Writing a book

Conversation with my South African friend:
We were talking about writing a book, I said, "You know I have this grammar thing that I felt inadequate about, that's why I have not written a book. She said, of course you can write! I read your blog. She looked straight into my eyes and asked, "What do you fear?" I thought to myself "Hmm... she gets real in your face!" Good question. So what is my fear? I thought for a moment, attempting to feel from within and ....wonder..still..nothing. I also asked myself what am I avoiding, making excuses for not writing? Then I said, "shall we nudge each other and get on with our books?" So this would be our goals.

Perhaps, you, yes, you as a reader, could you help me with your feedback on my blog... that could propel me forward and do you like to know more about Life Coaching? Or more of what I have written, what would that be? Share with me your comments? What do you like about what I have written? What specifically did you like about my blog? Do you have any suggestions for me to improve? Would really appreciate your feedback and comments. Send me an email? or comment here..? Thanks!

One of my clients wrote and published a book "Possibilities Abound". I am so proud of her achievements! She is simply amazing. If you get hold of her book you would realise how courageous she is and how she turned her 'overturn overnite' situation to possibilities abound. Her husband passed on June 10, 2006 and she published her book and launched it on June 10, 2007. In her book, she shared how she pulled through with the support of her family, religion and life coaching. Her achievements in the absence of her dear dear, whom she often refer to is the true essence of purposeful living.

Life Coaching

Everyone needs life coaching. Only those who has gone through a one to one life coaching would understand what is really life coaching about. I love Results Coaching Systems structure and especially useful when one wants to be a Coach. It is a clear step by step process of building one's competency as a Coach, how to apply it and have your own insights.

"Guiding youngsters on proper internet use" The Saturday Straits Times June 23 2007

This heading caught my eye on the front page of our daily newspaper The Straits Times.

My heart warmed up when I read the message that schools are highlighting the light and dark side of using the internet and how parents could be partners in education to guide our children on the usage. This reminded me of the seminar I attended on cyber wellness by Associate Prof Angeline Khoo. She invested real time with the cyber games to understand the behaviour of those in the games. If you ask me, I think she has done a fantastic job! To share some of her notes here:

Benefits of Game-Playing
It is claimed that games can help children:
1) develop strategic thinking and planning skills
2) generate creative solutions to problems
3) improve their processing visual information and eye-hand coordination
4) provides especially males, with an outlet for their pent-up emotions

Well, parents unless you play with your kids, you would not know whether they are aware that they are living their values through the game. What are the consequences of the choice of their action from the strategies? How do they make decisions in who they play with, in teams or as an individual? They drift away as you get busy with your own stuff. The gap will become wider when you cannot connect with what they say about their games. Then you would have to find another way.

My husband and I tried to 'play' my 12 yrs old's game - "maple story" and 16 yrs old boy's game War Craft and less than 3 minutes we were so giddy!

So what now? so I find other ways of connecting with my son. Not fixing him but letting go of anxiety myself first. If you don't, you may end up in a 'power struggle' situation. Especially when you are talking about teenagers. Teenagers are not here to rebel. They are simply going through changes in their hormones and struggling to find their own identity. Likewise, we may be at cross-roads, searching for meanings in life too. That is no wonder, many parents find it so challenging to deal with this period of time. The 'Letting go' can be very challenging for many because it is about getting out of your comfort zone, your past belief and also letting go of your identity in search of the 'lost you'. We all need support, encouragements and tips to share with one another and that we are not alone. It is OK to say that "I need help."

According to Associate Professor Angeline Khoo:
Digital games offer children and teenagers:
1) promote positive feelings
2) provide outlet for aggression, has cathartic effect
3) as learning tools

* meet psychological needs:
1) entertainment and leisure
2) emotional coping - from loneliness, stress, low self-esteem escape from reality
3) satisfying social needs, making new friends, strenghening friendships, generating sense of belonging and recognition
5) need for challenge and achievement
6) need for excitement
7) need for power

I can only summarise two words about human behaviour and they are:
Confidence and self-esteem. When parents are able to help children build on these two key elements in life, half the battle is won.

From my past experiences, I also realised that building the self awareness is the key to many answers to the unanswered questions.

The self discovery that I often talked about is really for parents to get real and get their life back. Build on your communication skills and relationships with them. How? When you know who you are and lead an inspiring life, your children will cooperate with you during this awkward time instead of struggling with heart-wrenching relationships. When you look at them with potential, they project potential and strive to live up to your projection of them. "Law of attraction".


It won't be long, in a short few years' time you wont see much of them. They will be out with their friends as adults. This is also the time they want you to be seen not heard, i.e. if you are still nagging.

Tips: Set your own goals, continue educating yourself, do what you love doing, love your children for who they are, not on their academic achievements. It's about them and not about you anymore. Be a Life Coach

I find blogging and swimming therapeutic. I am consciously aware of living my values. Building my 2nd career is also a wise choice, getting ready for an empty nest syndrome.

I have to ask myself this question each time I am stuck! What is this magic question? What is more important? My answer, "Our relationship". So what is your answer? When relationship is more important to me, I build on that and when your children are connected to you, whatever you say to them , they hear you. They dont shut down or have a show down with you! Isn't this better than ending up in cold war, silent war and what have you.

As a parent who has gone through many seminars, radio talks, books, workshops, my final findings is that we can leave the teachings of subjects to the school teachers but we cannot leave the life skills to the teachers. With the current educational system it is simply not realistic. Whatever the schools can do we can sometimes tear it down and vice versa. Parents and teachers impact lives. We can't escape from this truth. When parents and teachers' values are not aligned with their living you can rest assured that they would be transferring negative energies to the children. So instead of trying to fix our children, we may want to look from within and ask,

"What do I really, really want in life?"

How I started as a Life Coach?

I was fed up of going in circles with my life, complaining, feeling stuck, living a routine life, nothing seem to change, bored I guess. I seemed to have everything, 6 Cs - Cash, Car, condo, credit cards, children & chauffered around. I begin to question about life, what is my sense of purpose in life? Is life about high-tea, toastmasters, shopping, watching TV, switching from HBO 60 to 59 back and forth?
Quite meaningless. I am sure I am more than this! There must be a talent that I have besides telling my children about the TV show plot and they have to asked me to "Shhh.... mummy! we want to hear what they say." Besides telling them I was right and they were wrong and got everyone upset.

There was obviously a void in my life, filling them with shopping and TV didn't help either; Being married to a traditional man none better. For men or women reading this, if you have not read Man from Mars and Women from Venus by John Gray, advisable to do so. If you have no time to read, let me share one very important tip here, just listen to your wife talk for 10 minutes without trying to provide solution, just listen attentively. Why? Because we need to express ourselves after a whole day of nagging the children to do this and to do that and being ignored; because this is how to release our energy, negatives and the positives. More positives will follow if you listen and empathise. Very simple but I know it is challenging to do after a hard day's work. 10 minutes only......you choose. Another very useful insight is when your relationship is not working, your life is not working, agree? Workplace and home is not mutually exclusive. You can't help bringing your emotional baggage from workplace to home and vice versa. So building your relationship is an invaluable life skill.

Think about this, understand that women gave up their great paying jobs when they begin to procreate,or when they are going through menopausal experiences or when they have no one to guide them with parenting skills for 21st century kids, feeling unappreciated, unfulfilled, not listened to, not valued nor respected. The least we could do is give them a safe space to have self expression. Only for those who feel this way, listening to them is invaluable to their sense of well being.

The idea of being a coach is to first put myself in the environment that serves me and continue to be supported and encouraged by like-minded people. It is easy to get back to our 'same old same old' pattern and get into a rut. It is not easy to give up watching HBO and to attend seminars that last till 12am or later than that, you know who I am talking about.....those who attend self development courses will know what I mean. They last for a few days, there must be reasons for this.

One day, my husband came back early and said he lost his job, I gave him a hug and said, "Welcome home". I often felt that he was lost in his world with a demanding job and probably lost himself in the concrete jungle too. That was my opinion. I think I am not far from the truth especially for those who love their pay and hate their job. These days when I share this comment with people, they can't help but agree with me. We had three teenagers to support and bills to pay. Life skills gave me that edge to stand up move forward with courage and action. There is always something to learn about yourself when you fall into the pit, you learn to get up. Of course, there were many days and nites where we played the blame game and spiral down until we were awaken through self development courses and coaching; we began to look from inside out. "The Universe always give you what you need". So profound for me when I attended the Differworld self development course and saw that flipchart on the wall. Yes, I dug into my savings and paid for as many self development courses as they came to me. Doors kept opening up and I chose to walk in, I see warts and I found more of me, gems that were unpolished! Scary? definitely very scary! Because you do things differently, you have to get out of your comfort zone. You either choose to walk with light even though you are uncertain where it might lead you and learn to trust or you continue falling into the bottomless pit! Dark, familiar, comfortable and cost nothing except your identity. When you are tired and have enough of playing the blame game, new possibilites becomes reality i.e. when you begin to break your old pattern and allow new gurus to teach you a thing or two. Let go of the 'old you' and experience the 'new you'.

I am cutting my story short unless you put a comment that you want to hear more of what happened after my husband lost his job.

Take actions to move forward. Setting goals, taking actions sounds simple, the process is not. We all have 'blind spots'. a Life Coach or a Personal Coach shows you your blind spots, encourage, support and empower you through this journey to work together with you and walk alongside to turn that into your new possibilities. Only those who have been coached in a coaching series of at least six sessions can truly say "I know what is Life Coaching." Coaching shortens your learning curve.
Give you bonus years.

This is what a Life Coach does, we get you out with dignity and support you through the scary and heart-wrenching journey to first have clarity of what you really want and create a vision of where you want to go.

If you are one of those who plateau in your growth, Life Coaching is about moving you forward to the next level. Achieving great things that you know is there, for some reason in a stuck state.

What is a Life coach about?

A Life Coach is someone who has gone through a course on Coaching. For a coach to first learn, he or she must be open to doing things differently. This is the beginning of building awareness of yourself as a Coach. The beginning of a journey of self discovery. The beginning of knowing yourself from inside out. The next best journey is taking the courage to uncondition yourself, recondition yourself and relearn what resonates with your heart. All these with the knowledge of gaining competencies of a Coach. The invaluable thing is, of course being coached by an experienced Coach! It sounds simple but not easy. It's definitely transformational and worth every minute and every cent. You get to know who you are and who you become. Dont you think this is worth it?

You can choose to be certified and that means you go through a list of criteria for you to be certified. More information can be found in www.resultscoaches.com.

You could also use the skills to apply in your workplace and at home using coaching conversations. Being supported in a community and sharing more tools helps you evolve. We need an environment that serves us to stay focus and connected with sharing insights. As you become familiar with the generic coaching skills, you can easily use it in all areas of your life. It has a ripple effect within the family, work-place and the community. For anything to change, it begin with you.

Life skills are crucial for parents and teachers to relearn a new way of developing confidence in their own lives and impacting their students as well as children's. Children unconsciously emulate us. Can you imagine the impact, when you get it, they get it. This I feel is self-leadership.