My Plan for 2017

I noticed that traveling is something that I’m passionate about and I wanted more of it in my life. I made goals for 2017 to travel more, to gain new experiences and seek out any opportunity I could possibly find.

I love seeing the world to experience different cultures. The places that I will travel next year are.
1. Siem Reap, Cambodia (that one I’ll be ticking off in January),
2. Hangzhou, China
3. Ho Chi Minh, Vietnam

Increase Net Worth: I’m planning to save more money with the aim of achieving approx. 5% annual return. My allocation ratio will come in at around 60% into income generating equity funds and 40% towards savings.

Apart from that, I also plan to dispose my first rental property and then look for a better unit for own stay next year.

Keep Career Goals Moving Forward: If asked, what new skills did I acquire in 2016? I could not think of any. Next year, I will take AdWords Advance course to further upgrade my skills and learn more about the best practices of online advertising and some practical tips. I will also get involved and talk to experienced marketers to strengthen what I know and spend some spare time in doing data analysis for marketing campaign if necessary to optimize the ROI for my company.

Maintain a Healthy Lifestyle: Maintaining an active lifestyle is one of my top priorities in life. I will still keep doing 42K, 21KM, 10KM and 5KM run on regular basis, weight lifting, cycling in order to reduce my body weight to below 70kg.

Stay Positive
I will try to think positively and keep an open mind. I think sometimes I let things get me down if they don’t go exactly the way I want them to, so I want to be better at shrugging things off and stop worrying.

Keep Learning & Take Action: I always have a long list of books I would like to read, and a bunch of courses that I have started but never further upgrade myself. 2017 is the year where I actually take the initiative to start and finish them. I want to expand my knowledge and always learn more and keep up with this fast evolving world.

While it may take longer than a year to fully accomplish the life goal, setting up a plan for yourself to make big, life-changing moves isn’t a bad thing. If your goal is really monstrous, then you can try to break it into a year-over-year plan, and use the first year plan as the basis.

We always are thinking of what we have to do or want to do today or in the future. Many of us struggle starting a specific task, but what I learned is instead of constantly thinking: “How am I going to do it?” or “Where do I start?” Just do it! Stop thinking about it and this will actually turn your thoughts into actions.

As always in December, I like to set aside some time to reflect on the past year and set goals & resolutions for a new year.  2016 was a great year, both at work and in my personal life and I think I have reached a very good work-life balance. I’m confident 2017 will be just as good, if not even better.

2016 Self-Reflection

This year was an eventful year, and also one that marked a turning point for my personal growth. I’m going to share what had achieved well this year in various aspects.

Finance: As I mentioned in the past, this is the first year for me to build and achieve double digit annual income growth starting from year 2020 onwards. I’m quite satisfied with how I did so far and will be able to keep my cash flow positive every month and currently still on track to achieve it. I have also invested in global stock market to achieve more balanced and diversified investment portfolio.

Below are some of the results achieved so far.

My First Investment Income from US:

Purchase price: $57.60
Selling price: $70.50

Total amount invested in local currency: RM3,130
Total amount received in local currency: RM3,820

Net earnings: RM690
Net earnings in percentage: 22%
Period of investing: 10 months

My First Dividend Payout from APOTC:

Total dividend: HKD 1000
(-) Interbank transaction fee: HKD 50
Amount: HKD 950

Conversion rate: 0.5085
Amount: RM 483.08

(-) Handling fees @ 5%: RM24.15
Net amount received in local bank: RM458.92

Health/Fitness: Managed to go gym at least once a week. Completed 1x full marathon (42KM) – Penang International Bridge Marathon (PBIM) this year with new personal best record of 6hr 30min and also completed 3x half marathon (21KM) which are AIA Run, Garmin Run, and Penang Island Run Series as well as maintaining 10KM run once in a month. I have also successfully lost more than 5kg in 5 months! Big results come from many small changes accumulated over time. I will strive to achieve better next year.

I always prioritized sleep by going to bed strictly before 12am on weekdays. We all live in a culture of competitive sleep deprivation. Getting enough sleep has a huge impact on our health, energy, productivity, and long-term acting against the clock can cause serious health issues.

Personal Growth: Attended seminars, conferences and workshops to constantly upgrade my investment skills and also able to make some new friends from the networking session. I tried to be humble so that people will be more willing to share their knowledge with you. If you are acting smart or being too calculative, you will create a barrier between you and the person. Learning something new is an important part of our life. Whether you start an investment course or just read a book for pleasure, just make sure you are always taking in new information and ideas. It will open up your mind to different ideas and ways of looking at things. This way it will give you better life and make it more pleasurable.

Other than that, I also get involved in many volunteering projects which help me to grow my networking base. Among those are Penang CNY Heritage Event, George Town Word Heritage Event, Tech Dome Launching, Penang International Science Fair and many other sport events.

I contribute, therefore I am. I believe that building from within and investing in personal development is the key to achieving success in our life.

Career: Implemented a fixed schedule to finish work on time, which helped to improve my work productivity. A good time management and high productivity is crucial as it allows us to have more free time to do other meaningful stuff.

Today, everything is linked with the software development, including cloud computing, data analytics, big data, IoT, automation, artificial intelligence…So, we need to integrate and innovate! I have also been part of the team to drive the change in bringing more convenience to the people in their daily life.

Technology: Well, it was my first time buying things from the online store sometime in August this year. It is hassle free and quite convenient but I found that it only makes sense economically if you can get better deal for the same item that you want to purchase at retail store. Thus, we need to be smart when making a purchase online. Only those who have gone through the “Zero Moment of Truth” when making purchase are considered as smart consumers.

I managed to get some of the tech gadgets for my own collection – Sports Bracelet, Casio G-Shock Watch, Digital Car Recorder, Bluetooth Tracker, Radio FM kit, and so forth.

That’s all for this year. What’s next?
Stay tuned for my next post on my plan for 2017…

The session started by a short film screening in the hall.

A gorgeous cultural activist of the day, Ms. Chan Oga was the first speaker. She had started the idea of the school started called The Village School, where people learn how to grow & harvest, build, code programs and make art.

Today, The Village School has hosted 2 workshops and is on its way to fund its first ever Village School Camp happening in June where children with different capabilities will learn things that matter by working together to create things, showcase, sell, and teach other people what they’ve learned.

The moment I looked at her, she gave me a extremely good impression. From dressing to expressing herself in words, she is truly awesome.

Second speaker of the day, Ms. Rosalind Chua, who was my ex-colleague sharing the topic on “It’s not just for children”. I enjoyed her sharing on how she reminded us on pleasures that once made us happy by reading a children book.

Next speaker would be another gorgeous gentleman, Mr. Jonathan Case, who talked about The 2.6 Second Pitch. He shared his vision of how impact driven branding really works.

Musician of the day, Mr. Kelvyn Yeang was sharing something related to my interest, music. I like his way of expression on cultivating the local music scene for Indie music to reach mass market success. It’s just like to find the light in a dark room.

Mr. HongJun Wang who was the next speaker from Singapore, presented the ideas on “How Creative Journies Start”. He created his first piece of conceptual art that incorporated the creative use of Money as a key medium after years of experiments. Throughout his life journey, he never regret and consider himself unfortunate for trying. He is a good example for us to learn from.

Ms. Laura Francois, Movement Leader of Fashion Revolution Malaysia shared on her vision and idea for making the clothing industry sustainable, one where human rights and the planet do not go undiscovered.

Last but not least, curator of IAM9.0 Founder & CEO of Addonlife, Mr. Winston Liew with a strong background as a debater, a graduate from law school, and being very passionate to the community, this makes who he is today. I like his title: Windows to the Outside World. At IAM9.0, Winston shared with us how we can communicate with someone from different cultural background.

The concept of BIG is to explore the possibilities of big things happening, by staring and initiating small actions. I felt like I was doing the right thing at that time by attending the talk show. It inspired me by learning different thoughts from different professionals in the society. I believe that positive attitude and passion would be the main criteria to make them who they are today.

1. Keep Career Goals On Track

My career resolution is to work smarter, not harder.  Moving to the next level of my career within the next 3 years will be my ultimate goal. My current strategy is to break larger goals into manageable tasks. A large goal can seem quite difficult and impossible to achieve, but if you break it into smaller tasks that will eventually add up to achieving your career goal. Also, I need to be different from others and provide something different.

It is not a sprint but a marathon, which requires commitment and perseverance to make our life better.

2. Maintain Healthy Lifestyle

Go for 5K run on regular basis, one 10K every month, one 20K every quarter and one 40K in every 6 months.

Overall, I did very well in 2015 due to consistency in hitting my monthly target of 60K. Next year I will try to be a one percenter. If I ran 5K in 30mins, I will try to improve it by 30 seconds in every subsequent session. They key is to make progress and slow progress is better than no progress. It is the small victories that will lead closer to the finish line.

Go for gym. This is my new goal set for next year. It’s quite challenging given the current workload and personal commitments, however I will schedule my workout sessions for that to do more stretching exercises.

3. Build Net Worth

I always look for opportunities to diversify my investment into more asset classes with the aim to achieve more balanced portfolio. As a smart investor, we can try to invest in property, bond, stocks, real estate investment trust, commodities or private equity to build more diversified portfolio that can help to manage the risk when dealing with market uncertainties.

From next year onwards, I will do regular review on my investment portfolio, optimise the returns on idle money especially those poor performing funds, and set aside 20% of total assets for foreign investments.

Also, I will put more efforts to achieve double-digit annual income growth starting from year 2020. With that, liquid asset with fixed return is the key to achieving this goal. So, I will SAVE more next year.

4. Keep Learning

There’s always a risk if you do not have the chance to progress, it’s important to work day in day out, keep trying to learn and strive to become the best. I will continue to look for training opportunities to expand my responsibilities and develop new skills in my current profession to stay ahead.

Get involved is not enough but also need to reach out. I will try to make new friends when attending any events and learn from experience they have made which can help me to save the possible errors in the future.

5. Need for Personal Change

Act now rather than later if not it will be an opportunity cost.Starting early is always easier and cheaper to fail but if you do it later then the price to pay is more costly.

Things that i’m going to make it possible:
i. Make timely decisions
ii. Be productive
iii. Stop procrastination as it leads to missed opportunity
iv. Maintain strong work ethics

6. Embrace New Technology

Like it or not, there is no one-size-fits-all in the market anymore, everything you do at a certain point in time will slowly become irrelevant. Because of digital technologies, the way we work has changed.

Technology is making many businesses that do not innovate obsolete. Thus, it’s crucial to know the current trend line for your personal area of expertise. Make sure that the changing technology does not threaten your prospective position. If not, you will need to seriously consider a future place that can keep you sharp and marketable.

The wearable tech market is growing. But, how many of you currently own wearable tech devices? And how many are interested in buying in the months to come? I plan to get a smart watch next year for sports tracking (distance, calorie, etc), sleep tracking (sleeping time, sleeping quality) and also used it as event reminder to run my errands more efficiently.

A new year is just around the corner… For many of us, this is the time of year to look back on the accomplishments in 2015. We look at the ups and downs, what we accomplished and what we failed to do, what could have been done better. With these reflections in mind, then we start to plan out our future by setting goals for the coming year, based on our experiences in the past.

This allows me really sit down and seriously map out where I want to be in one year, how I want to get there and what exactly I need to do in order to be the successful one.

Be it a small goal, or something big, coming up with a set of New Year’s resolution is a good way to become more focused, productive and motivated for the year to come.

Anyway, I have accomplished a lot of great things in year 2015. I like to focus on the positive, no matter how little; it is always a good thing. Now, let’s take a look at what I have accomplished this year.

What I Accomplished in 2015?

1. Enhanced Technical Skills

Attended Programming in HTML5 with JavaScript and CSS3 training courses to sharpen my technical skills.

Other trainings attended: Mobile App Analytics Fundamentals course, Mobile App Development workshop, Adobe Campaign training, etc.

2. New Running Milestone

I challenged myself to run a full marathon (42.195km) which I completed in November. It was one of the best and hardest things I’ve done but I learnt huge lessons from it. Next year I will focus more on RESULT. My goal will be to complete it within 6 hours, but I’ve had some physical setbacks which need to take months to recover. So, I need to get back to full fitness first before start training.

3. More Diversified Investment Portfolio

Private equity is the future investment. It can give your portfolio an extra boost if you have correctly identified them from the beginning. For the first time, I allocated some fund into an energy drink product which is rivalry to Red Bull in China. Meanwhile, I also invested in a corporate bond which denominated in foreign currency. It is issued by a company who want to raise capital for power plant development project in Cambodia.

Apart from that, I was offered an irresistible deal of undervalued landed property project in April. There are some facts and figures supporting my final decision after doing some area analysis.

4. Higher Self-Awareness to Major Deals

Involved in contribution to the Penang International Science Fair 2015 with the effort to make it a huge success. This is one of the positive differences that I achieved this year.

Owned a Huawei tablet (Huawei Media Pad 7) without spending on it and also grabbed a good deal of Samsung phone (Samsung Galaxy V Plus) for my mother. These are the new tech gadgets I got for this year.

5. Great Travel Experience

I made my first trip to Bangkok this year with great memories there. It was really enjoyable and the fee for the 8D7N is really worth it because of our great plan.

Apart from that, I also went to Singapore twice this year for personal and business trip. And just recently, me and my colleagues went for company team building at Gopeng, which is a good place to have fun activities there such as water rafting, waterfall abseiling, night hiking, paintball war game and so on.

That’s all for this year. What’s next?

Stay tuned for my next post on my plan for 2016…Next article