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The article today is a contribution from a friend, Lim Chih-Yang. He works in the financial industry as a Financial Planner. He was previously a Project Manager in the Telco industry where he regularly clock 14 - hr/days. In his spare time he loves to read, write and engage in various sports like running marathon, scuba diving and football. He is also a writer with The Online Citizen, www.theonlinecitizen.com.

Nobody in this world is perfect. We are all imperfect or inadequate in some areas. It is said that self – confidence does not arise as a result of our strength but as a result of our weaknesses. It is about how comfortable we are with our weaknesses that we are most self – confident and secure.

The advent of the printing press and in recent decades, the internet, has resulted in a boom of reading materials made easily accessible by the masses. No longer is knowledge confine within the premises of dark dinghy library accessible only by the ruling elites. Today anyone can pop by a bookshop or a library and pick up the latest book on offer. Take a walk down any bookshop and one can easily find a huge section dedicated to this topic – Self – Help.

Self – Help is a very popular field in the literary world with thousands of writers devoting their time and energy to this topic all with this very base of value; to enable all of us to overcome our very own limitations. Today, I do not seek to present the holistic look at this topic but to look at the elements necessary in each of us that will enable us to be conducive to receive the help we require to assist us to not just overcome our limitations but to surpass our expectations. It is about living an extraordinary life.

Before we look at the elements necessary to help oneself to overcome limitations, let us look at the “why” before the “how”.

Why will anyone want to devote the time and energy to overcome limitations?

This is a question that perhaps only the one involves can answer. Until the person can answer this question for himself and define his purpose of his pursuit, he is not likely to last the pace or endure through the difficulty of overcoming his limitations. I run the marathon. Now, I am not a natural runner, in fact, I struggle with running. My friend asked me why I punish myself 3 times a week to go through a torturous running regime for that once-in-a-year marathon. The answer I would give is that I am looking at ways to challenge myself and build my mental stamina. A marathon is one way I can challenge myself to excel beyond my very own expectations. Now imagine I am not able to define my own purpose for running a marathon, would I have gladly traded by time to run that 15 kilometres, 3 times a week to build my stamina. Think about it.

Until the “why” is settled, we cannot go to the “How”. Nevertheless, let’s take a look at the “how” now…

Set Goals

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Many self – help gurus preach on the importance of goal settings, I am no exception even though I am not a self – help guru. Goals help to define the end destination that we want to arrive at. It determines our daily activities and how it will assist us to arrive at the final destination. The difference between successful people and not-so-successful people is the miracle of goal setting. Goal setting is all about determined exactly what you want, quantify it with measurable results, and write down on a piece of paper and being willing to pay the price for the goals. It sounds simple but it is not easily achievable. One will need constant reminder of our goals to ensure that our everyday activities contribute towards the achievement of the goals.

Teachable

Before one embark on a course or to devote to reading a self – help book, it is necessary that one is receptive to the teaching of the course or book. An attitude or posture of learning will enable one to derive the maximum benefit from his endeavor. Conversely, a man who is stubborn will receive no new knowledge or skill even with the best teacher available. I was taking lunch with 2 of my ex – colleague recently. Over the lunch, one of my ex – colleague lamented about his long hunt for a property. When we ask him for his budget and the location of the property that he desire, it was plainly obvious why, this man is asking for a property in a prime location but only willing to pay sub-prime market price for it. To make matter worse, he refuse to pay the selling agent a fee for the transaction believing that a conflict of interest arise. While I have no doubt that a conflict of interest arises if the agent were to represent both seller and buyer, I am also certain that given my friend’s budget, unless there is a major recession that stretch on for years, his house hunt is likely to end fruitless. As the story goes, we tried in vain to explain to him that his budget and his expectation do not match but it was to no avail. A man persuaded against his will is of his opinion still. This friend of mine is still hunting for his dream house with his budget. Call it faith, call it determination but this is perhaps more of a stubborn and unteachable nature that anything else.

Role Model

All of us need role models in life. Role model serves to inspire us to reach to their heights, to emulate our example so we could excel in the area we are working on. If we want to be the best golfer, we do not need to look further than Tiger Woods who is the best golfer of his generation. In fact, when Tiger Woods was young, he had a poster of Jack Nicklaus in his bedroom and that man has serve as his role model and standards for which Tiger Woods himself aspire to. Nature abhors vacuum, in the absence of any role model as influence in one’s life, other sub-conscience influence will creep in. It is thus important that we strive to identify role models we can follow after.

Books/Audio CD/Podcast

It is an understatement to say that books do not play a role in the life of people. Many of the greatest thoughts were captured in books and distributed widely, in fact, the word of God, is capture in 66 books and made into a bible that is translated to hundreds of languages, distributed worldwide. Anyone seeking to develop himself can do himself a big favour by devoting time on a daily basis to read books relevant to his area of devoted improvement. Today with the advent of technology we are spoilt for choice in the array of training materials available plus the means to transmit it to us. I had mentioned earlier that I run 3 times a week, what I did not mention was that I plug into my iPod when I run, and my iPod do not contain songs but training podcast from Zig Ziglar, Brian Tracy and other training audio MP3.

Practice

It is said that practice makes perfect. Perhaps it is more accurate to say, “Perfect practice makes perfect”. It is absolutely vital that one practice a given skill set on a daily basis to perfect it but if one practices in the wrong way, then the result is wrong. Do we really expect to get the same result if one were to do the same thing everyday? My mentor in the life insurance business once said this to me, “If after doing the same thing many times and all you get is failure, you can either take a step back and review if any of your sales process is wrong or you can quit the business.” What he is saying is in effect that you have to review what you are practicing on a daily basis to make sure that you get the desired result with the shortest learning curve.

Talks

No man is an island. It does not hurt us one bit if in the bid to overcome our own limitations that we seek to attend talks by the expert in the respective fields. This can give us the needed impetus to help ourselves and also bring to us association which I will cover in the next chapter.

Associations

Who one associate with can determine how one turns out. If one were to associate with nature lovers, it is only natural that one will develop certain traits of a nature lover. A friend of mine wanted to improve his golf swing. He used to play football every weekend but realizing that his goals is to be better golfer, he deliberately chose not play football but hang around with another group of friends who are golf enthusiast. He reckons that if he were to fly with the eagles, he can soar higher.

photo credit: Raphael Goetter

Faith

Well lastly, it is faith. This may seem old fashion but what has faith got to do with overcoming one’s limitations. As the phrase suggestion, faith is the belief and hope for things which is not seen or has not come. Overcoming limitations is about breaking out of the boundaries that have limited us and allowing us to expand in our new capacity. Faith has done more miracles than one can imagine.

As one can see, the list of attributes to help one to overcome limitations is not exhaustive. They are but a compilation of my own experience and how it has shaped my views. Men are always seeking to improve oneself and may the reader find it useful in our own walk towards overcoming limitations.

Lim Chih-Yang

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