“My mission in life is not merely to survive, but to thrive; and to do so with some passion, some compassion, some humor, and some style.”
– Maya Angelou
Typically, people would normally do a one year review towards the end of the year. I decided to do this one year review on my life in June because about one year ago, I decided to launch my own eCommerce store.
This is just a brief review into my life for the past year. In this review, I will evaluate my health, career, and personal growth.
In the year of 2016 I decided to make a serious commitment to my personal development. I have always kind of dabbled and read a few things about personal development, but I never made a serious commitment to it.
I really began to take it seriously when I stumbled onto a YouTube channel called Actualized.org 1. It is a channel about personal development, and self-actualization. Self-actualization can be thought of as the process or achievement of gaining one’s full potential.
If you would like to learn more about self-actualization, watch this video:
Inner Growth and Mental Health
One of the biggest things I did that created the momentum for my growth was quitting TV for the entire year. That means I watched zero TV shows both online, and on traditional television. I did still watch YouTube, movies, and random Internet video clips, but I did not watch any shows at all. The reason I did this was because I realized I was addicted to TV. There was a time in my life when I watched hours of shows every single day. Over the years, I have wasted thousands of hours binging on TV shows. Once I quit watching TV, I realized how much more energy and time I had. After the one year mark I did watch a few shows, but I no longer have the need to watch TV on a regular basis.
The next thing I did was to set a daily meditation habit. I decided I would meditate every single day for 30 days. Once I had achieved that goal, I decided to commit to making it a lifelong habit. Meditation really helped me a lot in the first few months of practice. I developed more control over my emotions, although I’m still far from perfect at it. I had a lot more clarity in my mind, and a stronger sense of self-discipline. Over the past few months though, I felt the benefits of meditation had gone away and I had even slipped backwards a bit. It was frustrating because I was still meditating every single day. In fact, for most days I would mediate for 50 minutes each day. I also knew that this period of being stuck on a plateau is normal. So because of that I just went through the motions of meditating daily even when I felt that it was doing nothing for me. The most important thing is the commitment to do it every single day for the rest of my life.
Currently, I am experimenting more with my meditation practice. I have cut my meditation time to just 20 minutes each day. I am also focusing on practicing mindfulness meditation, which requires more focus, and effort than what I was previously doing. This focus is more on quality than quantity. I plan to practice mindfulness meditation daily for at least one year.
The small changes I made in my habits allowed me to strengthen my self-discipline. I also developed a better level of awareness.
Career
In June 2016, I launched my very own eCommerce store. I took an online course which taught an eCommerce business model called drop shipping 2. Drop shipping is a method of order fulfillment which allows a store to sell items online without having to directly keep the items on hand.
I formed an official LLC in January 2017.
I built my store and ran my business while working a full-time job as a smart phone repair tech.
The first two months was the learning process. I was mainly learning by going through the course, and experimenting with the methods that were taught. I started to get the hang of things in the third month. By the fourth month I had a profitable business. In the fifth month I had earned a lot more than what my current job had paid me. The busiest shopping season was just around the corner and I wanted to scale my business as much as possible. I made the decision to quit my job and put in my two weeks notice.
A funny and bizarre thing happened. As soon as I left my job I had a huge loss in my drive. I don’t know exactly what happened, but I do know it was a combination of lots of little things. All these little things added up and I had a huge loss in my peak state. It was all downhill from there. I lost my most profitable campaigns. I could have easily maintained a certain level of daily sales, but I didn’t. I just kept slipping further and further away. I didn’t maintain a strict control of my finances and budget. I had a huge leak in my finances and I didn’t even realize it. Money was just pouring out of my accounts month after month. As of now, my business has dropped significantly in sales and has not been profitable for months. I am working harder than before, but in this digital landscape, the market moves FAST. It moves so damn fast that the methods that were working for me just 3 – 4 months ago no longer work. Now I am struggling to get sales and get the same type of momentum I had before. I just have to keep working at it until I have my next breakthrough.
I am now more motivated and determined than ever to succeed. Although I am teetering on the edge, I realized I don’t need to pressure myself to achieve massive results so quickly. I am focusing more on the long game now. This is a huge mindset shift for me, and I want to keep and maintain this mindset from now on.
Physical Health
In March 2017, I attended a Tony Robbins seminar called Unleash The Power Within. This was a 4 day action packed event that far surpassed what I thought it would be. The energy there was amazing and I took a lot of value out of it. Initially, I wanted to see if I could snap myself out of my downward spiral and get myself into the peak state again. What happened instead was that instead of focusing on my business and finances, I ended up focusing more on my physical health. Over the past 3 years I gained a lot of weight. It mostly happened when I was in a state of depression. I was eating a lot of junk food in large quantities to help me escape from reality. Since the seminar, I became more conscientious of my eating habits and the foods that I was eating. Although I don’t have perfectly healthy eating habits, I do make a lot healthier decisions now. I have also been exercising a lot more frequently. So far I have lost about 20 pounds in the past 3 months. My goal is to lose another 20 pounds by the end of the year.
Personal Growth
From March 2016 till June 2017, I had a very dynamic year. I overcame my compulsive TV watching. I started a daily meditation habit. I moved into a new place with my girlfriend. I quit my job and started a new business (which is currently failing miserably). I attended a Tony Robbins seminar, and got a lot of value from it. I lost 20 lbs of fat. I also feel that I have gotten closer to a friend I attended the seminar with.
I also learned a lot about human psychology. Ultimately it is all in the mind. Our psychology is what determines our success. I had to overcome a lot of poor money psychology to achieve a certain breakthrough. I still have a lot of room to grow though.
I am responsible for all the decisions I have made. Both good and bad. All of the decisions that I made are what led me to where I am now. It is a liberating feeling. Even though I made a LOT of poor decisions, I am the one who decided to do it. It wasn’t because I was doing something that someone had told me to do. I can’t point the finger at anyone and blame them for where I am. I put it all on myself. I love the fact that it is my responsibility to create the life I desire.
Moving Forward
I am going to continue with my eCommerce business and work on building it back up. I don’t know whether I can become successful doing this, but I at least want to try my very best. My main priority is to fix my financial situation. Rather than focus on just getting money, I would like to focus more on providing value. It will be tough to provide value through my current business model, but I will have to find a way.
By the end of this year I would like to lose another 20 lbs of fat. Exercising isn’t set as an automatic habit yet, but I am continuing to push myself to exercise regularly. I want to focus more on the long game now. I need to think more about where I want to be in the long run. What would it take for me to achieve my goals? What actions can I take daily that will get me closer to my goals?
Ultimately, I am pursuing self-actualization. I am also looking for my life purpose. I don’t feel like I have found it yet. I would like to provide more value to the world.
I am also focusing more on my need for growth, spirituality, and connection.
By this time next year, my goal is solve my money problems for good.
Resources and Mentions: