an inspiring book

I read an inspiring book during one of the free periods yesterday. I do not agree with every details that was mentioned in the book. However, I felt that some of the pointers given by the authors were very useful for me. The book is titled "Excel in Sports and Studies. You can do it!". Its written by Steven Quek C.H. and Renuka Satianathan.

The most useful method to do as many things as possible in life is to spend every single second that we have meaningfully. Time spent waiting for buses, time spent queueing up for food, time spent on travelling by public transports and any other time spent on waiting for someone or for an event to start should be spent wisely. For example, read a book while waiting for bus.

Making every second counts allows you to do many more things. For example, instead of rushing to buy food during bring in the first half of break (which normally has longer queue compared to the second half of the break), spend the first 10 minutes of the break on doing some homework. After the school, you will be spending 10 minutes lesser in completing your homework and you spend the 10 minutes that you have on something else.

I think this tip - do not leave school immediately if you travel home by bus, is very useful. When you leave school right after the bell has rang, the bus is probably going to be crowded or you may not even be able to board the bus. Instead, leave the school 10 to 15 minutes later than your peers so as to have a more comfortable bus ride. Meanwhile, spend that 10 to 15 minutes finishing up the homework (and you will have less work to finish when you reach home!).

Together with the 10 minutes that you spent on homework during the break, you will have extra 20-25 minutes. An accumulation of these extra 20-25minutes daily will give you many extra HOURS overtime. Thus, you will be able to do many more things!

To aid you in able to spend this little pockets of time, plan ahead. For example, before leaving your home for the school in the morning, plan what you would like to read or study while waiting for the bus and while you are travelling home. This will help you to have sufficient materials for all the free time that you have.

Another inspiring point that I took away was set goals for your life to aid you in moving on in life.
I think that goal setting is very important. Start with an end in mind. Without a goal in mind, you will find no motivation and you will see life as a meaningless process. There are 3 types of goal - short term goals, intermediate goals and long term goals (aka ultimate aims). Short term goals are things that you aim to achieve in everyday life. Intermediate goals are goals to achieve in the process of achieving the long term goals.

For example your long term goal is to make it to the national squad of a particular sports. Your intermediate goal would be to make it to the age-group squad by year 2010. Short term goal would then be things that you want to achieve during every training.

These goals will help you to overcome your tough times. Whenever you feel like giving up during your training, remind yourself that you are pushing on because you want to achieve your goals.

This brings me to another important point mentioned in the book - set the correct attitude, always be positive. Your attitude determines your altitude. When you meet an obstacle in your path to achieve your goals, you should always remain positive and tell yourself that you will overcome the obstacles and become stronger. On the other hand, if you have negative thoughts such as you will fail to tackle the problem, you will never overcome the problem.

Always enter a situation with the mindset that you will be the winner. This will help to push you to put in all your effort. As long as you have tried your best, you will never look back and ask "what if" which we should not.

Staying positive will also help you to pick up yourself after an unsuccessful attempt.

Hope these have inspired you like how it has been done to me! :)