My Goal in Life Essay

1.0 Welcome page

Hello, my name is Ong Cheng Kei. I am currently still 17 since my birthday is in December. I am a Malaysian and stay in Kuala Lumpur and it is a very busy city. I am currently still a student continuing my tertiary studies at Asia Pacific University (APU). I enrolled in April for the Foundation course and currently enjoy studying there. No doubt that my favorite subject this semester is mathematics since I like mathematics a lot. The lecturers there are also quite nice and professional. Moreover, I have quite a lot of interests, one of them is fitness, this explains why I would spend time going to the gym on daily basis. I also have an interest in computing and technology, this is because since young I have been fascinated by the evolution of technology and computers and decided to be involved in this field in the future. My skills are willing to communicate and work with different people with different backgrounds, being able to adapt to changes in my life easier, and always being able to find motivation for myself. Last but not least, my talent is that I have quite neat handwriting and am able to convince people easily.

Next, my favorite motivational quote is “Proud but not satisfied”. This motivational quote always motivates me to achieve more in life. The meaning is simple and already said by the quote itself, it means don’t just settle for what you currently have in life and always strive for more and more. Every time, I feel like giving up I always remember this quote and yes it did motivate me through all the tough times.

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2.0 Goal Setting

My short-term goal for this semester 1 is to achieve good results, which is at least CGPA 3.7 or above by the end of semester 1 in the foundation year. It’s sort of one of my top goals for this year. I think this achievement is very important to me because it will help me to secure my scholarship for my tertiary studies in the future for my degree. If I fail, it will be quite depressing and disappointing for me. This is because I will not manage to secure the scholarship and watching my parents must pay even more for my studies just feel like I am adding a burden to their life. The milestones I must accomplish to reach my goal is to always get high marks for my in-course assignments, and always get above 85% for any of my quiz in the class. To achieve my goal, there’re some habits and tasks to develop. One of the habits and tasks is that I must do daily revision which is at least 2 hours before I go to bed, basically just revising the things that I have learned today. Next, I also need to spend time reading 1 book per week to gain knowledge and help me improve myself even more. I also need to not procrastinate on the assignments and finish them 3 days before the deadline. I feel these habits and tasks are quite important in shaping me and guiding me closer to achieving my goal by the end of semester 1. Moreover, these habits and tasks are also associated with the milestone of this goal which is never procrastinating any revision and studies.

SMART review

• Specific: I need to achieve at least CGPA 3.7 or above.
• Measurable: I can track my progress by getting high marks on assignments and getting above 85% on the quiz
• Attainable: I can achieve this by doing 2 hours of daily revision, reading 1 book per day, and finishing my assignments 3 days before the deadline.
• Relevant: Getting a CGPA of 3.7 and above will help me secure my scholarships for my degree tuition fees
• Time: I will achieve at least CGPA 3.7 or above by the end of semester 1 in the foundation year.

My long-term goal will be to travel around the world. I want to travel across all the countries in Europe. It’s not a top goal for this year and I still have a long way to go to reach this goal. Since young, I already have the curiosity to explore the world to its fullest, hence it’s like a promise for my past young self to complete this lifetime goal. If I fail, I will be very disappointed in myself as I will feel like I didn’t work hard to accomplish this goal for myself. Moreover, this goal is also one of my life purposes, so I will work very hard to make sure I can reach this goal someday. The milestone that I must accomplish to reach my goal is to travel to at least 1 country in Europe yearly in the future. To achieve my goal, I need to establish some new habits and tasks. One of my habits is to start reading newspapers daily and doing research during my free time about Europe countries to gain more knowledge about the cultures. Secondly, the task that I have established is to work hard for myself in the future so that I can get a nice job with a high salary. I think these habits and tasks are significant for me as it prepares me for the future to travel the world and establishing these habits and goals will help me stay on track even though this is a long-term goal that requires a very consistent commitment. Moreover, these goals and tasks are also associated with the milestone of this long-term goal. In the next 30 years, I will finish traveling across all the countries in Europe.

SMART Review

• Specific: I want to travel across all the Europe countries.
• Measurable: I will track my progress by traveling to at least 1 country in Europe yearly in the future.
• Attainable: I will accomplish this by reading newspapers daily and doing research during my free time about their cultures. I also need to work hard in the future to increase my salary over time.
• Relevant: Getting to travel across all the Europe countries can fulfill my curiosity to explore the world since young and my dream to travel across Europe.
• Time: I will finish traveling all the countries in Europe in the next 30 years.

Next, my social goal is to get involved in 10 volunteer works. I want to get involved in some charity movements, such as visiting old folks’ homes, cleaning the animal shelter, and visiting orphanage homes. It’s not a top goal for this year as this goal is not urgent and unimportant at this moment. This goal is important for me to accomplish because I always wanted to help people in volunteer work while getting to know other strangers as well, it also makes me feel that I am giving some contributions back to the society I grew up in. It gives me a sense of happiness and love when I helped strangers, especially in any charity movement. If I fail to achieve this social goal, I will be disappointed as I feel I am unable to give some smallest contributions back to society. The milestones that I must accomplish before I reach this goal are I need to be more active in joining events that are visiting the animal shelter, old folks’ home and others at least twice a year. To achieve this social goal, I need to develop some new habits and tasks. The habits and tasks that I need to develop are to be more engaged in social media so that I can notice some volunteer work that is happening around me easily. Secondly, I also need to be more active in finding societies and charity organizations that held monthly visits to the old folks’ homes. These habits and tasks are important to me because it helps me to stay on track and helps me to reach my milestones easier and faster towards my social goal. I will achieve this social goal within the next 5 years.

SMART Review :

1. Specific: I want to get involved in 10 volunteer works, such as visiting old folks’ homes, cleaning animal shelters, and visiting orphanage homes.
2. Measurable: I will track my progress towards my goal by being more active in joining events that are visiting old folks’ homes or animal shelters and others at least twice a year.
3. Relevant: Getting involved in volunteer work gives me a sense of happiness because I can contribute some of my efforts back to society.
4. Attainable: I can accomplish this by being more engaged in social media to notice more volunteer works happening around me, I also need to be active in finding charity societies and organizations.
5. Time: I will achieve this social goal by completing 10 volunteer works in the next 5 years.

Summary for 2.0 Goal-setting

For the past few weeks, I have utilized this goal-setting method to set up the goals that I wanted to achieve. I think this goal-setting method has motivated me to achieve my goal and to be more serious about it. For my short-term goal, I think I have to reach part of the milestone since I am doing well in most of my recent assessments and in-course quiz in other subjects. I have scored well on my mathematics quiz and am already preparing for my assignments early. Through this process, I think I have changed some of my behavior such as procrastinating my studies, and have reduced my intention to play computer games. The new habits that I have set for myself have helped me to gain more knowledge in my academics and help me to score in exams, and the habits also help me to finish my assignments on time and never rush it as rushing work doesn’t produce a good quality one. This helps me to score well on my overall CGPA. In a conclusion, I think I have learned the importance of keeping track of a goal to really achieve it. As for my long-term goal, I think I did not reach my milestone yet as it still has a long way to go. However, I did some research on some of the Europe countries about the culture. The habits that I have established have made me more curious about the culture and the people in Europe countries. Through this process, I have learned more about the cultures, the cuisine, and the famous place in certain Europe countries. Lastly, for my social goal, I have reached my milestone as I did a lookup for volunteering events on my social media platform. However, I think I still need to be more engaged so that I can notice more easily. Through this process, I have gained experience in communicating with other people, and I have also learned more about some of the details of different non-profit organizations that are actively helping people that are in trouble. I really appreciate this goal-setting method as it motivates me a lot and I take my goals more seriously. Most people often don’t come up with a plan when it comes to achieving their goals and end up failing to accomplish them, hence keeping track of your own goals is very important.

Summary for 3.0 SWOT Analysis

For the previous weeks, I have spent time analyzing my strengths and weakness. I have utilized all my strengths to get me one step closer to achieving my goals and developing myself. For example, one of my strengths is always to start my assignments as early as possible, hence I always finish my assignments on time and never get my marks deducted for any late submission or any unorganized work of my assignment. As this will help me secure my CGPA of 3.7 by the end of the semester. Next, I have also utilized my other strengths such as being willing to communicate with my teachers and friends when I faced trouble in my studies. I always voice up my problems to them so that I can solve any of the academic problems immediately, so I can be clear about them during my assessments and exams. Last but not least, I have also always motivated myself to study when I feel the need to, this helps me to be more serious about my studies when I don’t have the mood to concentrate.

There are some of my weakness which is hindering my progress in achieving my goal. Hence, these previous few weeks I have tried my best to improve my weakness, so it doesn’t affect my progress so much in achieving my goal. One of the things I did is to be more conscious of the difficulty of any upcoming exams so that I won’t be too over-confidence and neglect my revisions. I also choose an environment that is free from any distractions when I am doing my assignments or revisions so that I can be more focused and not get distracted. I have also stuck to the timetable that I have planned to prevent me from procrastinating too much from time to time.

One of the big opportunities is having access to the campus library, as this gives me a much more distractions-free environment for me to concentrate during my revisions and doing my assignments. Next, the guidance of my lecturers is also very important to me, I make use of it by frequently asking questions regarding my academic stuff and assignments. Last but not least, I have handled some of the threats in the past few weeks. For example, I have set up a timetable for myself which only allows me to have leisure time during weekends. I also keep away my console and PC in somewhere else not noticeable when I am studying as this helps me reduce the distractions and my urge to play it when I am bored.

4.0 Time Management

Reflection

A day only has 24 hours, no more or less. Hence, time is so precious in our lives because one can never take back the time that has passed. I was one of the people that always complain about not having enough time every day. However, I am surprised that planning my own timetable makes me use time more efficiently and finish all the work of that day. During that one week, I successfully managed my time according to my plan and I feel great afterward. During the weekdays except for Friday, I usually spend my morning traveling to school and having classes until the afternoon.

Then in the afternoon, I will usually spend my time working out in the gym and doing my assignments. At night, I will usually spend time doing self-study sessions. However, on the weekends and Friday, I will usually spend most of my time as my leisure time and a little time doing academic-related stuff. During my leisure time, I will be playing social media, playing computer games, and watching movies and dramas. I spend roughly around 15 hours as my leisure time, and more than 20 hours studying, going to school, and doing assignments in one whole week. I think I could have managed my time better by planning my daily to-do list, this will help me accomplish the most important task first on that day. Next, I also can set up my weekly goal list, this helps me keep track of my weekly goals and work towards them. Moreover, I think I could have reduced my leisure time sometimes and used that time to accompany my family for an outing or just have a conversation with them. In conclusion, I will appreciate my time even more from now on.

5.0 Intercultural Communications

The culture that I am going to choose to do a comparison with is Kazakhstan culture. I come from a Malaysian Chinese culture, so I am going to do a comparison between both of these cultures. As we know, there are a lot of differences between both cultures. One of the main differences that we can notice is the language and dialect. As Malaysian Chinese our mother tongue is Chinese, but we also able to speak English and Bahasa Malaysia ( National Language) because Malaysians are usually able to speak at least English and Bahasa Malaysia. The dialects that are widely spoken here in Malaysia as Malaysian Chinese are Cantonese, Hokkien, and Hakka, and there are some other dialects as well but are not often used. On the other hand, according to (Studycountry n.d.), the official language for Kazakhstan is Kazakh, and their second language is Russian, both of which are widely used in daily life. However, most of the population in Kazakh knows how to speak Russian than Kazakh.

Next, another main difference that we can notice is the unique cuisine between these two cultures. One of the most famous Malaysian Chinese cuisines is the Hainanese Chicken rice state (Peter Wang n.d). This dish is served with chicken that is marinated with different spices and rice which is cooked with different herbs and spices to add up the taste. There is a lot of debate about whether this dish originated from Malaysia or Hainan, a state in china. Some people said Malaysians created the first Hainan Chicken Rice. Secondly, (Peter Wang n.d) also mentioned prawn mee as one of his favorite Malaysian Chinese cuisines. Prawn mee is quite famous in Penang and it’s often referred to as “hokkien mee”. On the other hand, according to (foodyoushouldtry , 2017) one of the most popular cuisine in Kazakhstan is the Beshbarmark. It’s the national dish for the Kazakhs. The dish is served with boiled noodles, finely chopped boiled meat, and “shorpo” which is a mutton broth in bowls. Then, (foodyoushouldtry, 2017) also states that kumis is one of the famous Kazakhstan cuisines. It’s actually a fermented dairy product made from horse’s milk and it contains alcohol.