Communications & Relationships

With all my five years of learning about self development, simply put, it is all about our communications and relationships. Think about it, isn’t it all about our daily communications and our relationships with our boss, colleagues, subordinates, friends, spouse and children and parents? Whether you are the Chief Executive Officer, Director in Human Resource, Marketing, finance or an entreprenuer in real estate, insurance or an employee, you need to communicate to build relationships. We communicate with people all the time. Before we communicate with people, we actually communicate with ourselves first. Do you agree? This is something we grapple and struggle with and complicate things when we don’t understand why things go wrong. Why are we upset? why are we frustrated, angry, anxious, and all the negative feelings that you can think of. If this is not how you feel, congratulations! You are feeling happy, great and fantastic!

You have a great relationship with yourself! Yes, I do mean relationship with yourself. This is what I feel is all about the relationships with yourself. Some call it self-leadership, some call it self management and some, self responsibility, self empowerment or self-discovery. If you have read about what you feel is a reflection of yourself, you would understand that the people who come into our lives are there to teach us something. Something that we cannot see about ourselves. "Blind spots".

That is an opportunity to learn something and change if you do not like how you feel. Only you can change it. Remember, you create your reality, you can choose how you feel. When you have a great relationship with yourself, you can empower yourself to accept the other person for who they are and who they are not. You may say ,”It’s so easy for you to say!” Yes, it is easy for me to say, you are right. I did not say it is simple, did I? Now, it is for you to decide. Decide now! "It is the decision you make that determines your destiny, and not the conditions of your life that determines your destiny"; I quote Anthony Robbins.

That is why we call this a self-discovery journey. It is the process of deciding to take self responsibility to be happy, joyful, wealthy & successful. Self empowerment is a journey of discovery of who you are. This is the journey of my coaching experiences. It is challenging for me to explain what is life coaching. I am not going to attempt to do so. It is something you feel in the process of the change that you decide to make. This is why I enjoyed coaching so much and still do because of what it had given me. Happiness and joy. Isn’t this what we all want? My journey was long, it took me three years to see some changes in my life, yes, three years. Sounds like I was a hard nut to crack. Maybe. There is a Chinese saying, “It takes 3 seconds to pick up bad habits and 3 years to replace with good ones.” Habits are really challenging to change.

Let’s explore further. Why you? Isn’t it about people making me angry because they are unreasonable, they are lazy, they are slow, they are impatient? Sounds like a blame game isn’t it? Well, I did not know that. I wasn’t taught life skills in school. We were taught to study not to 'think', back in those days. Even now the focus is still on academic achievements. The art and science of effective communications and building relationships very much neglected.

That is where self responsbility will shift your mindset. I attended a 3 hours seminar by Mr Marshal Thurber about three years ago, I was invited by Wendy Kwek whom I am thankful for. I invested S$38.00 for that talk. What I got out of it was a shift in my mindset. I realised that I could live up to 120 years old. Some people may think that I am naive. Somehow, I believe what I heard. The truth is, at that time I don’t know who is Marshal Thurber.

I was on a momentum of learning about self development, about myself, it was a self discovery for me to go to seminars and courses after courses. No regrets! The best investment I have made is to invest in myself. This shift of mindset that I could live another life time was a revelation for me. I had before that thought to myself that I was going to retire in my late forties. That was how I spoke to myself. My self-dialogue. No wonder people say, “You are what you think”. You may ask, so what would that do for you? What would that give you? A lot, but two words sums it up, happiness and joy. I don’t often feel joyful. If I do, it is a special moment with myself. That is what some call it “Sweet Spot“. I found my ’sweet spot’ in the swimming pool, swimming slowing, being grateful and blessed to be able to swim in such tranquility and loving myself. It’s like a quiet time for myself. The relationship with yourself. Love yourself first. You have more to give. This is another shift of my mindset. I used to think that loving yourself is selfish, but it is different from self-centredness. I had a distinction of what it is.

So be aware of what you think every second and every minute for that shapes you; But first find out who you are, you will be surprised to find gems! A diamond waiting to be polished, or a polished diamond waiting to be repolished. Wouldn’t it be worth it?