20:00:00 +0000

The dawn of a new year warrants the making of resolutions (photo credit: goddessofxanadu)

Making new resolutions is an annual tradition that many of us will indulge in at the beginning of a new year. The reasons for doing so varies of course. Some will make resolutions because they are serious about wanting to improve themselves during the coming year. Others do it for fun.

Whatever the reason, making a resolution is not a simple process. It requires one to look in his past, or at least at his current situation and to admit to his weaknesses. Only then he will be able to decide on the changes he is willing to undertake to rectify them. Admitting to one's own shortcomings is not something that most of us will freely do.

10 most popular resolutions for 2009

In order to help you make your resolutions this year, I have done a bit of research on the internet and have compiled a list of 10 most popular resolutions for 2009. This list starts from the most to the least popular resolutions:

Lose Weight or Get Fit
Manage Finances and Debt
Quit Smoking
Help Others
Quit Drinking
Spend More Time with Family
Learn Something New
Get Organised
Enjoy Life More
Get a Better Job

It is interesting to note that Health and Finances are two of most people's major concerns. It is also interesting to note that Health related resolutions occupy three of the five most highest in the list - if we count in Quit Smoking and Quit Drinking.

Making the best resolutions

The list above states what are the most popular resolutions but not the best resolutions. You may use the list as a reference to help you make your resolutions but the best resolutions are made by adhering to a few simple rules:

Be realistic and set achievable goals
Be less general and describe your resolutions in specific terms
Break large goals into smaller achievable ones
Aim for things that are truly important to you
Don’t overload yourself and set only a few resolutions
Tell people who cares for you about your resolutions
Apply changes to your life gradually

Research shows that only 30% of resolutions are achieved. The list above will help you make the best achievable resolutions.

Other than following the above rules if you would really like to ensure that you will achieve your resolutions you will need to heed the following advice :

Stop procrastinating and start immediately
Reward yourself when you achieve your objectives
Never give up

Happy New Year, Happy Resolution Making and best of luck!

The all new SOMC blog hopes to help you organise, manage and enrich your lifestyle

noreply@blogger.com (Rian Aznani) — Thu, 08 Jan 2009 17:15:00 +0000

Will the SOMC blog become this beautiful wall collage? (photo credit: KellyLWatson)

The SOMC blog has been revamped since a few days ago. It has a new look of course, but more importantly it has a new mission – to help readers to organise, manage and enrich their lifestyle. The blog hopes to achieve this by providing relevant information and useful tools concerning the subject.

Why lifestyle?

The SOMC blog has been created three months ago with the initial objective to provide readers with practical personal development tips and tricks. Today, I have chosen lifestyle as the new main subject because firstly, this is simply a topic I am much more happier to blog about. Secondly, I also think that this subject is more interesting to my readers.

I believe that most of this blog’s visitors are not searching for personal development tips and tricks but are more interested in thoughts, opinions and discussions regarding the different options we have in our life today. These different options when put together will form something that we would likely call a “lifestyle”. In this blog I hope to discuss with readers these different lifestyle options.

A new voice

The SOMC will also carry a new voice. It will never anymore be a blog for presentation of ideas but a blog that generates ideas. This is essential because ultimately, no one idea is the very best idea. For this purpose, all future postings and sidebar items will change to initiate more interactivity and discussions among this blogs visitor, transforming this blog in some kind of a blog forum.

All of this is, of course, a very ambitious project that will only be successful with your kind help and encouragements.

Do you know what you really want?

noreply@blogger.com (Rian Aznani) — Thu, 01 Jan 2009 13:35:00 +0000

After reading about the “6 elements that influence our self improvement effort” in my previous post, you must be wondering – how are we going to get better in those 6 elements? The answer to this question is – you don’t want to do that.

Okay, what is the catch here? First I presented you the 6 elements and then I tell you not to bother about improving on them. Let me explain you why.

Focus. That is why. You need to have focus on what you are trying to improve on and not about the 6 elements. The reason I presented you the elements is so that you may be aware of them. But hey, what you really must be focusing on is what you want, and not what you need.

Lets take the same example from my previous post – last time I have told you that I am interested to improve on my cooking skills. But based on my last assessment of the 6 elements - I lack knowledge in this area. Now, does this mean that I should go to the library and bookstore to find books to read about cooking? Of course not! I shouldn't be worried too much on my lack of knowledge in cooking. What I should do instead is just cook!

The more I cook the more experience and knowledge I will gain. The more experience I have, the easier it will be for me to discuss about the subject with my friends and to understand articles about cooking and cooking recipes (yes, you must read when you can but must not make this your main preoccupation).

The example above shows us a very important rule in self-improvement: focus on what you want (and not on what you need). Repeat this to yourself 10 times a day and you will be improving a lot faster in the things you aim for in life.

Searching for my blog’s soul

noreply@blogger.com (Rian Aznani) — Sat, 27 Dec 2008 08:27:00 +0000

Evolution anyone? (Photo credit: Edi Mccrappy)

Last night I read an interesting blog post entitled something like “Finding your true voice”. It’s a pity that I didn’t bookmark or take any notes about the website so that I can share it here with you - it was 3 am and I was rushing to finish off my surfing to go to sleep.

The post is interesting because it points out how important it is for a blogger to find his writing style. This is actually my current preoccupation with regards to my blogging: when reading a few of my old posts here I have somewhat felt that they sounded like the lectures I’ve received back in my university years. My posts have simply been written in a very academic style.

It was never my intention to do so. I guess the academic style came out because I was unconsciously being too serious when writing my posts and because I felt that I was writing about serious things that I must somehow control my writing and not to do any mistakes. This of course is spiritually against the main objective and the soul of this blog, which is to promote to people the courage to step out of their cave of the familiar, to discover and to explore the world.

This is why things are going to change in this blog. The first thing that I am going to change here is my writing style: from this point I will be writing in a relaxed manner, hoping that my true voice will come out soon. This particular voice will hopefully make my postings unique and interesting to readers.

The second thing I’m going to change is this blog’s layout and presentation, which I felt, looked too serious and frankly very boring – don’t you think so? My blog is about exploring and doing new things, things which are out of the ordinary and stuff like that. Currently my blog doesn’t reflect this – and that is going to change.

What about yourself? Do you have a blog or a website? Regardless of its popularity, do you think you are writing with your true voice? Does your blog’s or website’s layout and presentation reflect your own personality or its own soul and purpose of existence?

6 elements that influence our self-improvement efforts

noreply@blogger.com (Rian Aznani) — Fri, 19 Dec 2008 23:26:00 +0000

How often do you ask yourself why you felt that you have not improved much on some areas, while knowing that you have put in all the necessary effort needed to progress in these areas?

Actually, try as we may, concentrating on our efforts alone would not guarantee us a very fast or effective improvement in an area of our choosing. There are other factors, that we may not be aware of, that would influence our efforts to the extent that they would also determine our success.

What are these elements?

As shown in the graphic above, the six elements that will surely influence our efforts to self-improve are :

1) Healthy body
2) Positive counsel
3) Proper mindset
4) Proper environment
5) Knowledge
6) Values

These elements are external and internal factors that will influence our efforts. In short, each time when we are working on to improve ourselves on something, these elements are going to kick in and will determine whether we would be able to improve fast or slow on the things we are trying to work on.

How does these elements influence us?

To better illustrate how they influence us in our efforts, lets play a short game :

First, pick an imaginary or even a real area that you would like to improve yourself on. For this game I will pick "cooking" - yes, I must admit that there are not many dishes I know how to cook (have ever tried to cook). Now pick yours.

Secondly, for the area of improvement you've picked ("cooking" for me here), answer the questions below, truthfully (need it be said?) :

a) Do I know enough things to improve on this area (Knowledge)?
- Me: not very much
- You:_____

b) Can I safely do this without getting too tired to do my other chores (Healthy body)?
- Me: yes
- You:_____

c) Do I have a friend who can give me some tips and help me (Positive counsel)?
- Me: yes, my wife
- You:_____

d) Am I really ready to improve on this area (Proper mindset)?
- Me: truthfully, I don't know
- You:_____

e) Can I make myself enough time to work on this area (Proper environment)?
- Me: maybe I'll start on the weekends
- You:_____

f) Will I have enough patience to do this (Values)?
- Me: yes
- You:_____

Each of the question above represents an element that will influence our self-improvement effort. After answering these questions we will have a basic idea which element have positive and which have negative influence on our effort.

For example, considering my answers above, I might be having quite a hard time to improve on "cooking" but I know that it is quite possible for me to do so!

Good & bad influence

Now, looking at the elements from this angle you would probably have figured it out: yes, these elements could either help us or burden us in our progress.

If a few of the elements helps us then that is good, but what about the other few that slows us down? Shall we do something about them, like change them and improve on them so that they will not be a burden anymore?

For now, I will let you ponder on this question. Be sure to check out my next post on this blog when I reveal the answer. Stay tuned!

Hint: you can easily stay tuned by subscribing to this blog RSS feed, email feed or simply by becoming a follower (see these options on the sidebar).

The 9 Most Important Areas of Self-Improvement

noreply@blogger.com (Rian Aznani) — Thu, 27 Nov 2008 21:27:00 +0000

What am I looking at here? (Photo credit: shuttershrink)

Setting up goals is a very good way for us to have a clear vision in what we are aiming to improve in ourselves. However, if you look carefully at your goals, you will notice that there are some similarities between some of them. These similarities will enable us to regroup them under themes which I would call "Areas of Self-Improvement".

9 Most Important Areas of Self-Improvement

1) Health
2) Outlook - your personal appearance, how you look
3) Thinking - your critical thinking, your mindset
4) Behavior - how you act, how you do things
5) Communication
6) Effectiveness & Productivity
7) Finances
8) Career
9) Relationship

The above are the most important areas I have managed to identify throughout my study of goals. Please note that these areas have not been listed according to their level of importance - I have numbered them up to facilitate yourself and myself to count them and be sure that all nine of them are really there and that I have not forgotten any!

Which area of self-improvement is more important than another?

The attribution of level of importance for each of the above listed areas is a very subjective matter. This is because each of the areas have its own level of importance which is different for each and everyone of us. A person may be in a good position in some areas but are lacking in improvement in others.

I for instance, consider myself in a good position of improvement in "Outlook", "Thinking" and "Behavior" but bad in "Health", "Career" and "Finances". This means that I will have to focus more of my efforts to improve in this three areas of self-improvement.

Practical Approach

Yes, you have guessed it - take out your notebook and a pen.

Draw three columns on a page and name each of them "Good", "Medium" and "Bad" - Its okay to consider yourself bad in something, with the view to improve on them.

Now consult the above list of areas of self-improvement and write them down in the columns according to your own perspective on how they should be classified for you.

Better : show the list to someone who knows you well and trustful (family members for instance, or very close friends) and ask them their opinion on your classification - you may get some surprises as they may have totally different ideas about you. Do take into consideration of their opinions.

Keep this list somewhere you can consult from time to time. Use it when setting up your goals, to remind yourself of which areas you would need to keep focusing your efforts on.

How to stay the course to reach your goals : The Weekly Summary

noreply@blogger.com (Rian Aznani) — Sun, 09 Nov 2008 08:04:00 +0000

Am I still on the right track? (Photo credit: monohex)

After your making your goals list (see my last post on this subject), you may be wondering, like myself : How do I know if I am nearing to any of these goals? How do I know if I am on the right track and am progressing as well as I hoped I would? These questions will definitely be playing in your mind.

Last week I had a very busy time at work : it was budgeting season. I was so occupied that I came back late from work nearly everyday and didn't spend as much time with my family as I usually would. I probably haven't even done a single thing that can be qualified as reaching my goals. I was worried if I could ever find time to do things to accomplish my goals.

I sat down and began scribbling away with my notepad trying to figure out a plan to remedy this problem. Suddenly, there it was in my notepad. I've figured out the solution : The Weekly Summary!

The Weekly Summary

What is a Weekly summary? Okay, firstly the Weekly Summary is not a Weekly Planner. A weekly Planner is a tool that has columns with dates and time, which you would find in most Agendas and is widely used by some of us to plan our week ahead.

A Weekly Summary is a snapshot of our life last week.

What is in a Weekly Summary?

Now take out your notepad and pen lets do our Weekly Summary.

On a blank page, draw out three columns, or even horizontal lines if you wish. The objective is to have three separate sections on your blank page. Now, you will have to fill up inside each of these sections with the following :

1) What I did last week

List down in this section all the things you have done last week that you deem important to you, or was quite a challenge but you did anyway, or things which had consumed a lot of your time last week. Examples from my own section :
- Finished most of my budgeting work at the office
- Customized my blog (added buttons)
- Increased the number of my LinkedIn connections
- Got in touch with long lost friends

2) What I missed out to do last week

In this section you will list down all the things that you wish you did, or you planned to do but didn't, or things you have forgotten to do last week. My section looked like this:
- Come back from work early and spend more time with my family
- Write a new draft or my blog

3) What I plan to do next week

List down here all the things you are planning to do and you know that you can do in the next coming week. It may or not be the things you have listed in the previous section, but I suggest that you keep this list short and simple - you don't have to do everything in your life in one week! For example, my list looked like this :
- Prepare for my trip to France
- Prepare necessary resources for my family while I'm in France
- Start various year-end tasks at work
- Start marketing my blog (after posting this)

Benefits of the Weekly Summary

After jotting down this list I am sure that you will be quite surprised at the number of things you managed to do last week. If you look closely you will also see that some of them are really things that will bring you closer to your goals! So, you did improve on yourself last week!

Do you see it now? Sometimes when we are too occupied with work, studies or simply living out our life, we tend to forget that we really are improving in life.

Myself, I am using the Weekly Summary to evaluate where I have been, where I am now and where I am going.

This knowledge is very important to me and I'm sure to you too, mainly because it brings us the wonderful sense of purpose and security, and gives us the daily courage to "step out of our cave"!

About Myself

noreply@blogger.com (Rian Aznani) — Sun, 02 Nov 2008 07:30:00 +0000

The SOMC Lifestyle

The SOMC Lifestyle is a blog that promotes personal development through the adoption of fearless lifestyle habits and attitude. SOMC is the abbreviation for "Stepping Out of My Cave".

The Founder

Rian Aznani is the Public Affairs and Corporate Communication Manager of a multinational corporation.

He discovered blogging in 2008 and has since founded the SOMC Lifestyle to share his passion and philisophies of personal development. He later founded the Decisive Business Ninja blog to share his love and expertise on business development.

He lives in the city of Kuala Lumpur in Malaysia with his wife and three children. His favourite pastime activities are reading and writing.

Contact SOMC Lifestyle

Email : somclifestyle@gmail.com

Contact Rian Aznani
LinkedIn : my.linkedin.com/in/rianaznani

Twitter: twitter.com/#!/rianaznani

Facebook : www.facebook.com/rian.aznani

How to start your personal development - Part 2 : Goals

noreply@blogger.com (Rian Aznani) — Sun, 02 Nov 2008 00:00:00 +0000

Color your life with colorful ideas! (Photo credit: ripplemdk)

In this second part of the practical course of starting up our personal development we will be learning how to set our goals! By simple definition, goals are the things that you wish to accomplish in the future. We will learn later in the following paragraphs that goals are much more than this.

Why do we need goals?

Goals are very important and we need them in order to move forward in our everyday life. Some may say that we need goals because it helps us to get from point A to point B, or it helps us to prioritize our actions, or be more focused in life. All this may be a part of the answer to why we need to have goals. However, the real answer to why we need goals in our life is so that we may feel more secure. That is why!

When explaining the curious title of this blog in my first post, I have pointed out that we all have within ourselves "the fear of the unfamiliar". Well, goals will help us to suppress this fear. While the Milestones list we have created in the first part of this guide will help us to start believing in ourselves and build courage, it will be the goals in this second part that will ultimately make us step out of our cave!

Set up a Goals list!

After the Milestones list we will now create a Goals list! Now, go get a pen and a piece of paper so that we may proceed.

Your Goals list is very much different from your Milestones mainly because it is more flexible in terms of its content. You will change your Goals list will change from time to time according to the current things you are aiming for - which most likely will change as you move forward in life and discover new things to do and to want.

The best goals

The best goals are the quantifiable ones. For example "Earn $1000 a month from my side-businesses". Goals like this will make it easy for you to check where you currently are in comparison to your goal and also if you have accomplish this goal.

Other goals like "Become an entrepreneur" or "Start a new blog" are also good for your Goals list for the same above reasons. The type of goals you should steer away from for your Goals list are basically those which are too general like "Become a better person" or "Become a good blogger". While these goals are good for self-inspiration, they are a no-no for your Goals list.

Set your goals high and low

You must have a good mix of range for your goals. If there are too many goals set too high in your list, you may be discouraged in the short run because you will feel that you have become stagnant when you are unable to accomplish most of them.

If most of your goals are set too low, they will be too easy to be accomplished and you will have less long term vision. The best is to have your list made out of mostly fairly easy to accomplish goals.

Share your goals list

As recommended in the first part of this personal development guide concerning the Milestones list, it is also recommended to share your Goals list with others.

The reason you are sharing your goals with others is not to create a sense of obligation or commitment within yourself to accomplish your set of goals. The principal reason for sharing your goals with others is so that these goals may inspire others to set up their own goals or for them to connect with you because both of you share similar, if not the same, goals in life.

If your Goals list is ready and you have chosen to share it through the Internet like myself (check My Goals section in the right column), feel free to send me the link to your side in the comments section of this post. Good luck!

How to start your personal development - Part 1 : Milestones

noreply@blogger.com (Rian Aznani) — Sun, 26 Oct 2008 00:56:00 +0000

The best thing to start with for your personal development is to write down a list of past and current achievements. I personally call this the Milestones list! Creating a Milestones list is what I did first in my quest to become a better person.

A Milestones list is important as it may help us realize who we are and that actually, we are really not who we think we are! The list will show us that we are definitely not someone who is "average", "below average" nor "a failure". The list will also show us that we have what it takes to reach our goals in life.

List down your milestones!

Okay, lets get a pen and a piece of paper and start our list. Now, what should we write in this list?

Well, everything that you did or currently do that you feel you can be proud of!!

Now, I know that modesty is a virtue but please, for your own self-improvement sake, don't try to be modest in your Milestones list.

Also note that the items in your Milestones list are subjective. What is considered an achievement by one may not be considered the same by another - beauty is in the eye of the beholder. So I urge you not to worry about this because mainly, the Milestones list is your list and is created for yourself! Not for others!

I for instance, am thankful and proud of myself for having completed my bachelor and masters degrees in France, for being able to speak three languages, for having married the woman I love, for being able to be there when my child is born, and the list goes on and on.

Enshrine your list for daily inspiration

The best for you is to write down your Milestones list and enshrine it somewhere visible so that you may check on it again and again to remind yourself how hard you have worked to achieve them and how you lucky you are to be yourself.

I have chosen to enshrine my Milestones list here in this blog so that I may also share it with you. Check out the box entitled "My Milestones" located on the right hand column here. In this box I've simply listed a few of the latest achievements I am proud of. I will update the box from time to time for new ones.

Your Milestones list did not need to be in an electronic form like mine. You can create the list in a on a photo album and use photos instead of words. Or, if you are crafty enough, you may use a scrapbook and add visually pleasing elements to highlight your list. It is up to you to choose the medium for your Milestones list.

Share it with others

I highly recommend that your share your Milestones list with others. This is because it will be beneficial for you to share what you are proud of with other people. It will also be beneficial for them as they would be able to be inspired by your list for their own personal development. But, please never forget that your Milestones list is your personal list and has been created for you!

If you have created a Milestones list in your blog or website please leave your link address in the comments section for this post and share it with me and others.

Good luck and see you in the second part of this guide!

Stepping Out Of My Cave

noreply@blogger.com (Rian Aznani) — Tue, 21 Oct 2008 10:55:00 +0000

Hello everyone!

Today I am very proud and delighted to announce you that I have finally started my own blog! Yes, this blog you are reading is it!

Since I am new at blogging and really have no idea on what to write on my first post, I guess I can start by writing on why I named my blog “Stepping Out Of My Cave”.

Origins of the curious blog name

This blog’s name has been inspired from an article entitled “Getting Unstuck” written by Chuck Lawson, a Personal Advancement Coach, on his website www.personaladvancement.com

In the article he explained that even after 100,000 years of evolution, the human mind still contains the primitive thinking that made us feel that one small mistake in making a decision may result to some very serious trouble. He wrote “Anytime you decide to do something new, you are stepping outside “the cave of the familiar” into unknown territory where you are likely to experience some form of fear”.

Suppressing our fear of the unfamiliar

This fear of doing or trying something new must not remain in ourselves. If we are to develop ourselves into better persons we really must suppress this fear and get out of our comfort zone to do and try new things that would be beneficial for our personal development. Maybe, we could never completely erase this fear of new things from ourselves but we could at least try our best not to be hindered by it in our efforts to progress in life.

What is my blog is all about?

This blog has been created so that I may share with you my efforts in a quest to become a better person. For this, I intend to share with you practical approaches that are useful for you to achieve career and personal development excellence.

I am hoping that in my journey to achieve my objectives, I may also be of some help to you in achieving your own objectives in life.

Contact

noreply@blogger.com (Rian Aznani) — Tue, 21 Oct 2008 00:13:00 +0000

Please use the form below to contact the the SOMC Editorial Team. We would be delighted to hear your comments and suggestions.

Thank you!