Tang Sanctuary

In today’s busy world, work, household chores and social activities all put a strain on your time with your child. But as you well know, it’s imperative that you spend quality time together. It helps strengthen the bond between parent and child, and lets your child know you can be trusted and counted on. Children who spend quality time with their parents often do better in school, and excel in extracurricular activities, hobbies or sports. And though it can be ‘scheduled’ to a degree, it’s something that happens when you least expect it. Therefore it’s important that you do spend as much time as possible with your child in a relaxed atmosphere and do things together that you both enjoy.

But you’re asking yourself, “Where am I going to find the time? My schedule’s crazy enough as it is!” Well, for something as important as your child, you need to start digging around in that crazy schedule and find the time. Prioritizing is the key.

Here’s some helpful suggestions on how to make the most of your time and find quality time where you least expect it.

Look at your household chore list and decide which ones can be left undone or be done imperfectly in order to make more family time. You might also want to consider leaving certain things until after your child has gone to bed to make the most of your time together.

Turn some of your everyday routines together count. Sing some favorite silly songs on the way to daycare, or make that drive to and from school a great opportunity to discuss what’s happening in your child’s life.

If you have more than one child, realize that each of them needs your individual attention. You may really have to juggle things around to make this happen, but try to be flexible and creative when spending time with each of your kids. And no matter what, don’t skip those individual times with each child. By doing so you show them they’re lower down on the priority list than the dry cleaning or the grocery shopping.

Children thrive on stability and routines, so plan your quality times so that they can take place regularly. Maybe you can walk the dog together on weekend morning, take a shopping excursion together, have a scheduled night each week for a sit-down dinner together, or make a trip to the park.

Sometimes, communicating with our children can be a very difficult task. At times, we feel like they’re not listening to us; they feel like we’re not listening to them. Being a good listener and having good communications skills are essential to successful parenting. Your child’s feelings, views and opinions are all worthy of listening and attending to, and you should make sure you take the time to sit down and listen openly and discuss them honestly.

Human’s natural tendency is to react rather than to respond. We pass judgment based on our own feelings and experiences. On the other hand, responding means being receptive to our child’s feelings and emotions and allowing them to openly and honestly express themselves without fear of repercussion from us. By reacting, we send our child the message that their feelings and opinions are worthless. However, by responding and asking questions about why the child feels that way, it opens a dialog that allows them to discuss their feelings further, and allows you a better understanding of where they’re coming from. Responding also gives you an opportunity to work out a solution or a plan of action with your child that perhaps they would not have come up with on their own. Your child will also appreciate the fact that maybe you do indeed understand how they feel.

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Is your personal life in an uproar, how is your self esteem? Everyone always has room for improvement; yet, some of us need more than others do.

There are ways to improve yourself once you ask yourself “what do I need to do to improve.” Maybe sitting down and writing a list of things that you don’t like about yourself could help. Make sure you prioritize them making the most important one on top and the less important on the bottom. Everyday work on this list checking off each one as you feel it is getting better. Remember don’t stop improving them just because you’ve put a check beside it. It takes time to make changes but you can do it.

Are you working full or part time, if not volunteer if need be? Get busy and don’t just lie around the house doing nothing. Keeping busy and helping others always helps. By helping others, you learn that someone else in the world has it worse than you do. A job always helps especially if you are stressed out about paying a bill and there is no money to pay. Every dollar you make is one dollar more than you had yesterday.

Volunteer to work at the library a couple of hours a day or maybe just one day a week. The nearest hospital is probably in need of a volunteer if nothing just to talk to the ones that are alone and no one comes to see them. Helping others always makes you feel better especially if you can see they enjoyed or benefited from it.

Take a little time out of each day for yourself. You can’t be any good to other people if you don’t take care of yourself. Draw a bathtub of bubbles and relax, go for a walk alone or maybe go to the library and read, bring a book home to read and relax. A little something for yourself each day really helps to relax you and it can make you feel better.

How about doing a little exercising; if you’re not already doing it try it and see how it helps relieve stress. After a while, you’ll notice how you will look forward to exercising alone or with a friend. If you walk with a friend don’t talk about your problems, keep the pace up and talk about the weather or maybe something you’re going to do for your tomorrow. Eventually you’ll notice how much better you feel getting out and taking care of yourself.
Do you watch much TV? Sometimes the news can make a person depressed but then again it can be educational and give you something to discuss with friends or family. Watch the weather and when you’re walking talk, about what is supposed to happen tomorrow; will it rain or snow. The news makes a good conversation when talking to other people.

Go out and visit someone once a week maybe. Get out of the house and be with a friend other than cleaning house when you’re at home. If you don’t have, many friends go make some new ones. Meeting friends is something you can do when you’re volunteering your time; when at the library talk to the librarian when you are checking out that book. New friends can be anywhere if you’re willing to talk. Don’t be afraid if you don’t make a new one every time you talk to someone; just is, yourself and someone else will be there to be the friend you need or want in your life.

Remember life is short, if you need a little improvement here and there, that’s ok. No one is perfect and you can only change the quality of life you have.

Inquisitive souls often find new tools that help them improve their personal life. The old saying, “Curiosity can kill the cat,” is something you want to re-evaluate. Sure, if you become curious of something that would obviously cause you harm, then the cat just might die. Curiosity is a gift. We can use this gift to our advantage if we choose, or we can make serious judgments that cause problems.

As you learn to use your inquisitive tools to your best interest, you will start to focus your attention on the good things in life. Most people walk around looking only at the shallow light of our creation, products and so on. instead of using a shallow mind, open your mind up to new horizons. An open mind however is not doing what is bad, rather opening your mind up to doing what is right. Too many times, I hear people say they have open minds, but often the minds are open to sexual deviations and nothing more or less. This is not a way to improve your life. Rather, you need to clean your mind of unhealthy actions, behaviors, images, etc, and start developing positive reflections.

Once you start to focus your attention you can move to change. You have to be willing to make changes to make it happen. Most people fear the unknown. To improve your life however you must not allow the unknown to scare you. The unknown just might be something that works in your favor. In fact, if you want to improve your life, you will start to welcome the unknown to your palace.

In our minds, we visualize who we think we may be. Most of us fear discovering something new about self. Do not fear what you may discover. You may discover a wonderful person waiting to get out and make the changes that most people fear. Changes are good. do not fear change, since change is a part of life and it is what takes you to new heights in life. When you see something new about you (GOOD OR BAD) take it and use it. If you see something bad, evaluate it carefully to make sure it is bad. If you conclude that this feature about you is bad, figure out ways to change it. You have the power and control inside you to make those changes. What can you do to make those changes. What actions can you take to make your life better?

Once you discover new details about you move to organize your thoughts, visions, etc, and then sort them out. Take time to evaluate the details. Details have hidden messages you may have overlooked that will carry you to a new life. Do not fear. Fear is the worst problem we face in the world, since fear is one of the ultimate controllers of humankind.

When you discover details take the volume of information you gain and sort through it. Kick out the bad and bring in the new. Discover new ideas. Discover new relationships. Discover the new you. Play with the details and information you gain and see what you come up with, followed by organizing your new information. Put the pieces of your life together to make a new you. When you check the list of information and details, make sure you visualize the whole pie. Take a view at weight, categories, order, colors, and size and so forth, so that you get the most of your new findings. Once you are finish, build your confidence so that you can take action and carry forward without cease.

For some of us, improving our personal life is finding a new career. If we are working in what we love to do, that rubs off on the way we view things and gives us a better perspective on life. You have to consider the many ways of success we can practice to become a well-rounded person finding his or her dream job. You have to believe in you and what you want. Make it your reality.

With a solid plan, whether to change jobs or start a new business can become a reality. You should never let the fear of change stop you from achieving something that you really want. New is overwhelming for most of us, but if you take time out to research and do proper networking, you’ll find the transition will be less stressful.

Find a career you love

Whether your in mid career, a student, new to the work force, or an entrepreneur it gets difficult to gain satisfaction and accomplishing your full potential when your stuck doing something you hate. Your work is going to fill a large part of your life, so why not do something that you like doing. Keep in mind that doing what you like is often complicated but if you would like to improve your personal life here are a few steps:

Decide why you want to change careers:
It is important to know whether you are moving away from something or moving towards something. It is difficult to identify your ideal job when you are overwhelmed by negative issues from your current situation. If you are making a career change, keep all of your options open to make a fresh start.

What are your goals?

Write down a normal aspect of a normal day. Outline what it is exactly that you want. Such as what is your work schedule, the positions and tasks, what is your ideal salary to live comfortably, and are you an entrepreneur at heart. Continuously write these goals in a notebook or journal.

Identify your interests

Your interests do not mean this should be your new job or business, it is just the beginning of self exploration. The key is to identify what truly interests you and how you can incorporate those interests into the work field. What are your favorite hobbies? What books do you like to read? What sections of the newspaper to you turn to first? What are your favorite television shows? After keeping track of this for a week, you should discover a trend that should narrow down to two or three topics of interests.

What are your abilities?

Write down a list of abilities that come easily to you. By doing something that your good at will not only greater your chance of succeeding, but give a sense of satisfaction to your work. You will find that you have hidden abilities. Once you pull up those hidden abilities use them, see how you like them and put them to good use.

Many people walk through life failing to realize who they are and what they are capable of doing to its entirety. Do not be afraid to learn who you are. It will take some time. It took me over thirty years, but it was well worth the trial and errors made along the way to learn who I am.

Failing to remember:
Many people have difficulty remembering. This is a common problem. Don’t let it get you down. Take action to improve your memory. Walk along the jungle lane of memory and explore what is in your mind.

Do you have the ability to accept the things you can change and the things you cannot change? Do you have the ability to accept that other people are opt to change them, rather than you changing them? Do you accept that you are who you are, regardless of what others think? Can you accept the many changes that take place in your life?

If you answered yes to one or all of these questions then you are off to the start of improving your personal life. If you are willing to accept, you have the ability to laugh, even when something is not funny. For instance, if someone pushed you, you could stand back and laugh. The push is only a threat to your emotion, which you will see, accept and find a way to gain control of the situation.

When you can accept things in life, including you and others you find a way to take control. When you are in control, it helps you to see how you can improve your personal life. When you learn to accept you will learn to discover you.

Individuality is personal, which philosophers over generalize this subject. Many people in the world believe that when we act the same way at all times, we have established our identity. Politically incorrect! We have emotions, thoughts, behaviors, actions, and have been plagued by a world of influences both good and bad. Each day we will feel something new, which causes our personality to reflect on these changes. Therefore, when you see someone laughing one minute and crying the next, you are seeing a shift in emotions, which is a normal pattern of identity for this person. Unless the persons eyes change, behaviors change dramatically, friends change regularly, etc, and you are seeing common behaviors.

We live in a world that desensitizes us. We are surrounding by billions of influences on television, in the media, on radio, in house-holds, government, schools and so forth. Each to their own, but everyone is judging someone at some time, which is something we have to accept. We cannot change these peoples behaviors and way of thinking, but we can change ours. This is a part of learning and accepting. The best way around the world is become your own influence and allow other influences to make someone else’s life miserable. Only rely on sources that prove truthful with their actions, behaviors and words. Positive reflections are the key to living happier.

Once you learn to accept you will be eager to laugh. For instance, if someone makes you mad you will see the humor in his or her actions. You may see the humor in your actions if you make a mistake and feed into their stupidity.

Once you start to see the humor in life, you will feel better inside. We are involved in a unruly world filled with greedy people, envious souls, lusty tigers, and so on. We have to learn how to work around these people, accept us and move on. Once you learn to change to better you, other people may follow. Good conduct has proven far more effective than words to encourage others to change.

As you grow you will feel a new hunger, and that hunger will guide you to discover new ways to better you. In time as you start to feel better, you will see a need to exercise, eat right, and hang out with positive influences and so on. Once you feel this hunger, you will feel inspired to labor to achieve your goals.

I’m sure you have a bright idea hidden somewhere in the back of your mind that you just can’t wait to test out. Of course you’re not the only one with the bright idea. So what motivates you to churn those creative, or even inspiring juices to its utmost flavor?

It’s always best to set up a personal goal where you can accomplish the most in record time. A correct and positive attitude in whatever you do will make things easier, and even enjoyable.

Here are some tips to make it through the week even if you’re just sitting in your favorite sofa. An idea takes time to form in your head and is always at work while you are busy sitting.

Having a bit of positive thinking can help you realize things that are never thought possible.

1. Take passionate action towards living your life by design. Talk is cheap. Action = deposits in the bank of a passionately authentic future. Without it, passion is void.

This is a perfect example where dreams are made of where you start by tinkering with your mind, then with your hands. And if the idea weakens, you can always go back to it later until you finish it.

2. Commit to yourself as well as those you love to create powerfully a life you can love. Instead of reacting, commit to creating from your heart and soul, out of love rather than fear. The Dream will always be there, but a dream will still be a dream without motion. Be amazed as the transformation begins.

3. Recognize and embrace the thought that each moment is perfect regardless of its outcome. Every time you hit on something that may appear too extreme, why not give it a shot and see if it will work. You will be surprised to see of there are other ways to get the task done in time. If you are not pleased with the outcome, decide to use that moment to learn from and make the appropriate shift.

4. Dwell completely in a place of gratitude. Learn to utilize what you have in your hands and make use of it in the most constructive way. Slipping into neediness will become less of a habit when you repeatedly shift towards gratitude, away from poverty consciousness.

5. Use a Passion Formula of Recognize/Reevaluate/Restore in place of the Should have/Would have/Could have whirlwind. The former is based in increased knowledge and abundance while the latter focuses on scarcity and lack. As you face people or tasks that may seem harder than scaling the summit of the Himalayas, allow yourself to realize that the task is just as important as giving out orders to your subordinates. You would rather be richly passionate!

6. Keep humor at the forefront of thought, laughing at and with yourself when possible. You may find yourself quite entertaining when you loosen up! I have yet to see a comedian ever go hungry even though his jokes are as ‘old as great-grandma’. Life has so much to offer to allow you to mope around in self pity. Humor is very attractive, very passionate: life-giving.

7. Believe that you are the architect of your destiny. No one can take your passionate future from you except for you! Create your life authentically. As long as there’s still breath in your body, there is no end to how much you can accomplish in a lifetime. The concept of thinking big is all about enjoying your work, which would lead to celebrate a discovery that is born within your hands. Watch everything flow into place with perfect, passionate precision.

It’s interesting how people get wallowed up by something trivial as learning to use a computer, when nowadays that top computer companies are manufacturing software that even the kids can do it. I don’t mean to be condescending, but that’s the idea of not having any positive thinking in your life-you’ll just end up as a dim bulb in a dark corner. So instead of subjecting yourself to what you will be doomed for, make your path by taking the first step with a positive attitude.

Recently, my wife and I start to notice a disturbing behavior trait in our little girl. Whenever we came home from work, our little girl will start running to us and exclaimed happily she “ta didi” literally meaning she beat up his little brother. We thought she was just trying to be cheeky, that’s all. But, soon she started graduating to pushing her little brother down to the ground and even snatches toys and stuff out of Izaac’s hands.

We are exasperated! Any parent out there can sympathize with us?

As young parents, we do not have much experiences dealing with children before and we are not confident on how to go about resolving this particular tricky problem. Couple that to our heavy work schedule, most of the time we are guilty of committing the cardinal sin of neglecting our children to some extent. We are virtually dependent on my mum and maid to really take care of them.

Just yesterday, while we were having lunch with my mentor, we popped up this particular issue to him, hoping to get some useful advice. Well, I’m glad we did! The insight and understanding we gleamed from him is undeniably eye opening or should I say ear opening.

According to my mentor, Amilie is trying in some way to grab our attention. She’s feeling insecure now as she has to compete with Izaac for our affections. To add further insult to injury, my mum too is paying more attention to Izaac instead her as little Izaac is much more difficult to take care of.

In order to resolve this, we resolve that we should be spending more quality time for Amilie, and also the need to reassure Amilie of our love for her. Although this is just a passing phase and she will soon grow out of it, we want to be entirely sure that this will not affect her in the later stages of her life.

Throughout the conversation, we also learnt about other important things to take note of like instead of using harsh or strong tone to reprimand our kids, instead we should explained to them in a calm but stern tone. No point using harsh or strong tone as they are still young and may not understand or comprehend what they have done.

Now that we have a better understanding of the current issue at stake, we are determine not to let this happens again and we have to constantly remind ourselves not to be too bog down with work and neglect our roles in making sure our children thrive and grow up in a warm and loving family.

Well, who says being a parent is easy!

P.S My mentor is neither married nor does he has kids of his own.

Success is more than economic gains, titles, and degrees. Planning for success is about mapping out all the aspects of your life. Similar to a map, you need to define the following details: origin, destination, vehicle, backpack, landmarks, and route.

Origin: Who you are
A map has a starting point. Your origin is who you are right now. Most people when asked to introduce themselves would say, “Hi, I’m John and I am a 17-year old, junior college student.” It does not tell you about who John is; it only tells you his present preoccupation. To gain insights about yourself, you need to look closely at your beliefs, values, and principles aside from your economic, professional, cultural, and civil status. Moreover, you can also reflect on your experiences to give you insights on your good and not-so-good traits, skills, knowledge, strengths, and weaknesses. Upon introspection, John realized that he was highly motivated, generous, service-oriented, but impatient. His inclination was in the biological-medical field. Furthermore, he believed that life must serve a purpose, and that wars were destructive to human dignity.

Destination: A vision of who you want to be
“Who do want to be?” this is your vision. Now it is important that you know yourself so that you would have a clearer idea of who you want to be; and the things you want to change whether they are attitudes, habits, or points of view. If you hardly know yourself, then your vision and targets for the future would also be unclear. Your destination should cover all the aspects of your being: the physical, emotional, intellectual, and spiritual. Continuing John’s story, after he defined his beliefs, values, and principles in life, he decided that he wanted to have a life dedicated in serving his fellowmen.

Vehicle: Your Mission
A vehicle is the means by which you can reach your destination. It can be analogized to your mission or vocation in life. To a great extent, your mission would depend on what you know about yourself. Bases on John’s self-assessment, he decided that he was suited to become a doctor, and that he wanted to become one. His chosen vocation was a medical doctor. Describing his vision-mission fully: it was to live a life dedicated to serving his fellowmen as a doctor in conflict-areas.

Travel Bag: Your knowledge, skills, and attitude
Food, drinks, medicines, and other travelling necessities are contained in a bag. Applying this concept to your life map, you also bring with you certain knowledge, skills, and attitudes. These determine your competence and help you in attaining your vision. Given such, there is a need for you to assess what knowledge, skills, and attitudes you have at present and what you need to gain along the way. This two-fold assessment will give you insights on your landmarks or measures of success. John realized that he needed to gain professional knowledge and skills on medicine so that he could become a doctor. He knew that he was a bit impatient with people so he realized that this was something he wanted to change.

Landmarks and Route: S.M.A.R.T. objectives
Landmarks confirm if you are on the right track while the route determines the travel time. Thus, in planning out your life, you also need to have landmarks and a route. These landmarks are your measures of success. These measures must be specific, measurable, attainable, realistic, and time bound. Thus you cannot set two major landmarks such as earning a master’s degree and a doctorate degree within a period of three years, since the minimum number of years to complete a master’s degree is two years. Going back to John as an example, he identified the following landmarks in his life map: completing a bachelor’s degree in biology by the age of 21; completing medicine by the age of 27; earning his specialization in infectious diseases by the age of 30; getting deployed in local public hospitals of their town by the age of 32; and serving as doctor in war-torn areas by the age of 35.

Anticipate Turns, Detours, and Potholes
The purpose of your life map is to minimize hasty and spur-of-the-moment decisions that can make you lose your way. But oftentimes our plans are modified along the way due to some inconveniences, delays, and other situations beyond our control. Like in any path, there are turns, detours, and potholes thus; we must anticipate them and adjust accordingly.

Are you someone who sees a half glass of water as half full or half empty?

A positive person will see it as half full! However, being positive only tells a small part of the story of being successful. Besides having a positive mindset, a great attitude towards life is also essential to being successful in life.

Well, let’s take a look at these 7 signs of a person with great attitude.

1) BELIEF IN SELF
People with confidence in themselves will go far in life. If you don’t believe in yourself, do you think you can succeed in anything?

2) WILLINGNESS TO SEE THE BEST IN OTHERS
A positive person will never try to see anyone in a negative light. If you constantly expect and see good things in others, naturally it’s much easier to maintain a positive attitude as compare to someone who always see everyone in negative lights.

3) ABILITY TO SEE OPPORTUNITY EVERYWHERE
Opportunities are everywhere and mostly arise out of difficult situations or circumstances. Remember, opportunities aren’t based on luck or position, they are the result of the right attitude.

4) FOCUS ON SOLUTIONS
By focusing your time and energy on problems won’t help solve the problems, instead focus on the solutions.

5) DESIRE TO GIVE
Generous people are happy and positive people.

6) PERSISTENCE
Remember the proverb “3 feet from gold”. A lot of people don’t get the successes that they so desired not because they are not confident, smart, hardworking, lack of opportunities, lack of good ideas, etc but because they are not persistent enough. They lack the perseverance to see through their ideas or plans.

7)RESPONSIBILITY FOR THEIR LIVES
You are the only one who is ultimately responsible for your success or failures. Do not blame others when you have failed. Failures do not automatically disqualified you from being successful, failures will only make you a stronger and better person provided you understand and learn from these harsh lessons.

Do you possess these attributes? No? Then you better start working towards having these attributes which is basically simple changes in your outlook in life and habits.

Here’s some tips to getting your attitude into great shape.

1) CLAIM RESPONSIBILITIES, NOT RIGHTS
People are always complaining about their current situations; lack of money, lack of time, poor working environment, no pay increases etc. But have they really give a thought why are they in such situations? You are in these situations because of what your decisions in the past. You are the one who is responsible for your current predicaments, not others.

2) ASSOCIATE WITH POSITIVE PEOPLE
Birds of the feather do flock together, if you always mix around with positive people, you will naturally become more positive.

3) MAKE PRESENT MOMENT YOUR HAPPIEST
The past is past, even though you have great lots of memories in the past, that were your happiest moment then. Your happiest moment now is presently.

4) FIND WAYS TO RELIEVE STRESS
Depend on individual. Jogging, workouts; having a bit of exercise is good in relieving tension and stress. For me, I love to stare at my aquarium and just watch my little fishes go about their daily affairs. Sometimes, when I need to de-stress, I will go on a movie or dramas marathon.

5) DON’T TAKE YOURSELF TOO SERIOUSLY
Learn to see the fun in life. Sometimes, taking yourself too seriously will have a detriment effect on your road to success. Life should be fun. Even if your job is important and should be taken seriously, that doesn’t mean you should take yourself seriously. You’ll go farther in life and have a better time doing it if you maintain a sense of humor, especially when it comes to yourself.

6) TAKE MASSIVE ACTION TO CHANGE YOUR ATTITUDE
If you really want to change yourself, start immediately and by that I mean NOW! Change requires action and if you don’t take massive actions to change now, you will never change. If you wait until you feel like it to change your attitude, you will never change. That’s human nature, you have to act yourself into changing.

P.S These pointers are taken from a book titled ” Your Road Map to Success” by John C. Maxwell. He’s one of my favorite authors and has written many books on personal development and success related stuff.