Goals and Perspectives on Life in 2019

School got out on June 28th and Summer Break started.  Here in the Shanghai, China, area, where I live, the Summers are nearly unlivable in my opinion - scorching heat combined with thick, humid air - I try to hibernate inside, in the dark, in a heavily air conditioned room!  I went to Malaysia for two weeks this Summer with my family, but, of course, the weather is the same there - in fact, in Malaysia is never changes; at least there is a tiny reprieve in the short, mild Winters in Shanghai.

It was in the scorching heat that I finally "got serious" with myself and said: "Self, you need some organization in your life!"  Now, of course, I had said this many times before in my life - in fact, I think most people say this to themselves, to one degree or another, at multiple times in life, so there isn't really any big revelation there!  Actually, I had first "seriously" said this to myself and laid out some broad goals back over the Chinese New Year Holiday (February 2019).  And, to my credit, I have been working towards those goals ever since.  The first steps are always baby steps - so the steps I took from February 2019 - July 2019 were me rolling, scooting, and crawling towards my goals of an organized life....the big "breakthrough" in July/August of 2019 has been the fact that now I am, metaphorically, "learning to walk" - i.e. taking my goals to the next level.

Let's take a quick look at these goals I laid out for myself.  Essentially, back in February of 2019 I laid out four very broad, general "Life Goals":

- Improve my health (through eating more healthy foods and less unhealthy foods and intentionally exercising more)

- Focus on my online ventures (set aside intentional time each week to "get online" for the specific purpose of tweaking, updating, building, and generally maintaining my websites)

​- Simplify the work at my "day job" as a busy, underpaid International Elementary School Deputy Coordinator by streamlining as many processes as I can

and

- Set aside some time each week to focus on my own Mental/Psychological Health (this includes specific non-work-related recreation and just generally time to "do my own thing")

Essentially, while I have slowly started pecking and chipping away at these goals over the past 6 months, I have noticed that all these four things boil down to one "Big Picture" thing, and that is: honing and streamlining my life into a healthy, balanced, holistic life.

Essentially, the take away here that I am finding, and what I would like to share through all this is: life in general is not a "one size fits all" event!  You have to find the systems, procedures, and strategies that work well for you with the cards you have by taking action yourself and trying different things.  You can do all the research you want (and I definitely advise doing your research first!), however, in the end, it's ultimately about trial and error.  As Kenny Roger's says: "....every hand's a winner, and every hand's a loser....", and those words couldn't be truer!

Better life, better business, better you!

-Andreas, owner of Biz Opp Empire​