On Saturday I was informed that there would be an examination entrance for Mandarin Course from a university in Guang Zhou, China on Sunday. Since I didn’t have time to prepare and I was not too interested in taking the course, I didn’t want to go but I also felt guilty if I didn’t show up. Finally I decided to go there just to say in person that I did not want to take the exam. When I got there, I met a friend and she asked me to take the exam. She also told me that it was not expensive, only Rp. 30,000 (USD 3). I thought, if it’s only USD 3, then I’d take the exam to accompany her.

There were three papers. The first paper was quite easy. It had some vocabulary, grammar and short answer. The second paper was mostly about geography, history and culture. I could not do the second paper at all because I knew almost nothing on these subjects. Apparently the other people who did the exam already had some material to study on these subjects so they were quite prepared. The third paper was writing composition. One of the topics was “My Unforgettable Friend” and we were supposed to write 500-800 words. I wrote about 200-300 words.

While I was writing the composition, the exam supervisor asked us to pay for the examination fee. She said it was Rp. 300,000 (USD 30)!!! My reaction was WHHHHAAAATTTTT?????? Three hundred thousand?? Not thirty thousand?? If I were to describe my feeling at that moment, it was anger, regret, guilt, all mixed together. The most dominant emotion was anger at myself! The little voice in my head kept saying, "Stupid! Why didn’t you just stick to your goal in the first place? Why did you do that exam? Why did you let your friend drag you into doing it? It was your fault! You brought this on yourself!”

At the height of my negative emotions, my intelligence started to drop. I said stupid things in that room that I later regret. I asked whether I could withdraw, but the supervisor said I already did the exam and there was no refund. Finally, I took Rp. 300,000 out of my wallet and put the money under the paper and I simply walked out of the room.

After those feelings subsided and my intelligence came back up, I was able to think more clearly. I started to have a feeling of regret for saying those stupid things in class. I also felt regret for being disrespectful to those older teachers in the classroom by walking out of the room like that. Then I started to ask myself better questions and I got better answers.

Question: What can I learn from this?

• I learned that I value exchanging money for something of value and I do not like to waste it. Although Rp.300,000 was not a big amount for me, I felt I had wasted that money for nothing. I do not mind paying a high price for something that I value, but I do not want to waste even a small amount for nothing.
• It is true that when emotion goes up, intelligence goes down. It’s better to say nothing and do nothing rather than regretting it later.
• I learned that asking “What can I learn from this?” or “What good things come out of this?” really help me to feel better. The first time I learned to ask these questions was from Anthony Robbins, then from Blair Singer. I’ve taught this method to other people but I’ve never truly felt how effective it is until now. Now I am convinced that this method really helps me to get rid of those feelings of guilt/regret/hurt that I often feel. I also feel a sense of courage and optimism because I have a powerful weapon to face my fear of failure. It is not failure but a learning experience. I’ve heard a lot of people say those words in many books and seminars, but now I finally have it imprinted in my heart and mind.
• I learned that I want to feel a sense of calm and peace no matter what happens. I believe that this feeling of peace can only come from faith in God and trust that everything happens for a reason and it is always for good.
• I learned that when you choose and decide to do something, accept the consequences. If it is good, be glad. If it is not so good, learn from it.

At the end, I felt that I had not wasted Rp. 300,000 at all. I learned so many valuable lessons from this experience. Not only I have deeper understanding about myself, I also have a new conviction. It is really worth it!

Learn and Grow!

Inge Santoso, B.Com   

I’ve been reading the book “The Secret Code of Success: 7 Hidden Steps to More Wealth and Happiness” by Noah St. John. I want to share with you the first step to success, that is using afformations instead of affirmations.

An affirmation is a statement of something you want to achieve or to be true in your life. For example: “I am rich”, “I am happy”, “I am smart”, etc.

As Noah did, I’ve also been doing affirmations, declarations, and autosuggestions for years. Sometimes it works, sometimes it doesn’t work. After reading Noah’s book, I understand why sometimes the affirmations did not work, it was because I’d been saying those statements that I did not believe in. For example, when I affirm “I am thin, I am thin, I am thin” – inside my head there is a little voice saying: “Yeah, right!”, “B.S”, “When were you ever thin?”  Hahaha. No matter how many times I repeat the same statement, that little voice keeps me from believing that statement.

Fortunately there is a better way! Instead of using statements to change our lives, we can use QUESTIONS to do it.

We think by asking question and answering the questions. The way we think is like putting a question to a search engine in a computer and the computer gives us answer after searching its database. Whatever questions we ask, our mind will give us the answers. That’s why it is so important to ask empowering questions instead of disempowering questions.

Afformation is about asking empowering question instead of disempowering ones.

Four steps to create afformation that can change your life:

1. Ask yourself what you want.
2. Form a question that assumes that What You Want is already true
3. Let your mind search for the answer
4. Take new actions based on your new assumptions about life

Some examples of afformations:

• Why am I so happy?
• Why am I so wealthy and rich?
• Why am I good enough?
• Why am I so smart?
• Why do I have the courage to do what I love?
• Why do I enjoy so much success?
• Why am I so blessed with such a wonderful and happy family?
• Why am I so lucky to find my soul mate so quickly?
• Why am I beautiful and attractive?
• Why am I living a purpose-driven life?

How will you know when it’s working?  – Try it and see what happens!

I’ve been doing afformations for a week now, I feel happier and more grateful about many things in my life. I’ll share more after I do this for at least a month.

Since we are already asking questions to ourselves all the time anyway, I am asking you to try afformations (asking empowering questions) and share your experience in the comments.

Learn and Grow!

Inge Santoso, B. Com

We’ve seen numerous sunrises and sunsets on Earth.

Today let’s see the Earth from a different perspective. The above video is earthrise seen from the moon.

How did you feel when you saw the video?

Looking at Earth from this perspective makes me realize how small, how tiny we are. We are all small dots. I am a tiny dot. Yet as small dots, we play a big role in our Earth’s survival. What have you done today to help our Earth?

In my opinion, before we are citizens of countries, we are citizens of the planet Earth. Just like President Kennedy said, “Ask not what your country can do for you–ask what you can do for your country.” I would like to say, “Ask not what Earth can give you – ask what you can give to your Earth.”

Learn and Grow!

Buying a bicycle and bringing it home on a motorbike is certainly unsafe and dangerous. I’ve seen a few people did it, including one of our staff, SG. Unfortunately it did not end well with her. She ended up having an accident, suffered some injuries and the bike that she bought was damaged. Just because she wanted to save Rp. 25,000 of delivery cost, she eventually paid a lot more.

Lessons:

1. Safety first when you are on the road
2. It is better to pay a small amount of money rather than endangering yourself and others

Learn and Grow!

What do you want? What do you really, really, really want?

Have you really asked yourself that question?

At the beginning of the year, we often make new year resolutions and set goals about what we want to achieve this year. The first question is usually “What do you want?”

Some of the answers may be:

• to lose weight, to achieve my ideal weight
• to exercise at least three times a week
• to double my income
• to make more money
• to save at least 30% of my income
• to meet my soul mate and start a family
• to spend more time with our family
• to read at least one book per week
• to learn a new skill
• to launch a new business or career
• to travel the world
• to be closer to God
• to be more loving, generous and caring
• to have more discipline, positive attitude and motivation
• etc

If we dig deeper, sometimes those goals are simply means to an end. What we really want is actually the feelings behind accomplishing these goals. For example, if your goal is to make more money, ask yourself this questions:

• What does having more money mean to you?
• How does having more money make you feel?
• How does accomplishing this goal make you feel?

The answers may be:

• I have more freedom to do what I want, to have what I want
• I feel proud of my achievement and accomplishment
• I feel I am worthy and I get more respect from my family, friends, my peers
• I feel happier
• I feel more secure and safe
• etc

These are what we are looking for, feeling good about ourselves, feeling happy, feeling proud and more positive feelings.

The problems start when we are going after these feelings the wrong way. For example, we want to feel the thrill of success but we find it through gambling. When we gamble, we take risk, we feel a sense of excitement. When we win, we feel a huge satisfaction, the thrill of success. When our brain makes the connection – gambling = excitement, satisfaction, we started a journey on the path of destruction.

Sometimes it is not as obvious as gambling in the casino, but it is disguised as ‘investment’. When we invest in the stock market, index, foreign exchange without any knowledge or strategy, it is the same as gambling. We take risk, we feel the excitement. When we win, we feel so good, happy and proud of ourselves.

What if we lose? When we lose, we feel like a failure and we do not want to feel like a failure, so we try again. Sometimes we think this way “Hmm…I am not a quitter, I’ll try again!” It is really a bad example of persistence!

Moreover when we lose, we feel guilty, regret and other negative emotions. We cannot blame anybody else but ourselves because we are the ones who make the decision every single time. There is no one else to blame! If we cannot cope with it, sometimes we start to create problems with people around us. When there is a problem with other people, we have an outlet to release our feelings of guilt, anger, hurt, and regret. We release those feelings full force and ending up hurting people around us.

What do I want? I wish everybody has an outlet to release their negative feelings without hurting other people so that everybody can feel happier. We want to feel happy! I want to feel happy! Do you?

Learn and Grow!

In the last few days, my sister and I have been decluttering our rooms. We are far from finish but as you can see in the photo, we’ve collected more than 10 boxes already. By this time next week, we will probably have more than 25 boxes ready for the garage sale.

Most of my stuff are electronic gadgets and sport equipments while my sister’s are clothes, hats, belts, handbags, accessories. Looking at our stuff, you can see how different we are.

How does this decluttering process make me feel?

1. I feel lighter because I have less junk living in my drawers. I do not have that nagging feeling of having to clean up or organize the mess.
2. I feel productive because I can find things quickly and easily. I know where to find everything because everything has its place.  
3. I feel happy because I found things that I thought I had lost like my awesome Spyderco knife below. This is my favorite when I started collecting knives 10 years ago.

1. I feel excited because we are going to have an awesome garage sale next week. Not only we’ll get some money from the sale, we will also help the environment by recycling our stuff.
2. I also feel some regret because I realize that I had bought too many stuff on impulse. If I had only learned money management earlier, I would have been wealthier now. HAHAHA Learning from my past mistakes certainly makes me feel better now.

I will keep you informed on our decluttering process and what we learn.

Learn and Grow!

After watching an episode on Oprah about hoarders and reading Unclutterer blog, I was inspired to simplify my life. I have so many things that I haven’t used for years. These unused things pile up and waste precious space in my house.

This week, I am going to go through every room and start:

1. Collecting, put everything out and pile them in the middle of a room
2. Choosing, choose what I really want to keep. The key is to be ruthless and stick to the vision of what I want for that particular space. 
3. Sorting, the rest is divided into three categories: sell, donate, or throw away. I make sure that I have a rubbish bin to throw things out and boxes for those things I want to donate or sell.
4. Organizing, put the things that I choose to have and organize them.

I am going to have a garage sale on December 1st 2008. The place will be on Jl. KH Samanhudi 132, Sondakan, Solo.

There are a lot of things available for the garage sale:

• Clothes – branded clothes, pants, hats, etc
• Bag – handbags, computer bags, school bags, etc
• Shoes – dress shoes, sport shoes, sandals, etc
• Accessories – jewelry, belts, glasses etc
• Perfumes – all sort of perfumes and colognes
• Electronic – VCD players, earphones, PDA, cables, chargers, etc
• lots more

If you are interested in joining the garage sale, please contact Ms. Sila at +62-271-738820 or +62 888 2933765.

If you want to learn more about simplifying your life, you can go to here:

• Zen Habits – Living Simply: The Ultimate Guide to Conquering Your Clutter
• Unclutterer

Learn and Grow!