Why Not Me?

When I was relatively younger, I used to doubt myself. I had poor self-esteem purely out of the thought of myself being untalented. I was raw and inexperienced in whatever came my way. In everything I encountered at school, I stood by the sideline and watched the high flyers performed to their best abilities and won tournaments, one after another. Then I would envy them. I wished I could be just a little bit like them, being outstanding in fields of their choices. 

And I bumped into this quote out of the blue, saying: "If others can do it, why can't I?" I paused. If others can do it, why can't you? There are so many people who have made histories, success stories are everywhere if you bother to look around. So many people have succeeded, why not myself? Many excellent students had attained straight A1's, what is stopping me from achieving the similar feat? What a powerful revelation! From that moment onwards, I started to gain courage, aim higher and strive for the best I could possibly achieve. 

That led me to the field of actuarial science, a field traditionally deemed as one of the toughest any sane homosapien can pursue in the world, because of its long grueling series of professional papers one has to endure in order to be qualified. I dared to challenge myself mentally, albeit having heard many failures occured in both past and present. There is no easy path, each professional paper exacts several hundred hours of discipline efforts allocated on revisions. Am I ready for it, both physically and mentally? At least at the end of the day, I can say I have attempted. 

These past two weeks I have been looking actively at properties, then I realised I have so much more to learn. I am just an inexperienced newbie. One thing I am extremely thankful of is the number of seniors available at my disposal to share with me their personal tips and opinions on property investing. As a starter, I need to make a few major decisions myself such as: 

i) What is my investment goal and the purpose of buying property (for own stay or passive income)? 

ii) Do I want a positive (sub-sale completed old building) or negative cash flow (new project)? 

iii) If negative cash flow, am I ready for such a huge financial obligation (which can be seen as a massive hurdle in times to come, bearing in mind I would have increasing commitments)? 

It may seem daunting at first as it did to me, but as long as I keep my mind open, I will be able to master it one day. Not only helpful seniors are everywhere within my reach, there are property blogs and websites that are freely available too. Only if you are willing and take your own initiative to spend some time on doing adequate research before committing yourself to huge financial obligation, you will improve over time. So far I am willing and hopeful to keep this level of enthusiasm high. I am still learning and will persist on equipping myself with knowledge.  

As soon as we are comfortable with our level of understanding on a certain topic, there is where the danger comes. Why do I say that? Because we feel complacent and thought we knew everything. We deluded ourselves into thinking we were on top of summit when we were barely at the base. We thought we had nothing else to fear. It is all innately entrenched in our mind and it is inevitable at one point we will feel this way. Maybe if we keep ourselves open to new ideas and always think we are just beginners, we shall never settle for ourselves, and we will keep moving forward! 

Another important point is we dare not step out beyond our comfort zones because of our fear of failures. As human beings it is natural for us to be afraid of uncertainty. Any venture demanding the stretch of our mental capacity and technical prowess daunts us back to our caves. It requires extra time and efforts, which means less time for something else – opportunity cost. There will be a complete shift in our priority list. But it has got to start somewhere. Perhaps this is a good beginning. 

Maybe we should just stop doubting ourselves, depriving ourselves of true potentials. When our minds and mental capacities are tough, nothing external can truly hurt us. Failures? Sure. Rejections? Bring it on! Not that I am already immune to all these, I know the sure-fire ways to climb back up stronger. After all, what doesn’t kill you makes you stronger.