KNOWING YOUR IDEAL SELF DAY 3 BBE

Day 2 Review: Understand Your Negative Traits

Yesterday we looked at our negative traits. We gained an understanding on why we have those traits. We gained clarity on why we want to change these aspects of ourselves. And we identified baby steps on how we can get started on that right away.

I want to thank all of you for being so earnest, so open, so unadulterated in your sharing. Be it weak communication skills, tardiness, poor time management, lack of self-confidence, procrastination, indecisiveness, a short-temper, laziness, being judgmental, harshness, rudeness, being too serious, fear of making mistakes, selfishness, being critical, lack of focus, being disorganized, clinginess, arrogance, negativity, being anti-social, over sensitivity, it takes awareness and courage to put this out there and admit (to yourself, above all else) that these are areas you need to work on.

Enough with denying, running away, avoiding “ugly” traits about ourselves, because that only perpetuates the problem. Today marks the point where we live a life of honesty, of truth, of integrity. Today marks the point where we start living true to our highest self, where we become who we’re meant to be.
Now that we’ve laid our undesired traits on the table, today we’re going to create our ideal self.

Day 3: Knowing Your Ideal Self

Today’s task will take about 30-45 min.

Have you ever envisioned how your ideal self is like? How is he/she like?
Is he/she someone who is joyous, carefree, always smiling and happy?
Is he/she full of love, always spreading joy and love to everyone around him/her?
Is he/she passionate about life, driven and fueled by a hunger and thirst for betterment?
Is he/she tough, determined, persistent, never to back down in the face of challenges?
Is he/she full of strength and courage, and not afraid to go after all of his goals and dreams?
Is he/she assertive, confident, and not afraid to stand up for what he/she believes in?
Is he/she graceful, beautiful, and full of light?

Is he/she eloquent, sociable, and able to express him/herself freely, without restrain?
Back when I first worked on becoming a better me, I created an image of my ideal self.
I asked myself the following: What is my ideal self like? What do I see as the highest version of me? What does it mean to me, to be someone who is a 10/10?

From there, I imagined someone who is very positive, full of love and GRACE. I imagined her to be beautiful, both on the inside and out. I imagined her to be patient, nurturing, and warm. I imagine her to be feminine, demure, gentle and kind. I imagined her to be emotionally generous, always giving, and never asking anything back in return. I imagined her to be extremely kind and compassionate. I imagined her as a beacon of love, light and joy in the world – emanating love and light no matter where she is and where she goes.

When I pictured this ideal self, I couldn’t help but smile. I felt an inner state of peace and calmness. I knew this was the person I wanted to become. I knew that becoming such a person would give me more joy than anything else. And from there, I set forth to become such a person.
Your ideal self is someone whom you see as the highest you. What is your ideal self like? What do you see as the highest version of you? What does it mean to be someone who is 10/10? This is what we’re going to do now.

Your Task: Identify Your Ideal Self

Take out a new piece of paper and answer the following questions:
What is your ideal self like? Describe him/her as much as possible. Below are some helping points:

What traits does he/she possess?

What are his/her values in life?

How does your ideal self conduct him/herself around others?

How would you assess this ideal self on a scale of 1-10?

It should be a 10/10 – else it’d not be your ideal self!
If it’s not 10, redo Q1 until you get a 10/10 score.

What are 3 baby steps you can start right away to live in line with your ideal self?
Take action on them right away!

Schedule them in your calendar if they are time-based.

Day 3 Reflection for 30BBM
Is there anything you learned today?
This can be about yourself, other people, or other things in life.
This can be related/unrelated to the task, inspired by answers by other participants, inspired by the discussions in the community, due to something that happened in your life today that’s outside of 30BBM.
If so, what is it? Write it down.
Share Your Answers!
What is your ideal self like? What traits does he/she possess? What can you start doing today to become your ideal self?
Share your answers with the others in the comments area! Check out others’ comments and share your thoughts!

Dau 2 UNDERSTAND YOUR NEGATIVE TRAITS

2: Understand Your Negative Traits

Todays answers will take 3/4 to 1 hour to complete

Yesterday, we assessed ourselves earnestly. We rated ourselves on a scale of 1-10, on how we saw ourselves against our ideal, highest vision of ourselves. We explored ourselves thoroughly, looking deep inside and sieving through the traits deep inside us in the process.
Last but not least, we identified 5-7 traits which we want to work on, moving ahead.

All of us wrote down different traits. Abrasiveness. Desire for approval. Being quick to judge others. Laziness. Selfishness. Poor time management. Procrastination. Low confidence. Being critical. Being negative. Emotional stinginess. Self-hate. Being fearful. Being high strung. Shyness. Anti-social. Aloofness. Skepticism. Cynicism. Arrogance. Insecurity. Lack of self-discipline. Indecisiveness. Being disorganized. Weak communication skills. Judgmental. Presumptuous. Greedy. Self-centeredness. Impatience. Lack of focus.

While we may not be proud of these traits, it’s important to acknowledge them first and foremost, which is the point of the last step of yesterday’s exercise. Because awareness is the first step towards growth. As long as we refuse to acknowledge a certain trait, say arrogance, we can never improve in that area, even if we may be the most arrogant person in the world.
So what do we do with these negative traits, after identifying them?

The first thing I want you to know is that you shouldn’t reject them. Meaning – Say you hate that you are lazy, self-conceited, and disorganized. Rather than hate these traits about yourself, and beat yourself up over them, accept that you have these traits. Accept that you are lazy. Accept that you’re self-conceited. And accept that you’re disorganized. Accept that these make up who you are currently, and these are not things you’re proud of.

The reason why I say that is because resistance will only cause internal conflict, which prevents you from truly improving. The age old saying of “What you resist will persist” is very true in this case. The more you deny that you are X trait, say, lazy, the lazier you’ll become. The more you deny that you’re self-conceited, the more self-conceited you’ll become. And the more you deny that you’re disorganized, the more disorganized you’ll be. That’s because denying doesn’t solve the problem – it only makes you think the problem is not there, which further aggravates it.

What should we do about our negative traits? The first step is to understand them. Understand why we think we possess this X trait. Understand why this trait bothers us so, so that we have a clear reason for change. Then from there, have an immediate plan to change things around.
Which is what we’re doing for today’s task. Today, we’ll look into our undesired traits, such that we can begin the first step to becoming the better us.

Your Task: Understand Your Negative Traits

Take out a new piece of paper.
From the list of 5-7 traits you wrote on Day 1: Assess Yourself, pick out 3 key traits you want to work on this month.

Write down the 3 traits on your paper.

For example, if you have biggest issues with being presumptive, being fearful of taking action, and being fearful of criticism, your 3 traits will probably look like this: (1) Presumptuousness (2) Fear of taking action (3) Fear of criticism.
Feel free to pick more than 3 if you want! 3 is the minimum.
Rank them in order of 1-3, with #1 being the top trait you want to work on.

Starting with the first trait, answer the following:
Why do you think you are ?
Taking an example for Presumptuousness:
Why am I ? Because I think I know better than others. I often assume things about other people (and events), which later turn out to be untrue. I judge people based on certain actions they do, even though these actions may not be indicative of their full character/personality.

Why do you want to change this trait?
Continuing from example on Presumptuousness:
Why do I want to change this trait? Because it causes issues, such as having conflicts with people, creating unhappiness in others, assuming things only to realize they are wrong later on, and so on. These are things I want to avoid, because they are unnecessary in the grand scheme of things. They create problems which can be avoided if I’m not presumptuous in the first place.
What is one baby step you can do today to change this?
Continuing from example on Presumptuousness:
What is 1 baby step I can do today to change this? I will ask more questions rather than assume things – i.e. going by the motif of “When in doubt, ask”. I’ll give others the benefit of the doubt even if things go wrong. I’ll start to think positively, rather than negatively, of everyone I see today.
Repeat step #3 for the other 2 traits.
Schedule the action steps (your answers to step #3.3) in your August calendar.
Do this if the steps cannot be actioned on today.
This ensures what you plan gets translated into reality and commits you to action.
Again, feel free to write as much as you want! The more, the better.
Day 2 Reflection for 30BBM
Is there anything you learned today?

This can be about yourself, other people, or other things in life.
This can be related/unrelated to the task, inspired by answers by other participants, inspired by the discussions in the community, due to something that happened in your life today that’s outside of 30BBM.
If so, what is it? Write it down.
Share Your Answers!

Assess Yourself BBM Day 1

#30BBM Day 1 – Assess Yourself

This is Day 1 of “Be a Better Me in 30 Days” (30BBM) August 2011 Challenge.!

This month of August is going to be a month of change and conscious action. For the next 30 days, we are going to be working on a series of tasks to build our character and work towards our ideal persona. I want you to bear in mind that August is the month to Be a Better YOU. This means that regardless of what you do, people you meet, situation you’re in, I want you to challenge yourself on how you can make something better (even if you’re handling everything very well). Then, apply that insight right away. Because being a better us happens every moment, every second – not just limited to doing a specific task on a specific day from a specific course (30BBM).


I want you to commit yourself fully to 30BBM. Chunk away redundant, less important tasks you have in August right now and dedicate yourself to the daily tasks in 30BBM. Don’t even give yourself any excuse or reason to skip any day’s task. Know that no matter what happens, all of us are here to support each other, so share everything openly in your daily post.

30BBM is meant to be a “Live”, community-driven challenge, so don’t just read the tasks quietly every day and disengage from the community. You’ll experience little like this. Rather, share your results. Read what others have to say (We have a huge group of participants and you definitely don’t need to read all the comments – just a small handful is fine). Reply to the ones that resonate with you. Post a helpful note to 1-2 fellow participants if you can. If everyone of us does this, we’ll take away so much more from this experience. The more we share, the more we’ll be able to learn.

Imagine all of us inside one, large, beautiful, magnificent room right now, basked in glorious, golden light – all eager to be a better us, all yearning to push our growth to the next level. The passion each of you have for your growth is overwhelming me, truly. I’m incredibly touched by your never-wavering commitment towards betterment, and I’m very honored to be here with you on your growth journey.

If you haven’t yet, set aside an hour every day (in August) for the daily tasks. I recommend to set it first thing in the morning, such that you can read the task at the start of the day, and you have the rest of the day to do the task.


That said, this is exactly what I relish in (publishing personal boundaries and what is “defined” by others as possible), and this is what I invite all of you to do in 30BBM as well. Because it’s precisely when one is made to do what he/she is normally accustomed to do where real growth occurs.



Day 1 – Assess Your Personality


Today’s task will take about 30-45 min.

“Men of genius are admired, men of wealth are envied, men of power are feared; but only men of character are trusted.”Alfred Adler

As you know, 30BBM is to be a better us. It’s created so we can develop our character, to weed out our bad character traits, to build new, desired traits, to cultivate universal values, to re-discover ourselves – so that we become the highest person we can be proud of.

When I was in university, I didn’t like myself very much. While I was very good in what I did and put my 110% in everything I was a part of, be it in my studies, in my fashion design work , my extra-curricular activities, my project work, and was overall a very well-rounded, high performing, and highly accomplished individual (compared to the peer group), there would be often times when I wasn’t happy with how I was, on the inside.


For example, I hated how I was always so critical of others. It was great in that this part of me pushed boundaries and created the best results each time, but I often ended up having a strong distaste for people I worked with on projects (usually people who were not as committed, did things at the last minute, etc), even though I really just wanted to make pure, unadulterated connections with everyone, regardless of who they were or how they were like.
I hated how I had such a hard personality – that as much as I wanted to be a kind, pure, warm individual, that I would come across as rude, brash, masculine, critical, pinpointed, against my better wishes, because I deemed these as repulsive traits.
I hated how I was selfish – always thinking about myself and my needs in life, rather than for others.


I hated how there would be times when I would be negative and complain about every single thing, rather than get a grip of myself and get a handle of the situation.
I hated how I was such an emotionally stingy person, always looking for positive affirmations and emotional displays from others, rather than doing that myself.
I remember at that time thinking – If there were things about my personality that I didn’t like, why not work on it directly as a goal? For if there was one thing I was good at, it would be setting goals, identifying action steps, and achieving them.

And that I did. I started assessing my character. I identified the things I liked about myself, and the things I didn’t like about myself. Thereby, I thought about the ideal traits I wanted to possess – the ideal persona I wanted to achieve. I then created a plan plan to integrate these traits, one after another, and set off to make them a part of me. Every day, I would make a commitment to live through to my ideal traits.


For this week, we’re going to be working on the series of steps above – one at a time. For today’s task, you’ll be assessing yourself.

Your Task: Assess Yourself

The first task of 30BBM is to assess your personality.
Take out a pen and a piece of paper, and answer the following questions:
If you were to rate yourself on a scale of 1-10 (in terms of your personality), how much would you rate yourself? Would you give yourself a 1? Would you give yourself a 10? A 3? A 5? A 7?
Be as honest as possible. You know yourself the best. While people can only know you by how you behave and what you choose to say, you know all the thoughts that goes through your head the whole time. Are you the person others think you are? Or are you someone else? No body knows the real you better than you.

Many people think that giving yourself a score of 1-2/10 means you dislike yourself. That’s complete bullshit and it can’t be further away from the truth. Your score merely indicates how far you see yourself from your potential, ideal self (which is a 10). The bigger the gap, the higher you see your potential for growth.
So if you put yourself as 1/10, that means you see huge potential to be better – which makes it easy to be a better you. On the other hand, those who rate themselves as 9/10 or 10/10 often don’t grow much – because they already think they’re good enough. Which is fine by itself, but I believe most of us who joined the challenge do so because we recognize growth is transcendent, and there can never be an end point to how good we can be.

Why did you give yourself the score in Q1?
State down specific reasons why – At least 3-5 points to explain your score.
Elaborate as much as you can. The more you write, the better.
Now, write down 5-7 traits about yourself you want to work on.
These can be traits you don’t like about yourself, or traits you are okay with but you want to eradicate because they serve no value to you.
Remember, elaborate as much as you want. The more you write, the better.
Question 3 is actually a lead-in for Day 2′s task. Tomorrow, we will be delving into the character traits we want to work on (ergo looking deeper into your Q3 answers) – so stay tuned.

Day 1 Reflection for 30BBM

For each 30BBM task, we’ll have a quick reflection session. This is to identify and collect our learnings and reflections, rather than just do the task for the sake of doing it.
Is there anything you learned today? (Be it about yourself, or about other things.)

If so, what is it? Write it down.

A Soundtrack for my Love

A Soundtrack for My Love.

Before you start thinking I'm about to pull out Marvin Gaye's "Let's Get It On" and seranade him, I think you should know that I have taken another lover.

The potato vodka has been temporarily replaced by a new, sweeter man.And that man is....Mr. Nutella.Once again, Laps introduced him to me. It all started the other night...I came home from a rough day of work. It was an extra long day, and so I flopped on the couch and put my arm over my eyes.

The next thing I knew, Laps was waving this buttered bread in front of me, except it wasn't butter. It was some sort of chocolate-looking spread."What is this?" I demanded."Nutella. Just try it."So I did.And then I made him make me another one.Which he did.Because I'm the boss.Obviously.I seriously could not get enough of the stuff in my mouth. Soon after, Laps kept catching me moaning while I loaded the hazelnutty goodness onto spoons. And when I wasn't eating it,
I was thinking about it.

Later, the answer to every question someone asked me was, "Nutella."

This proved quite awkward whilst at the gynecologist the other day. Yesterday after school, I came home and immediately grabbed another loving spoonful.

When Laps proceeded to give me a hard time, I told him I was going into the kitchen to make sweet love to the Nutella.

His response? "Leave the spoon." I decided that I should make a soundtrack to listen to whilst eating my new love.

Without further ado, and in no particular order, here is said soundtrack. Enjoy, friends, and get lickin'!1. I'll Make Love to You Boyz II Men (Yeah, that's right. I'm bringing them back.)2. You're the Inspiration Peter Cetera3. You Were Always on My Mind Willie Nelson4. When I Think About You, I Touch Myself The Divinyls5. Truly, Madly, Deeply Savage Garden6. Pour Some Sugar (Nutella) On Me Def Leppard7. U Got It Bad Usher8. Afternoon Delight Starland Vocal Band9. Forever Your Girl Paula Abdul10. Candy Shop 50 Cent11. Do That to Me One More Time Captain and Tennille12. Saving All My Love for You Whitney HoustonAm I missing any songs? Please let me know. I want this soundtrack to be absolutely perfect. Nutella deserves it.

We must remember our power.
We are stronger than our circumstances. We can influenceand transcend our environment.
Our natural ability to reason plus the intuition we were born with are invaluable tools that can help to bring us out of undesiredcircumstances.
One major issue that holds a lot of Seekers back is the belief that they are not worthy to receive something better. Before anything of greater value can come in to our lives we must begin to believe we are worthy of people, circumstances and a life that has greater value.
If we are keeping ourselves stuck in an abusive or toxic relationship, what will begin to change that is our thoughts and belief that we are worthy of happiness within our relationships.
If we lack the financial abundance we desire, the belief that we are more valuableis core to changing our situation.
Once we have the thoughts and beliefs of greater self-esteem, then we can begin to take action. Action from this place may look like breaking up with a person we are in a toxic relationship with. It may look like continuing our education to learn greater skillsthat will set us free financially. Or it might look like simply charging more for our products or services because we have come to realize how valuable they truly are.
Action might also look like moving, either to a new part of town, the state or to a whole new city or country.
It is in our thoughts of unworthiness that we create a life that is out of harmonywith what we truly desire. Slowly, day by day, as we change our thoughts from thoughts of unworthiness to worthiness, from doubting our dreams and intuition to believing,we will begin to take subtle different actions. These actions will eventually addup one at a time until we don't even recognize our life anymore.
We all want something to change in our lives. We want to grow. We want to evolve.
We want love.
We desire abundance.
We must begin by acknowledging our worth. We are not worthy because of a degree, an honor or a grade. We are all equally worthy to live this kind of elevated lifestyle because we are all Loved children of The Uni-verse. We must each realize that we are already worthy and then begin to take action from this place of already being worthy, while at the same time honor the worthiness of everyone else we meet.We are powerful beings. Let us step into that power today and declare our worthinessas already existing.

Are you feeling worthy today?~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~

Love Fu

Those that challenge you the most are also your greatest teachers.

Thank them, for they are the ones that call you to live your highest potential.

They are the opportunity for you to face yourself, your fears and those parts of you that you don’t like, for they will expose it.

They are the opportunity to see how you stop loving and to love bigger.

They invite you to live the books, your prayers and your spirituality.

Often when we are faced with a challenging individual, we get angry. We might defend our point, want to fight, be righteous, judge or collapse in fear.

Most of all those that challenge us, give us the opportunity to love.
But we must first shift our perception, how we view the situation and that person.
Here are some steps:

1 -Shift: See that person/situation as a gift. They are the opportunity for you to grow and love more.

2 – Let go: Give up being right and commit to being FREE. Nothing/No one is worth your happiness or peace. Life is way too short.

3 – Realize: They are reflecting something for you to see, a part of yourself that you need to own, an old wound that you get to heal and let go.

4 – Responsibility: Take the focus off of them, take responsibility and learn your lesson. Embrace it. Graduate from the experience and move on.

5 - Release: Accept the person exactly as they are. Perhaps that might mean you will need to let them go from your life or shift the dynamics of your relationship. Stop fighting what they are.

6 – Communicate: Either communicate with them directly if appropriate or simply bless them and let them go within your own heart. Since everything is energy and we are all interconnected, the good vibes that you send that person will affect them.

7 – Appreciate: Acknowledge your growth and learning. Focus on what you received, and the person you became as a result, rather than what was taken.

Remember: When someone attacks you, they are in a lot of pain. And even though it is directed at you, it most often isn’t about you. It isn’t personal, even though it seems that way and they might even feel that way.

You can choose to fight fire with fire, but this only creates more devastation. When someone attacks you, they want to engage you in a fight. If you attack back, you are now caught up in a vicious cycle.

Even if you win the fight… no one really wins. Let go. Focus on freedom and resolution.

It takes two people to fight. When you don’t engage the attack energy, soon your adversary will be left fighting with her/himself. Then the energy will dissipate.

If you drop to the level of your “attacker”, you perpetuate the cycle of endless negativity. Your “attacker” will try to use your energy to keep a war going. But if you don’t engage, then there is no resistance. They will have no fuel to keep fighting you with.

If someone gives you a gift, but you decline to accept it, to whom does the gift belong? It still belongs to the other person!

Rise above it. Disengage. Step to the side. Redirect. Live your freedom.
So, practice Love Fu. Then “Peace” is no longer just a sweet T-shirt slogan. And Love is not just some nice mantra. But Love becomes a daily reality and the opportunity in action for you to live.

Summertime Yumminess

Summertime Yumminess


1) Cooking squash stir fry this afternoon…this has become a summertime tradition for us & I absolutely love it! And they’re oh so yummy

2) big smooches on little girl cheeks. Scrumptious.

3) the sound of rain

4) Veggie steamers cooked in garlic/white wine yummines.

5) an amazing new recipe I tried this evening…so so good–risotto with asparagus, snow peas, squash, Parmesan, shallots, white wine, lemon–so delicious.

6) a brand new book that I can’t wait to read.

7) good friends

8) I so appreciate it when I went to the hospital saw Kelly and Greg enjoy each other after the birth of Lucy.

9) a little time to have a conversation with Larry without 2 dozen interruptions

10) Kleenex…So necessary when the joy of a new born