As you get older, life would have served you various challenges and made you taste failure, sometimes repeatedly. The mind is such that once you fail too often, you grow to tell yourself that “maybe this is not for me, maybe I can’t do this, maybe I need to aim a little lower, why are all my friends more successful than me”. You will apportion blame, saying things like “it’s because of my full time job I can’t do this, it’s because of my spouse and kids, I can’t do that”. In growing older, you can in fact, become your worst enemy.

It’s a vicious trap that many of us will fall into sometime in your life and it’s important to have the courage to prove yourself wrong. There is no achievement too late or too difficult. People have such great capacity if only they learn not to succumb to their excuses – a small change to your daily routine can achieve great results.

To say, “be positive! think positive thoughts” is easier said than done. I believe this trap can be overcome by having regular and new achievements that you can reflect upon positively.

Getting past 30, I found myself thinking I may fall into a routine of mediocrity, same thing different day.

Realising this, in September I challenged myself with three things: to pick up a traditional martial arts which I can commit long term (wanted to overcome this Gen-Y problem of unable to commit), to pick up an instrument and to get myself professionally certified. I ended up deciding on Kendo (I’ve long wanted to learn a sword based martial art), piano (I’m my teacher’s oldest student) and studying Project Management Professional (PMP – something useful for my career). All these deserves it’s on post!

To me, it’s important to pause, reflect and set new goals from time to time. And your goals, like your dreams, should scare you. Only then do you know you are doing something worth doing.

3 months in, I find myself feeling more fulfilled and more motivated as a whole. I’m looking forward to many more months of me pursuing my new interests and see how far it will bring me! If you are feeling unmotivated, my advice is, go find yourself a new challenge, perhaps something you have put off for some time.