Do You Have A Goal Success Story?
By Ellesse Chow
This evening, while scouring through the list of files on an old shelf trying to look for a self improvement book, I found an aged folder containing some of the examination papers I’d taken during my Pre-University days. Yikes! It was on Economics, a subject that I didn’t really like much back then.
As I flipped through the faded papers, occasionally guffawing at the silly mistakes that I’d made, memories of the past flood my mind. I saw myself sitting on one of the study tables in the all so familiar cool, sheltered podium in my college compound burying my head into some ten years’ series. Back then, it was popular for most Singaporean students to treat the ten years’ series, which essentially is a compilation of past years’ Cambridge A’ level examination papers, as if their life depended on it. Read more
7 People Who Will Never Step Out of Their Comfort Zone
By Ellesse Chow
A few months ago, a friend came up and told me she’d been offered to join a new department in her company. It was something radically different from what she was previously doing, so she was having second thoughts about accepting it.
“Isn’t that what you want? To get a change from what you are already handling? This will be a great break!” I beamed with enthusiasm.
“Yeah, but…” she rattled on, giving 101 reasons why she felt it would be a bad move.
As I listened, I began to sense an invisible shield surrounding her, keeping her closely tucked into a small enclosure where she felt she would be “safe” and “protected”. I tried my best to give her a You-Never-Know-Unless-You-Try prep talk, hoping that it would help her break out of the cocoon, when suddenly she blurted out “It’s easy for you to say that because you’re not in my position”. Click! The cocoon was locked. Tightly.
At that moment of time, I’d decided to keep my comments to myself. It’s hard to break a nut. It’s even harder to break someone out of their comfort zone cocoon, without them putting some effort from the inside.
As more and more similar cases surfaced since that last incident, my final conclusion is, it’s futile trying to break someone out from their comfort zone because such cocoon comes with a self lock mechanism. Unless a bolt of realization strikes them, something like an awakening call, they’ll never unlock and step out of their comfort zone willingly.
You’ve probably met some of these “cocoonees” before. Here’s the top 7 list of people whom I think will never step out of their comfort zone… errh, unless they start doing something NOW. Read more
