Redirecting Your Goals: The 2021 New Year Coffee Boost

Long time, no write! I don't know if this sounds cheesy but I miss the hustle of doing the creative writing while putting all the extra energy into organizing the format via HTML here in Hive. Haha. Admit it, the post-blogging phase will always be the best part for every published post here in this platform. As far as my current status is concerned, my moments here in Hive are one of the rare ones wherein I can be a writer and be a "pseudo-programmer/coder" at the same time 😂

I am truly happy that, finally, after several months of struggling to manage my priorities, I can share again my thoughts and experiences, most especially my hopes for this new year.

The motto for this post is growth and accountability. The past year has brought us a heavy load of unexpected twists that caused us to lose our direction. This year, with the help of my new circle of friends, I was able to kickstart myself and regain my drive to achieve my goals this year. I believe that what I always lack in my previous resolutions is a defined manifestation of growth right after ticking off a major goal in my list. Most importantly, I find it sad that my goals in the past are those that only make me feel good at the beginning; I was not in full control of these goals, especially as to how these progress and develop over time.

This may sound ambitious, but I really want to be an active sailor in redirecting my habits to achieve my goals this year. I am not expecting the entire journey to be perfect, but I really want this year to be significant in terms of my development as an individual.

Last January 2, I met with my Tan Dynasty Empire (TDE) siblings for a goal-setting session. For those of you who are not familiar with this special circle of mine, my TDE siblings and I are a small group of young financial advisers in the same insurance company (AXA Philippines). We started out as acquaintances with the same goal of growing with the ideals and values of the company we are in. Because of our similarities and mindset (mainly because we belong in the same generation), we extended our relationship to learning a lot of things related to finances and personal growth together.

Our organizer, Gail (@thegaillery), called this meeting the New Year Coffee Boost. This is our way of making sure that we are on the right track and we hold ourselves accountable for the goals that we want to achieve this year. Each of us prepared a list of goals and plans, each divided into several categories: (1) AXA business goals, (2) physical goals, (3) financial goals, (4) personal goals and (5) spiritual goals.

As expected from us, we followed Gail's instructions to prepare our organized list of goals in a form of Powerpoint presentation or gallery of pics, whatever medium of presentation makes us comfortable. For my case, I made use of the pre-made PowerPoint designs in Canva. I chose the succeeding design and color scheme below because I want the theme to match with the color of my clothes (was I able to pull it off? Haha 😂). We also considered this day special for us since this is the first day of the year that the entire team was able to see each other face to face.

Last year was full of anxiety and doubt. I still even wondered how everything went okay for me after all the uncertainties that I have been through. There were many days in 2020 when I always feel that I am very, very blessed despite the challenges. On the day of New Year's Eve, I bid goodbye to 2020 with full of gratitude, because my family and I are still in tact. As the sole breadwinner of the family, nothing is more important than seeing your loved ones in good shape and condition amidst the threats to our health. I am so blessed to end this challenging year with delicious food on our table and big smiles on our faces.

I started my presentation with brief but powerful messages I gained last year. If there are three words I got from 2020 that I want to carry over in 2021, it would be to adapt, actualize, and achieve.

From the sudden shift of my work as a teacher who is used to blackboards to having the classes via Google meet sessions, down to getting rid of my hobbies that require the presence of my friends and outdoor venues, almost every change that we have gone through made us overwhelmed. Luckily, the concept of adapting to the changes was somehow bearable and surmountable. I got the motivation to adapt easily to the changes because of my favorite self-help episodes in Spotify, the ALUX.com podcast. One statement stuck to me until now: The only way to get through the problems is to always be CREATIVE. I told myself that day, "Heck, I always brag to people that I am creative, yet I can't solve my basic problems in life!". I did not consider the special circumstance of pandemic as an excuse. I extended the concept of creativity to finding ways of boosting myself with respect to my motivations as well as in terms of finding ways to be financially capable. I am just happy to say that I was able to pull it off!

There were some daydreams that I was able to actualize last year. What made it astonishing is the fact that most of those ideas that came to fruition were actually not that well-thought-out. I just have this funny realization that regardless of how long or how prepared you are in your plans, the best indicator of your success in that endeavor is whether or not you were able to actualize it and put all those plans into action. I will always keep this in mind from now on.

Lastly, the word achieve was the consequence of adapting to changes and actualizing my plans. It feels really great and fulfilling to reach this point. This year, I want to achieve my goals the same way I did it last year. We'll never know what powerful forces this year may bring us, but hey, we have already "stretched" ourselves last year. It's no doubt that we can be adaptive enough to cope up with what's in store for us this year.

Being a rookie financial adviser is never easy. As what @thegaillery and my other mentors in the insurance industry say, "Just continue planting and soon enough you will reap the fruits of your labor." I want this year to be the second phase of planting, as well as the reaping season of what I have planted last year. So far, the best thing I gained as a financial adviser before 2020 ended was the trust that people gave me in terms of financial advice. I am proud to say that I am moving forward and slowly getting there.

I humbly admit that I sacrificed my physical wellness for the sake of my work and side hustles. I think I still have this mindset that "I am still young and I can still abuse myself without experiencing the grave consequences of my actions." As much as I am still doing fine in terms of my health, I gained a lot of weight and I somehow lost a part of my confidence because of this. I am only going to say this here in Hive (omg Haha) but because of me getting fatter and fatter last year, I got rid of posting any pictures in Instagram 😞 As much as I am a self-proclaimed confident person, it got to a point that I loathe my body for becoming what it is. People last year were successful in terms of how they transformed their bodies. They really took the free time that they had seriously to improve their physique. As for me, I continued to find excuses to not do my part, until it reached a point that I have no excuse anymore. I was ashamed of my body and how I looked. I think my last post in Instagram was February 2020, back when I was still actively participating in sports activities that are new to me. This year, I want to bring back the lost confidence I had. I am slowly indulging myself in the world of yoga, and I am truly happy that I was able to jive with it. I think this is the kind of physical exercise that fits my personality. I like how the art of yoga treats my body: pushing yourself at your own pace, without the need to immediately stand out and prove something to everyone. This category of my goals list is where I am actually aggressive at as of the moment. I am really pushing myself to be consistent in my physical goals this year.

As a young adult in my late-20s, one thing I learned about financial freedom is that you will never be free if you don't settle your debts first. I want this year to be the phase wherein issues related to family debts will be resolved. I am still in my growing phase as far as financial stability is concerned. To be honest, being a breadwinner makes the whole challenge even tougher. I want to make my financial goals achievable and less-strained on my part. Probably, my only leverage is the fact that I am still young and I have more time to make my wealth grow as long as I keep going and moving forward.

The heavy chunk of my personal goals this year is to enter into business school by applying in the MBA program of UP Cebu. I am still in my application stage, so I am not sure yet if I will be accepted. My hopes were somehow high as of the moment since I got the news that I am already shortlisted for admission 😇 Whether I will be admitted to the program or not, I am still happy that I made this move. Despite the fact that I am still in the penultimate stage of finishing my master's degree in Chemical Engineering (penultimate because I haven't gotten my diploma yet 😡 I'm done with everything last year though), the stress and somehow "traumatic" episodes of my previous graduate school experience did not hinder me from plunging into another academic-related challenge. I always believe that I will always be student; as long as my brain cells are working well, I will still study any degree I want just as long as I can afford the expenses and/or earn a scholarship grant. Haha. Learning never stops for me 😇.

Lastly, my goals of strengthening my spiritual relationship to God is something that I look forward this year. As much as we need to prepare and put more of our consciousness on the "physical needs" as often as possible, it should not be an excuse to spend a little slice of our time to be grounded in our senses and to put more efforts in feeding our spirituality with good thoughts and pure intentions. I want to start demonstrating the endless practice of allowing life to just flow, and allow the roller coaster ride of emotions to work through me. I guess this goal is the most challenging of all, but I believe that the earlier I start to practice it, the better.

With all the bad sh*t that life has given us, it would be unwise to approach the entire journey in an overly motivated state. We also need to be cautious and a little skeptic as to how things will go in the coming months. To make the goals more realistic, it has to be blended with hard to swallow pills. In this way, actions done to achieve these goals are achievable and within the given limits, both in terms of time and abilities.

Hooray! What a memorable event to start the year right. I treasure these people a lot because as we age, it is rare that you come across like-minded goal-getters who share the same values and direction as you do. We will never know how these goals of ours will turn out this year. It's either we excel in our plans individually, or we may need each other to work some things out. What's important is that we have an improved sense of accountability to the things that we want to happen for ourselves. I believe it's a good start for all of us.

Thank you so much for reaching this far! 'Til my next blog post! 😎

Jay Malila

_{A Filipino chemical engineer working as a Chemistry and Research teacher to Senior High students. Aside from his full-time job, he explores his "frontiers" as he begins to start an online business, do private tutorials on professional courses, and work as a financial advisor. He aspires to influence the youth through his vocation as a teacher, as well as deliver compelling ideas through his own blogs and other forms of content in social media.}