It’s 2010 – Happy New Year from Hong Kong and welcome to the beginning of a new decade!

As with every new year, most people are making New Year Resolutions for themselves, whether it is meant to improve their lives personally or professionally.

However, 2010 is different because not only is it a New Year, it is also a New Decade…

When it comes to making your resolutions this time around, you must think bigger picture in terms of what you want to achieve not just for this year, but for the next 10 years!

I know, I know… making goals for the next 10 years seems to be somewhat of a stretch…

This was exactly what I thought the last time I renewed my passport (In the United States, passports expire every 10 years).

I thought to myself, “Wow – I won’t need to renew my passport for another 10 years… That’s PLENTY of time!”

Guess what? I just finished renewing my passport again several weeks ago… :)

The point I’m trying to make is not just that I’m getting old and that time can fly right by you before you know it, but also that you need to set the appropriate goals for yourself and make sure you use this time to achieve what is important to you.

Back in 2000, I was a broke college student struggling to finish my Bachelor degree, eating ramen and soy sauce over rice with every meal, with dreams of finding success and traveling the world.

When I received my renewed passport in the mail, the first thing I did (after getting over how unsatisfied I was with my passport photo) was set a goal for myself to fill up every page of that passport before it was due to expire in 10 years.

For a college student who averaged maybe one trip to Hong Kong every year or two to visit family, this was a pretty tall order.

Before I knew it, a year has gone by, two years, five years, eight years, and I had barely made a dent on my passport, continuing to average maybe one or two International flights a year, filling up only a quarter or so of my passport pages.

When I realized my time was running out, I decided to kick my business into high gear and began expanding my company overseas.

Within the course of about a year, I managed to expand my business from just within the United States to Singapore, Malaysia, Australia, New Zealand and China.

I’ve also had the chance to take personal and business vacations to places like Mexico, Caribbeans, Nova Scotia, Thailand, Indonesia, Vietnam, Japan, Macau and of course, right here in my hometown of Hong Kong.

Needless to say, these International trips (most places I visited multiple times) resulted in many additional stamps on my passport, and I actually filled up every single one of these pages an entire year before my passport was due to expire.

The moral of the story is that every year, we make New Year Resolutions for ourselves, generic ones like make more money, eat more healthy, quit smoking, work out more, lose weight and spend less money.

Many of our resolutions, if not most or all, are almost never achieved and even die away within a day or two after you have set them.

Well this year, since 2010 marks the beginning of a new decade, why not be a little different?

Why not set a goal for yourself that is higher than what you would normally set, and more specific than what you would normally declare?

How about something that is not “achieved” by doing once, like going to the gym or refraining from eating a greasy burger?

Push yourself to the point where you know what your own limits are, and then surpassing them because you have set a higher goal for yourself.

Success does not happen overnight – You must work hard at it every day and strive to reach the point in which you would consider it successful.

Yes, it may take you up to ten years to achieve it, whatever it may be – To max out your passport with travels, to build a seven or eight figure business from scratch, to attain financial freedom for your family, or whatever that goal might be.

And let me tell you, once you complete these goals and raise your arms in victory, there is no better feeling – especially if you found that you have done it in less than 10 years :)

Happy New Year and don’t just make 2010 your year – Make This Your Decade!

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