Day 14, 15 ,16 To Better Work

3 Gratitudes for Day 14:
1. To have reached UK safe and sound
2. To manage to find strength to go for mass 
3. To have my family under one roof again! 

3 Gratitudes for Day 15:
1. That I cleared 70% of my emails 

2. To manage to go home pretty early at 7pm

3. To enjoy my wife's cooking and family time

3 Gratitudes for Day 16:
1. To have caught up with my emails and now onto the follow ups I owe people

2. To have a pretty firm grasp of my work

3. To be able to get home earlier than yesterday! 

Day 11, 12 ,13 To Better Work

3 Gratitudes for Day 11:
1. Meeting up with Mun, YY 
2. Being able to wake up later
3. Lunch with Gugu and buntie! 

3 Gratitudes for Day 12:
1. That I saw my 2nd child!

2. That I met up with my colleagues in DS, hopefully can push for more things after!

3. I ate my roti prata

3 Gratitudes for Day 13:
1. That my boy is exactly 18months old today. It has been a journey

2. That I am all well prepared to go back to UK to work my guts out and practice work life balance! (oxy moron?)

3. That my week has been fulfilling meeting as many people I can meet as possible

Day 8, 9 ,10 To Better Work

3 Gratitudes for Day 8:
1. That I managed to go for legion meeting

2. that i spend a nice afternoon out with addy

3. that i managed to have a nice haircut at last!

3 Gratitudes for Day 9:
1. that i had a nice facial tho it burnt a hole in my pocket

2. that i managed to eat a good meal of claypot rice!

3. that the day was good with sufficient rest

3 Gratitudes for Day 10:
1. having met mark and catching up

2. eating bak kut teh with my in-laws

3. staying over with addy at my in-laws place

Day 5, 6, 7 To Better Work

3 Gratitudes for Day 5:
1. that I earn enough now for my family
2. that the last day of work went smoothly
3. that I could get a cab in time for the airport!

3 Gratitudes for Day 6:
1. that I met WLIA Eric Ong on the flight and had fantastic crew onboard
2. that i met my family after a long while
3. that i saw godpa and he was alright

3 Gratitudes for Day 7:
1. to have gathered with the mexican family
2. to eat uncle's kway teow
3. to go for mass with my family

Positive experience: Just wanted to list one for the past 3 days that coincided with my random act of kindness. I opened up to the cab driver on the way to the airport to fly back home on Day 5. His name was Ahmed and works as a private cab driver. Sole breadwinner of the family and has 3 kids. Not an easy life cos he does not earn much. He shared about his experience as an airport staff before switching to this line to better cope with lifestyle and family. His story is one of working to earn a living and not to pursue a career. How fortunate I am to even be able to consider progression and climbing the ladder. I remember the conversation heartfelt. Wanted to tip him but gave him a M&S chocolate basket for his kids instead because I thought that would mean more. One less for my family and friends but figure it would be more for such as he.

Popped by the airport operations to say my hellos too.

Day 4 to Better Work

My 3 gratitudes today:
1) that I managed to clear quite a bit of work today!
2) that I am going back home tomorrow
3) that the weather was so good today

My positive experience today was about finishing a report which I took really long to do because I did not know how to pull out the results and verify that they are correct. But today made me feel like I am getting better at it and slowly and steadily, I hope to contribute better and at a faster speed! 

Day 3 to Better work

My 3 gratitudes today:
1) that I have awesome parish priests who stand out in the cold after mass to see their parishioners off
2) that boss is back in office
3) that I live so close to office that I do not contend with bad traffic

My positive experience today was Ash Wednesday Mass.

Day 2 to Better Work

gratitude. =) (Photo credit: camerakarrie)

My 3 Gratitudes for Today:
1) That I am in London
2) That I have work
3) That I am learning a lot

Random Act of Kindness - sharing my passion and knowledge with someone today

Positive Experience: 
Sitting down with the guys today to come up with the department action schedule for the year helped in developing a greater clarity of what we do and how we should move on in the year ahead. Things are still a little vague but at least we know what goes where and when we have to do them.


Tomorrow is Ash Wednesday. The typical kiasu me + Catholic blood made sure I stuffed myself for dinner before the impending 40 days of fasting. Not all 40 days I guess because I am sure going to be stuffed with food when I am back in Singapore for a later CNY celebration.

Boy I miss my family and friends.

The happy secret to better work - Day 1

Gratitude (Photo credit: justOneMoreBook)

I have come across Shawn Achor's video in TED. His talk was one of the best by far I have seen and I do feel inspired.

His key takeaway to rewire oneself to create lasting positive change below:
1) List 3 gratitudes daily for 21 days
2) Journal-ling 1 positive experience everyday to relive it
3) Exercise to teach the mind that action matters
4) Mediation to focus
5) Do randoms act of kindness to enforce a consciousness of positivity

So here I am on Day 1. Hopefully for many days to come.

My 3 Gratitudes for today:
1) that I have awesome colleagues
2) that I can savour my fish and chips
3) that I can be warm when it is cold

Random act of kindness - give away oranges as part of CNY and treat my colleagues to lunch!

Positive experience:
I spent one whole day on a report, generating the data from scratch. It was indeed a struggle but every bit goes into reinforcing my learning and a firmer hold on the concepts. My learning is like an exponential curve. Very slow in the beginning, but once the momentum gains traction, I go on quite speedily. Now i am just in the painful part. I take it as a cross to bear - trying to acknowledge that I really don't know a lot and to accept that I am not as smart as others. God has a way to make one swallow pride.


For those who are interested in Shawn Achor's awesome TED video, it is embedded below.

His book that I intend to read