It’s time to return to the Career Lover series. Before we go further into The Career Lover Series to discuss about value creation and the practicality aspects of being a Career Lover, there is one point I like to discuss - why it’s dangerous not to do what you love.

Fact is, you may already know that it is best to do what you love. There are already many books and seminars with gurus professing that they achieve great success because they love what they do. If this is the case, why is it that the majority of us are still not doing what we love?

The reason is simple - it’s procrastination .

It’s no surprise. There are many things that we know we should do, but yet we still don’t do them:

• We should exercise more.
• We should give up smoking.
• We should spend more time with our family.
• We should do what we love.

There is a reason for our procrastinations. It is simply a lack of urgency to move out of one’s comfort zone - there isn’t a pain or pleasure strong enough to justify immediate actions.

Likewise it’s the same with doing what we love. Many of us know we should do it and the benefits it’ll bring. Yet many of us are procrastinating. One reason I mentioned in the introduction to this series is because people lack a practical means of translating their passion into a means of livelihood. This is an area which I hope to address in Part IV and Part V of this series.

For now, I like to address 3 common excuses people adopt to postpone doing what they love. I call them killer procrastinations. These are dangerous misconceptions that may cost you much in the long run. In addressing these 3 killer procrastinations, I hope to provide a stronger impetus for you to take actions to purse what you love.

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This blog is about leading a balanced life focusing on career, relationships and money. You can read more about balancing your life here. These articles are written for you. If you find them useful, feel free to subscribe for regular updates as new articles are posted. It's FREE. :)

Over the holidays, I have done a lot of reading and soul-searching about the work I’m doing here at A Long Long Road.

To provide readers with more tips on career, relationships and money, and also to grow A Long Long Road, I have some of the upcoming initiatives that you can look forward to in 2008.

MORE SERIES AND LIFE BALANCING TIPS

We were halfway through the Career Lover series in 2007 and I will continue with where we left off - finding happiness by pursuing a career that you are passionate about. So look out for the next part of the series in the coming week.

To complete the 3 legged stool of balanced life, I will also do a series on Relationships shortly after the Career Lover series.

I have always believed the way to strike a balance in life is through practical measures. Such measures includes productivity tips to help you save time and get more things done in a lesser time. Lately, I have been trying out David Allen’s GTD methods and I have been getting some positive results. As such, from time to time, I will be shifting gears to include productivity hacks like the recent How To Use MS OutLook And MS Excel To Track Your Resolutions.

NEW FEATURE - WHICH WAY?

Sometimes we arrive at a juncture in our life where we seem to be stuck and don’t know where to go. At times like this, it’s really helpful to have some friend around who listens and give you a pointer or two to help you move on.

In the past 6 months I have received several emails from readers with questions that they have about challenges. Some questions are for themselves and some are asking for advice on behalf of family/friends. Some simply wanted another point of view for a common issue. In all cases, I will make it a point to understand their problems and give some pointers to start them off in the right direction. It’s heartening to see someone walking away from our conversation with a bigger perspective and getting a hang around their challenges.

But I also believe that there may be other readers who can benefit from these conversations as some of these challenges are common to many people. As such, I am greatly motivated to start a new feature - Which Way?. It’s a feature where you can submit your questions and I will post them along with my replies into the blog. This not only shares the knowledge with other readers, it also allows other readers to share their experiences and two cents worth on your questions. This is surely a win-win for all.

You can find out more details on this page about Which Way?.

Depending on the actual response rate, I will be posting questions as and when there are queries from readers; with a maximum of one Which Way? post per week.

NEW FEATURE - RECOMMENDED READS

As you may already noticed, I have started Recommended Reads, a weekly digest of articles related to career, money or relationships. While I like offer great tips for balance and happiness, there is a limit to how much time I can commit without losing my own life balance. As such, the best way is to leverage on others’ works. In my research, there are many great resources out there about improving career, money and relationships.

I will be filtering and aggregating the best articles in this weekly digest to save readers’ time to search for quality reads.

If you are a blogger and you have good, relevant articles to recommend, feel free to send me a link to take a look.

GUEST POSTINGS

Besides writing at A Long Long Road, I will be sharing my thoughts and writings on other blogs as well.

Thanks to supportive friends who have given a vote of confidence in my writing abilities, I will be doing more guest posts in 2008. For a start, I will be doing regular guest posting at LifeHack.org, an established blog which focus on lifehacks and productivity. I have also posted some guest posts on PickTheBrain, another very established blog on lifehacks and productivity. Lastly, I was also invited to be a regular writer for Fruitful Time, a new blog also focusing on productivity and lifehacks.

Guest blogging on these blogs is not only a great affirmation of my writing skills and beliefs; it also exposes me to a bigger audience and range of life issues which I promise to contribute back to A Long Long Road.

I will be posting links to these guest posts so that readers of A Long Long Road can benefit from these articles as well.

SUBSCRIBE TO A LONG LONG ROAD

It is my goal to grow A Long Long Road into a stronger and more established blog in 2008. With these upcoming initiatives, I hope more readers will benefit - a life long journey of happiness with meaningful career, great relationships and good money. If this sounds like something that’ll be beneficial to you, remember to support these initiatives by subscribing.

How has A Long Long Road fared in 2007 and what other initiatives would you like to see in 2008? Please share your feedbacks or suggestions in the comments.

Have a great 2008 ahead!

(Photo by Army Man Chaz)

One of the common reasons that people fail their resolutions is because they don’t plan for actions to make their resolutions come true. Without a plan, there is no way to translate dreams and desires into actions. As such, later during the year, it’s very easy to get distracted by other urgent, but less important issues and forget about your resolutions.

When the end of the year arrives, it’s usually too late to do much.

Sticking to your resolutions during the year is easier if you follow a systematic process to guide your actions. Before I started using professional software tools , I planned my resolutions into MS Outlook and track them using MS Excel. It had been really helpful, and I thought I like to share them today. Below are the 6 simple steps that I use to plan and track my resolutions using MS Outlook and MS Excel.

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It’s the time of the year to review our goals and set new ones again.

For those new to A Long Long Road, I’m a firm believer in making New Year Resolutions and setting goals. When I first started setting goals, I did it with simple, old paper and pen. Later, I typed my goals into Word documents. After a few years, I moved on to goal setting/tracking software.

Goals management tools are really important to help us set goals and track them. With good tools to facilitate good goals, you’ll have a better chance of achieving them. As such, I went scouring the Internet for goal management tools for different types of users.

Below is a list of 7 tools that I think are really useful. Whether you are IT-savvy or not, you will find something useful to help you achieve your goals in 2008.

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During this holidays season, I will be taking a break from the Career Lover Series.

However, that doesn’t mean there isn’t anything happening here at A Long Long Road. Over the next few days, I will still be making some posts related to setting goals and New Year Resolutions which is going to be very relevant for readers who’s looking to start 2008 with a great frame of mind.

At the same time, I will also be making some announcements on new happenings here, which you can look forward to in 2008. So stay tuned.

Meanwhile, one of the new initiatives that I like to kickstart is a weekly digest of personal development articles - Recommended Reads. Every week, I will be scouring the Internet for high-quality and relevant articles about personal development and striking a balance. The purpose is to provide readers with additional reading value by leveraging on my blogging network.

I’m starting the first one with contributions from friends who have kindly contributed the best-of-the-best from their blog. So here’s the categorized list (in no particular order):

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Yippee! Today is Christmas Eve. I’m bursting with joy to say a BIG, BIG Merry Christmas to all my readers. I want to thank everyone for your support and I pray that your life will be blessed with happiness, joy and peace.

One of the reasons that I continue to work on this blog is the sense of satisfaction in helping people and making a difference. Other than making many new friends, I have received some emails from readers to give them some pointers about their problems in their life. Sometimes, I manage to point something out and the reader goes away with a bigger perspective and a happier person. This is the satisfaction that I derive.

On this special day, other than my Christmas gift, I like to share a very meaningful story with you. It’s not written by me, a friend emailed this story to me. Nonetheless, I believe this story will help you to end 2007 and start 2008 with a great perspective about the truly important things in life.

Enjoy the Christmas times with your family and your love ones. Merry Christmas!

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(Photo by Wysz)

Christmas is around the corner and I really want to do something special for the friends that I have acquainted on this blogging journey. I really appreciate you reading my articles and especially to those who have continuously supported ‘A Long Long Road’ in your constructive comments (I think you know who you are )

I have been thinking hard about doing something special for this Christmas and I have decided to share a Christmas gift with my blogger friends - I will be giving out free links to fellow bloggers. To get the free link to your blog, please do the following:

1. Send me the URL of any one of your articles on personal development. You can do this in the comment section of this post or via the contact form. I encourage friends to send in your most valued article that you feel will help readers a lot.
2. As part of your submission, please give a short, one paragraph synopsis of the article. Synopsis will have an impact on readers’ click-thru to your article. As such, it’s best to include a synopsis to help readers understand what your article is about.
3. As this is Christmas, the season of giving, I like to get some gifts and links as well. So if you will be so kind as to offer me a link on your blog or one of your articles, I will give more in return by linking to your blog’s homepage as well. This is on top of the link to your article. So that’s two links which will help in your Google PR or Technorati ranking.
4. I like to emphasis that the link to A Long Long Road is NOT mandatory. Do it only if you want to. As long as you make a submission, I will still give out a free link to an article of your choice.
5. My only condition is that your article must be about personal development. I really want this to be a win-win for both blogger friends and also for my readers. As such, the article must be helpful to my readers in personal development as well. And yes, I win too, if you give me a link

Due to the short lead time, I will consolidate submissions from now until end of Christmas Day, 25 Dec (Pacific Time). I will make a resource post comprising the consolidated submissions on Boxing Day, 26 Dec 2007.

Happy Holidays and Merry Christmas to everyone.

(Photo by aloshbennett)

Don’t aim at success–the more you aim at it and make it a target, the more you are going to miss it. For success, like happiness, cannot be pursued; it must ensue, and it only does so as the unintended side-effect of one’s personal dedication to a cause greater than oneself or as the by-product of one’s surrender to a person other than oneself. Happiness must happen, and the same holds for success: you have to let it happen by not caring about it. I want you to listen to what your conscience commands you to do and go on to carry it out to the best of your knowledge. Then you will live to see that in the long run–in the long run, I say–success will follow you precisely because you had forgotten to think of it.
-Viktor Frankl

Before we talk about how to become a Career Lover and aligning three dimensions of Passion, Talents and Practicality, I feel that it is important to clarify one important concept - success.

Ultimately, you want to be successful in your work and life. But do you really know what is the success that you striving for? What if the success that you’re working so hard for does not provide lasting happiness or satisfaction?

OUR MINDSET OF SUCCESS

When we speak of successful professionals, we’ll often come up with names like Bill Gates, Warren Buffet, Jack Welch, Ray Croc, Andrew Carnegie etc…

All these successful people have the following commonalities:

• Wealth - much more than they ever need in their entire lifetime.
• Fame - the media talks about them, everyone knows who they are.
• Status - highly respected, aspired and sought-after.

As such, the society has unknowingly associated success with attributes of wealth, fame and status. Even Merriam-Webster defines success as:

the attainment of wealth, favor, or eminence.

WHAT IF YOUR LADDER OF SUCCESS IS LEANING AGAINST THE WRONG WALL

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(Photo by icadrew)

It did not really matter what we expected from life, but rather what life expected from us. We need to stop asking about the meaning of life, and instead to think of ourselves as those who were being questioned by life - daily and hourly. Our answer must consist, not in talk and meditation, but in right action and in right conduct. Life ultimately means taking the responsibility to find the right answer to its problems and to fulfill the tasks which it constantly sets for each individual.

- Viktor Frankl, Holocaust Survivor and psychiatrist.

In the Money Mindset Series, I have brought up the issue of doing meaningful work and how good money management actually facilitates a freedom of choice to pursue careers that we are passionate about.

That same discussion gave me the idea to start a new series - a series about how to pursue our dream career in the modern, practical world.

This blogging journey has helped me to discover meaning in my work and a passion for expressing my thoughts through writing. I hope to share my new insights into the benefits of doing what you love, and how you too, can do the same thing…

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(Photo by Darkle Doodah Dagbar )

Can money buy happiness? If money can really buy happiness, how much would it cost?

Of course, there’s a lot of things that money can’t buy. Saying money can buy happiness does sound superficial. Perhaps to some, money and happiness are two concepts that should not even be talked about together. Well, that’s exactly contrary to what I think - money and happiness has A LOT to do with each other!

In this last part of Money Mindset Series, I like to sum up by talking about money and its relations to two important areas of our life: career and relationships .

Before I carry on, I like to qualify that I’m not the mercenary sort who believes that having lots of money equals having happiness. I do agree that money cannot buy happiness. However, in our world today, money has a lot of influences on other areas of life which leads to fulfillment.

The chart below shows the positive influence that you will have on career and relationships when you manage your money well. I will elaborate on them next.

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