This post was written while I’m traveling to Batu, Malang, East Java, Indonesia.
At the time this article is written is almost at the end of 2019. I’m writing this article as a reminder to my future self of what achievements, failures and lessons learned throughout this year so one day I can laugh reading it and reflect back on things I have done rightfully, wrongly and stupidly and at the same time to remind myself not to make the same mistakes again next year onward. In case you are reading this article, you can use this as a guidance so you may achieve what I achieved, avoid failures.
2019 was indeed a great year. For me, this is the year of investment and traveling.
Achievements in 2019
1) Reading 3 books. I wasn’t born as a reader. While I did enjoy reading comics (mostly Japanese) when I was a small kid and a teenager but novel and other types of books were a big no-no. Not until I grew old and interested with retiring early. That’s when I tried to source as many knowledges as I can on the retire early topic from various sources including books. In 2019 I targeted to read 3 books but ended up reading 7 books. They are:
- Think like a self made millionaire
- Rule #1 by Phil Town
- Payback Time by Phil Town
- Invested by Daniele and Phil Town
- The Little Book that Builds Wealth by author and fund manager Pat Dorsey
- Unshakable by Tony Robbins
- Money: Master the game by Tony Robbins
2) Buying US stocks. Same like above, 2 years back, buying stocks was foreign to me. I didn’t understand all these stocks thingy until I learned ways to retire early. One of the ways to retire early is by buying and keeping good stocks. And one of the best stocks to keep and has huge appreciation is US stocks.
3) Travel around the world. In 2019, together with my wife (and parents), I travelled to 3 places: New Zealand (both North and South islands), Thailand (Chiang Mai and Bangkok) and Indonesia (Jogjakarta, Batu – where I wrote this article, and Bandungan).
This is also the year where I managed to go outside Asia (yay finally!) as I travelled to New Zealand – Country whereI wish to spend my retirement life.
Failures in 2019
1) Having a baby. This is the most important one and I failed it – simply because I wasn’t focusing my energy on it.
2) Getting professional certification. Same reason, due to business on other things and I wasn’t focusing enough energy and time on it. However I managed to schedule an exam to do it on 2020, hope I’ll get the best result.
Lessons Learned in 2019
1) Life is full of choices. Every second in life is like when you are in the intersection of a road junction. You can choose to go straight or turn left, right or stop and reverse. And with every choices made, it’s either getting you closer to your destination or getting you a wrong direction. Choices you made in life are the same thing so choose the right direction to your destination.
Many people always says this: “I don’t have choices in life”. Well unless you are a slave, as a free man, you do have the choices. It’s just a matter you want to do it, make the choice and take the risk of the choice you made or completely put a blind eye on it and avoid taking risks and making choices. Most people choose the latter, placing themselves as a passenger, letting the driver to choose the destination for them. Most people don’t want to choose, don’t want to take the risk and just follow the flow and crowd. While at the end of journey, consider yourself to be lucky enough, you may arrive at your destination, but there’s so much time and energy wasted following the flow and crowds. In life, make yourself as the driver and not the passenger. Make the choices, take the risk and choose your own destiny.
I chose to read books rather than playing games, I chose to spend money getting to know the world rather than using it to buy gadgets, I chose to be grateful despite all the unlucky things happened to me (check this out).
2) Always have targets in life. Otherwise it’s like when you drive/take public transport but without destination. You may going round and round and end up nowhere but the same place. So be sure to always have a targets in life. Big and small, short term and long term – write them down so you can easily check and look back on the progress.
3) Focus on your targets. Having targets only isn’t enough, you have to put your focus on it. Once you try to focus on it, it will give you force and energy to achieve it. Like what I shared above that I wasn’t born as someone who like to read text books but in 2019 I managed to complete 7 books – thanks to my target to retire early on the age of 35.
4) Focus on what you do. We’re unlike computer which can easily multitasks. Most of the time, when you multitask, you end up with everything half done. Better to focus on one that you do, and do other things once you have done the first one.
5) You can’t please and make everyone happy. That’s the fact, no matter what you do there’s always someone or some groups that aren’t happy with your actions. So rather than focusing your energy and time to please everyone, focus your energy and time to strive to always do your best.
Good bye 2019 and welcome 2020!
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