One important thing that I have come to learn about is to ignore perfection. I think there is a tendency for most of us to just wait until everything is alright before we do something. Or that tendency to always strive to make something perfect.

I learn this especially in the past few weeks while putting the final touches on my book.

I have learned that sometimes you can never make things a 100% perfect. Perfection is a crutch that doesn’t help us. The need for perfection is a neurotic behaviour.

If you have one of these tendencies, you have to realize them. Among the self-talk of a perfectionist behaviour include:

• How can I further improve this thing? (It is alright to improve. But if you constantly ask yourself, it is a neurotic behaviour.)
• The time is not right. (Actually, the time will never be right.)

I think realizing this tendency is important because I have learned to just do and don’t aim for perfection. I will work towards improving myself when I take the first step.

Excellent work is created out of first steps and the constant improvement of it. That involves improving ourselves by learning or changing our paths.

Take the first step. To hell with perfection.

I realized that I would hit 23 this year.

I feel lucky at times that although I am 23, I have been able to know many people who are way older than me. I know some who are in their late twenties, some in their early forties and many different ages.

Those in their late twenties would be looking to settle down (with marriage and kids). Those in their early forties would be looking for retirement. We all are in transition.

The beauty about mixing around with people from different ages is that I am able to learn from what they have done. All their mistakes and the important lessons. It is a real asset to me.

As I started this year, I felt that I have grown a lot in the past few years. The person that I am may not be apparent to the people around me because the changes are from within. The changes that I have is something which is hard to measure.

I change in a sense that I am more certain about what I love doing. I learn what principles that I have in life now. I know what industry and lifestyle that I want in the near future.

Being in transitions is something unexplainable. Is hard to explain the feeling where you know that you are allowing yourself to change. I’m not controlling where I want to be. It’s more of discovering myself. I have stronger principles and better understanding of myself and what I want.

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On another note, I took a trip to the city of KL this afternoon. I didn’t feel comfortable at all with the pace of the city. I dislike the fact that the people are so in a rush.

Being in a rush is alright, but do they even know why they are rushing in the first place?

We all have preferences about the life we want to live. At the moment, that kind of life just doesn’t suit me. It’s just not me.

I frankly find it hard to accept that it’s already the end of 2011. It seems like only a blink of an eye ago that the year just started. I think this year is something in which I tried and fail in many things.

I don’t even know where to start at times when it comes to telling how much I have failed this year. I am not being cynical. I rather think that I am being grateful for them. All the events that have happened this year helped paved a better route for me.

Without me realizing, I often spend a lot of time going after things which doesn’t mean much to me. It feels like a waste of time when I look back. The blessing that I have managed to find is a form of inner achievement – the form of achievement where is impossible to measure because it’s personal.

This year made me realized that what I want changes with time. It have paved a better path for me without realizing. Truth be told, I didn’t achieve the many things I set out to do at the beginning of the year. However, I persisted and I know created a different path for myself.

I realized that the career I was on wasn’t something which I wanted. I realized that I wasn’t focused enough. I realized that there are certain habits which I needed to develop (namely, regular exercise and meditation). All these habits have been hard for me to ingrain.

I am not sure what 2012 have for me, but I intend to make it a great year. It shucks that whenever I made such reflection, I realize how fast time flies. I wonder if I’m doing the right thing or if I am being the person I want to be.

It’s hard though, because there are so many influences around me. It seems so easily to just get sucked into the daily tides of life without realizing what I am doing. The next thing I know, I would be this grown up man doing things which I didn’t understood in the first place.

I guess that frightens me more than anything.

I can’t imagine myself being in a place where I didn’t know what I was doing but the years has just pass me by. I imagine if I am forty, married with children and stuffs – but I just didn’t know what I was doing with my life.

This year is filled with so-called ‘failures’ and mis-hits. The blessing was that I knew myself better. I did things that I wanted and failed. It told me how much they meant to me, or in some cases, how much it didn’t meant to me.

I honestly have a good feeling about 2012. I have no idea why but feel that it would be a year where I would be more focused with many areas of my life.

As I slowly become more stable with the working world, I come to a realization that it is the simple things which has the biggest effects on our lives. Like it or not, we may want to do big things but the way to do make things is to focus on the small things.

I have learned that understanding this principle affect the way I go about my life. Simple put, the lessons are such:

(1) Keep things simple. No matter what you are working on, be it on your career progression, studies, or simply following a dream; you have to keep things as simple as you possibly can. In simplicity lies genius. To be able to keep things simple is probably one of the most important skills that I learn.

(2) Learn constantly. Most of us try to learn in one big leap. However, real learning doesn’t happen in such a manner. Learning is about taking small, progressive steps. You never take one big leap in learning. You just take incremental steps, over and over again. If you keep that in mind, you will be amazed by how much you have learnt after a period.

(3) Small steps. Building up on the point above, take small steps. If you want to do something big, start off small. I learn this from the process of writing a book. I decided that I wanted to write a book early this year and chartered the journey. It started from brainstorming topics to simply creating a table of content. It may be as simple as a task of  which only requires one minute. But, if you take that step and build upon that, you will be able to get to somewhere with persistence.

(4) Know what you want. I believe the knowing what you want is even more of a blessing than anything in the world. When you know what you want, you are ready to go for it.

I have reminded myself of this four simple lessons time and time again.

I simplify it to these key words.

(1) Keep things simple.

(2) Learn constantly.

(3) Small steps.

(4) Know what you want.

Simple. Learn. Small. Know.