Have You Made 2008 The Best Year Of Your Life?
Many people might not like to remember 2008… They might consider 2008 to be a year full of problems such as the global economic crisis, terrorist attacks in Mumbai, big earthquakes in China and on my local end, the upheaval of Malaysia’s government that has been unchanged in the last 50 years.
However, I can honestly say that 2008 has been the best year of MY life.
As of today, I’ve been in Internet marketing for 2 years.
Building online businesses has not only given me a lifestyle unlike any other career with complete time freedom and autopilot income, it has also allowed me to achieve breakthroughs in other areas of my life that I would probably not have the motivation I need to accomplish due to time and financial constraints.
But I was glad that I’ve gone down that path because of what has happened to me for the past year so let me recap what 2008 has done for me as I think out loud:
- Breakthrough in my spiritual life
I would sum up my belief in God in one sentence, “I’m quite spiritual but NOT religious.”This means that I do not live a dogmatic, secluded life of prayer and church going. I prefer to take my faith out into the real world, often in a pragmatic manner in order to get the job done.But I believe that in my pursuit of wealth and happiness, there is always a tendency to neglect basic spiritual duties such as going to church, reading the bible and praying for your loved ones.Towards the end of the year, as my finances has stabilized, I’ve realized that blind pursuit of wealth without a proper end doesn’t really justify the means.But on the other side of the coin, this brings me to realize the reality that it is not necessarily the rich that are greedy, but it is the poor that covet what others have. How can you change the world if you can’t help yourself? You can’t give what you don’t have the same way that only strong people can help those weaker than them.
I was down there years ago with less than $100 in my wallet for many months and it is hard to imagine one being spiritual when they have to worry about all sorts of needs. However, I knew that God is a God of abundance and being ‘poor’ is not my destiny
Now that the ‘money part’ is out of the way, I can honestly say that I can now spend more time in church, interact more with my fellow believers more and donate more money for a worthy cause.
After all, you can’t bring all your wealth into the grave so you might as well put it to good use and leave something behind that moth and rust can’t take away.
- Breakthrough in my health
Developing a healthy mindset has always been a struggle. With good food being served at every corner around my house, I must admit that there is a tendency for me to go overboard tasting ‘fine cuisine’.That had led me to battle with obesity for many years.But it was only in February that I realized that I should never take my health for granted because I fell terribly ill for a week. It was one hell of a week that I could never forget.I guess it is only human to think of ‘digging a hole only when you want to take a dump’.
After going on an extreme fitness regime, was I able to improve my health and reduce my weight. Maintaining a healthy lifestyle is not easy as throughout the year, I’ve faced temptations all the time.
But it is worth it at the end of the day. After all, what is the point of having money if you don’t have the health to enjoy it?
- Breakthrough in my career
Making money doesn’t define your career. It is a by-product of a successful career but making money is NOT your career per se.But using the limited resources I had, I was able to do the following:
- Establish my name locally by appearing in Personal Money - a local financial magazine widely read by entrepreneurs and people who are interested in financial stuff.
- Speaking in my first public seminar in Singapore (on the topic of product creation in Internet marketing)
- Building a virtual real estate of over 100 blogs with my business partners.
- Running my first, successful 5 figure product launch with Jaz Lai - MLM Fire Sale
- I’ve managed to achieve a 7-12% conversion rate on my sales copy as well (an all time high for my copywriting skills)
As I said before, money may not define a good career per se, but without it, it is very hard to imagine having ANY career at all.
- Breakthrough in my family life
My life would never be complete without the support of my loved ones like my wife Yuenn, my parents and my two younger brothers.I really owe it to my wife who has been patiently putting up with all the crap I’ve been throwing at her throughout the year. And there is this joke that I’ve turned her into an ‘article submitting, social bookmarking girl’.I must admit that we’ve had many arguments over the year (1st year of being married - it is inevitable…) Nevertheless, I can honestly say that statistically, we argue less the more money I make. Ha ha…But realistically speaking, although money doesn’t bring happiness per se, at least it is one less topic to argue about!
- Breakthrough in my finances
This brings me to my final, but most critical milestone - making more money on autopilot.Back in 2007, although I was making money in Internet marketing, I find myself struggling to automate my business. In other words, I had to sit down and do lots of writing/copywriting work to make that kind of money.But towards the end of this year, creating more of my own products, sites and launches has helped me to leverage on those so I can make more money without being physically there.At the end of the day, you must have a strategic plan for your money and manage it wisely.
Now you may notice this recurring theme that the 5 pillars of my goals all revolve around one thing - money.
It is an inevitable fact. Without more money, you can’t improve your life. You will be spending the whole of 2008 in the pursuit of money spending all your ‘working hours’ in the office. I don’t believe in working hours. You should set your own hours and work whenever you like.
Therefore, I now pledge to make 2009 the best year of my life. I strive to achieve MORE not by working harder but by working smarter - to apply more of what I have and get more in return by serving my subscribers, blog readers and customers using the best of my resources.
Imagine if we are able to do 10% much more than what we are capable of… do you think we could ’save the world’?
Here’s to 2009!
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