Time Snowball, The Irresistible Power of Persistent Action!

I have noticed that when I have important work or project hanging over my head, and I procrastinate and don’t start working on it as soon as possible, or don’t finish it, I feel like I am carrying a heavy load around. I feel like I am going uphill on a bumpy road. Going forward, I will try to smoothen my path, and unload my bag by starting on important projects, and finish what I start.

Since “the road to success is paved with goals”, I try to have goals for the year, month, week, and day. With the new year a couple of hours away, I would like to put my goals in writing. I have written some of them in various places already, so this will be a consolidation.

1. Chess: Play through all games of Bobby Fischer that I can find. Currently, there are about 960 games that I found. That works out to be about 3 a day. My intention is to annotate at least 1 in every 5 games that I play through. I will post the annotated games at my Chess blog(s), and I will keep a spreadsheet on Google docs to track my progress. I think I will recover some of my Chess playing strength through this exercise/goal.

2. Family: Be a “better” son, brother, nephew, cousin, x-in-law, boyfriend –> fiance –>husband. Get married [This is a beautifully complicated goal. For example, for this to be done successfully, I have to meet my two families, and have them meet each other,… which is a goal on its own. In addition, I would like (us = MKX & I) to shoulder the costs of all the “events” related to this. Thus, some financial goals have to be met. There are also a bunch of other things that will have to be successfully addressed. Heaven is in the details

3. Social: Get involved. I would like to “hang out” more. Get to know people better.  So far, I have four ideas: join a club (chess or other), volunteer, join toastmasters (to improve my public speaking because I see myself working with groups of people at some point), and/or rejuvenate the relationships that I had/have.

4. Spiritual: Go to church every Sunday. Pray daily. Meditate on God. Blog about my spiritual thoughts and experiences at one of my blogs.

5. Financial: Save at least 50% of what I earn. Help out. Give Thanks. Know as much about Investing as I know about Accounting.

6. Health: Workout daily, even if it is just stretching and “same-spot running” for 5 minutes. Positive thinking.

7. Career: Make some moves towards becoming an SAP Financials Expert/Consultant in 5 years.

8. Habits: Eliminate and replace the bad with good ones. Track activities that are habit-forming.

9. Practice Happiness: Develop happiness rituals. (Gratitude, for example.)

10. 101 goals in 1001 days: Review and work on remaining goals on that list. Add more.

Some of the goals do not meet the “SMART” criteria. That is okay with me. The details will be fleshed out in due time. Some goals can only meet some of the “Specific, Measurable, Attainable, Relevant and Timed” requirement. Some goals provide a general direction in which you want your life to change. Aspirations may be a better world.

To 2010 and the rest of my life! To 2010 and the rest of my life!

Technorati Tags: 2010, career, goals, happiness

On  December 19th, 2009, I found out that I passed the last of my CPA exams! It looks like the effort I put into various places, including this blog, trying to motivate myself to study, paid off.

Here is a list of some of people who helped me on my CPA journey. Many thanks!

I intend to keep blogging at this site to motivate myself to track and accomplish various “monumental” goals.

Merry Christmas!

Technorati Tags: cpa exam, goals

That is all I can say today. To get things done, plug away! Just do it.
The remaining 80 questions are done. It took almost 3 hours of study. I started at 7:30pm and I finished around 10:18pm. I am tired. I have a slight headache (from focusing too much on the computer and playing around with spreadsheets at work). I feel great though. Emotionally. I look forward to starting a new study unit tomorrow. Hopefully, I will study my notes in the morning, between 6am and 7am, like I did today. I am feeling more confident as stuff gets done. I am glad that I have started with the tough, no fun part of the section, taxation. It is also the most heavily tested. Eat that frog

I woke up with a bad headache today and it kept getting worse as I tried to sleep, read email, browse the internet, think, or just rest. At around 3pm, I decided to get out of bed and study even though studying was the last thing I felt like doing. I started studying, then stopped to prepare lunch, and decided to do laundry between breaks. I noticed that the activities made my headache disappear. It did not go away right away, but I felt a lot better. About two hours later, after 2 loads of laundry, 30 multiple choice questions, dinner, and some de-cluttering I was completely healed. So, when I am not feeling great, whether it is physical or mental or emotional, and I can safely engage in some activity, I will try to do that.
It is now 11:27pm. I am about to go to bed, and I am proud of how I have spent the last 8 hours. Laundry done and clothes put away. Dinner prepared and eaten. Bedroom much lighter and more organized. Some serious studying done, 85 of 165 MCQs. Talked to MKX. Exercised. Showered. Resolved some work stuff. Feeling more confident about the CPA exam (exactly 2 weeks away).