A palliative nurse who cared for dying patients in the last weeks of their lives took the liberty to record the most common regrets among them. Among these regrets were revealing statements like wishing they didn't work so hard, wishing they had the courage to express their feelings, and wishing they had stayed in touch with their friends. I believe people can get striking clarity and wisdom in the last moments of their death. In this episode of The Personal Excellence Podcast, I share the top 5 regrets of the dying, as identified by former palliative nurse Bronnie Ware, and my thoughts and pointers on how we can use this wisdom to better our lives. Regret #1: I wish I’d had the courage to live a life true to myself, not the life others expected of me [02:26] Regret #2: I wish I didn’t work so hard [11:30] Regret #3: I wish I’d had the courage to express my feelings [18:43] Regret #4: I wish I had stayed in touch with my friends [23:51] Regret #5: I wish that I had let myself be happier [27:56] Listen to the podcast via my online player, Apple Podcasts, Spotify, TuneIn, Amazon Music, or subscribe directly to my RSS feed. The Personal Excellence PodcastShow Menu Podcast Subscription Menu Listen on iTunesListen on SpotifyListen on GoogleListen on TuneInListen on CastboxListen on PocketCastsListen on OvercastSubscribe via RSSTop 5 Regrets of the Dying (And What To Do About Them)Show Podcast Information If you've found The Personal Excellence Podcast useful, I'd really appreciate it if you can leave an honest rating and review on iTunes. Your review makes a difference and will help spread the message of conscious living to the world. Thank you! Top 5 Regrets of the Dying [Transcript] Welcome to the Personal Excellence Podcast, the show that's all about helping you be your best self and live your best life. Now, your host, Celestine Chua! Celestine Chua: Hey everyone! Welcome to The Personal Excellence Podcast Episode 7. I'm Celestine Chua from PersonalExcellence.co. Today's episode is a different one. I want to talk about the top 5 regrets of the dying, a topic that's based on an article. Some of you may have read this before, because it's an article that went viral several years ago. The article is by Bronnie Ware, and she was a palliative nurse who cared for dying patients in the last weeks of their lives. She penned an article on the top 5 regrets of the dying because after all these years of just caring for patients who were going to past on, she noticed recurring trends in their thoughts, things they wished they did. This could be things like wishing they didn't work so hard, wishing they had the courage to express their feelings, and so on. I thought that this would be an insightful topic to talk about today because I believe people get clarity during the last moments of their lives. It puts things into perspective, like things they wished they did or things they wished they didn't do so much of. It is good to review these to understand what's on their minds, and also to use this as insight and wisdom to reflect on our lives and whether it's heading down the path we want. In today's podcast, I'm going to be reading snippets from Bronnie's article, covering the top five regrets of the dying, and sharing my thoughts and perspective on them. At the end of the podcast, I'll share the link to Bronnie's article so you can take a look for yourself. Regret #1: I wish I’d had the courage to live a life true to myself, not the life others expected of me The first regret, "I wish I'd had the courage to live a life true to myself, not the life others expected of me." Bronnie says, "This was the most common regret of all when people realized that their life is almost over and look back clearly on it. It is easy to see how many dreams have gone unfulfilled. Most people had not honored even a half of their dreams and had to die knowing that it was due to the choices they had made or not made.

Do you hate to say no? Do you often find yourself saying yes because you don't like to make others feel bad? Well, I do, and I can relate. I used to be terrible at saying no until I realized that continually saying "yes" was digging myself into a ditch and led me with little time for my personal goals and relationships. In this episode of The Personal Excellence Podcast, I share 6 tips to say no that I've been applying, along with personal examples: Tip #1: Know what you want to say yes to [00:57] Tip #2: Know that saying no is okay [04:43] Tip #3: Many little yeses to irrelevant things, or mildly relevant things, even if small, can deviate you from your main goal [08:26] Tip #4: Be honest about it [13:22] Tip #5: Give alternatives (if you like) [19:04] Tip #6: Do a life audit if you're getting a high noise signal [20:04] Listen to the podcast via my online player, Apple Podcasts, Spotify, TuneIn, Amazon Music, or subscribe directly to my RSS feed. The Personal Excellence PodcastShow Menu Podcast Subscription Menu Listen on iTunesListen on SpotifyListen on GoogleListen on TuneInListen on CastboxListen on PocketCastsListen on OvercastSubscribe via RSSHow To Say No To OthersShow Podcast Information If you've found The Personal Excellence Podcast useful, I'd really appreciate it if you can leave an honest rating and review on iTunes. Your review makes a difference and will help spread the message of conscious living to the world. Thank you! How To Say No [Transcript] Welcome to the Personal Excellence Podcast, the show that's all about helping you be your best self and live your best life. Now, your host, Celestine Chua! Celestine Chua: Hey everyone! Welcome to The Personal Excellence Podcast Episode 6. I'm Celestine Chua from PersonalExcellence.co. Today's topic really hits home for me. It's about how to say no. I don't know about you, but I used to be really bad at saying no. In a way I still am. But I've learned to be a lot better at it. If you are someone who has difficulty saying no, today I want to share with you six tips that have worked really well for me and I hope you'll find them helpful. 1) Know what is it you want to say yes to My tip number one is to know what you want to say yes to. For me, when I just focus on learning how to say no as an action in itself, it becomes a hollow quest. Because my default self is to help people. I like to agree to requests as much as I can. And I like to be there for other people. Obviously, this has its own implications. After countless situations where I just kept saying yes, yes, yes to every single person, request, and favor, I just didn't have any time for myself, for my goals. On the other hand, when I focus on the things that I want to say yes to, meaning my biggest goals and dreams, my Quadrant 2 projects, this helps me define this clear vision of the real big priorities in my life. Let's say I don't have this clear vision. Everything can simply be important. Yet, when framed into the context where we all have limited time on Earth, we all have certain ambitions to realize within our lifetime, then it becomes clear that we need to prioritize the things that we say yes to, and hence no to the other things. For me, what I want to say yes to would be PE. All of you guys. Growing it, creating more content for you guys, creating more great courses. Just being there for all of you, through my content. And of course, my loved ones, my family members. And my own personal growth and health. These would be the biggest rocks I wish to say yes to. So these priorities will never change. They will just be there, till the day I die. Knowing these key big rocks puts into context the things I should say yes to, and the things I should say no to. For example, let's say someone may be asking for a favor or pitching a proposal or an idea that is not a good fit for my business. Then letting it drag on will not help my Quadrant 2 goals, and in fact,

Do you have times when you feel lousy about yourself? Times when you hate yourself or just feel that you're worthless? I have these moments, and if you do, I want you to know that you're not alone. More importantly, I want to share with you tips to deal with such debilitating moments of negative self-worth, so that you can gain strength to continue in your journey and not feel like you need to struggle by yourself.  In this episode of The Personal Excellence Podcast, I share 6 tips to deal with moments of negative self-worth: Tip #1: Forgive yourself [01:42] Tip #2: Everyone is struggling [04:27] Tip #3: Stop subjecting yourself to impossible standards [07:15] Tip #4: Do something that makes you happy [11:21] Tip #5: Identify trends in what's making you feel negative [15:24] Tip #6: Recognize you are complete [22:27] Listen to the podcast via my online player, Apple Podcasts, Spotify, TuneIn, Amazon Music, or subscribe directly to my RSS feed. The Personal Excellence PodcastShow Menu Podcast Subscription Menu Listen on iTunesListen on SpotifyListen on GoogleListen on TuneInListen on CastboxListen on PocketCastsListen on OvercastSubscribe via RSSHow To Deal With Moments of Negative Self-WorthShow Podcast Information If you've found The Personal Excellence Podcast useful, I'd really appreciate it if you can leave an honest rating and review on iTunes. Your review makes a difference and will help spread the message of conscious living to the world. Thank you! How To Deal With Moments of Negative Self-Worth [Transcript] Welcome to The Personal Excellence Podcast. The show that's all about helping you be your best self and live your best life. Now, your host, Celestine Chua! Celestine Chua: Hey everyone! I'm Celestine Chua from PersonalExcellence.co. Today's podcast is about how to deal with moments of negative self-worth. I don't know about you, but there are times when I deal with debilitating moments of negative self-worth. These moments may not be common, but there are times when they surface. During such moments, I just feel like I'm worthless, I'm doing a lousy, crappy job, or I just hate myself. I've found that such moments can happen when I feel like I'm not doing a good job, or I feel like I can be doing more, or bad incidences happen and I feel beat myself up over them. There are times when we feel down and out. I want to let you know that it's normal. It's okay. There's no need to feel ashamed of feeling this way. In today's episode, I want to share simple tips on how to deal with moments of negative self-worth and to feel better about yourself. 1) Forgive yourself My first tip is to forgive yourself. So, I'm not sure about you, but I have times when I fault myself for not doing things the best way, or not handling situations in a way that is in line with my 100 percent ideal definition. These don't have to be some serious incident but just very small little things that I'm sure nobody remembers or thinks about. But I would just think about them later on and think about how I could have handled something in a better way or dealt with one small thing in a better manner, that could have perhaps improved that overall situation. But I've learned that it's about forgiving myself. Forgiving myself for any shortfall vs. my expectations. Recognizing that whatever I did or didn't do, I've already done the best that I could within that situation, within that context. And it's about learning from the experience and working to be a better me. Perhaps for you that could be something you're faulting yourself for. And because of this, you feel these moments of negative self-worth. If that's the case, is it time to start forgiving yourself? Forgiving yourself for any shortfall. Recognizing that you have really done the best you could within the circumstance, within the situation. And to focus on learning from this experience and moving forward to be a better you.

Have you ever wondered what would happen if you were to lose your parents one day? Do you feel scared at this thought? Reader Sumedha asks this question: "Lately, I'm getting too emotional over my fear of losing my parents. I just get stricken with a strong sense of guilt that I'm not doing anything back to them and I owe them a lot. I'm too attached to them and I can't help myself from feeling this way. I know they're doing a lot for me and I'm grateful for that but this feeling just gets too much. I'd really be thankful to you if you can help me get over this feeling. Thank you so much." How do you overcome the fear of losing your parents or your loved ones? Beyond burying our heads in work and miscellaneous distractions, and ignoring this sinking feeling of something that we don't wish to face, what can we do to tackle this fear? In this episode of The Personal Excellence Podcast, I share The nature of death [03:59] 2 key reasons why most people feel (heavy) guilt or fear of losing their loved ones [06:42] Reader Kimberly's loss of her dad and my advice to her [07:19] The eternity of our spirit [08:15] Carrying on your loved one's message after he/she has passed on [08:57] How to address the fear of losing loved ones [12:10] Loving our parents (and loved ones) start today [12:47] Showing love doesn't have to be materialistic [13:45] Lag time when you try to improve your relationship with your parents [14:33] We should not take life for granted [14:58] Create a list of things start loving and appreciating your parents (or loved ones) — starting today [16:21] Listen to the podcast via my online player, Apple Podcasts, Spotify, TuneIn, Amazon Music, or subscribe directly to my RSS feed. The Personal Excellence PodcastShow Menu Podcast Subscription Menu Listen on iTunesListen on SpotifyListen on GoogleListen on TuneInListen on CastboxListen on PocketCastsListen on OvercastSubscribe via RSSI’m Scared of Losing My Parents. What Should I Do?Show Podcast Information If you've found The Personal Excellence Podcast useful, I'd really appreciate it if you can leave an honest rating and review on iTunes. Your review makes a difference and will help spread the message of conscious living to the world. Thank you! I'm Scared of Losing My Parents. What Should I Do? [Transcript] Welcome to The Personal Excellence Podcast. The show that's all about helping you be your best self and live your best life. Now, your host, Celestine Chua! Celestine Chua: Hey everyone! Welcome to the Personal Excellence Podcast Episode 4. I'm Celestine Chua from PersonalExcellence.co. So thank you so much for listening today. I hope you are having a wonderful day. It's Wednesday here right now and I'm just looking forward to speaking to you guys. Today we have a question from Sumedha, who wants to know how to deal with the fear of losing our parents. Well, let's hear from her first. Hi Celestine, I'm Sumedha from India. I'm 17 years old. I've been reading articles for the past one year. I really find them genuinely useful as I can relate to most of what you faced in your life to my current scenario. My question today is lately, I'm getting too emotional on my fear of losing my parents one day. I just get stricken by a strong sense of guilt that I'm not doing anything to give back to them and I owe them a lot. I'm too attached to them and I just can't help myself get past this feeling and I end up digging it deep into my mind. I know they're doing a lot for me and I'm grateful to that. But this feeling just gets too much for me. So I would be really thankful to you if you can help me get over this feeling. Thank you so much. Hey Sumedha, thank you so much for your question. A very very heartfelt question and I really appreciate how open you are. Well, I want to say first that your question just speaks volumes about how much you love your parents and how filial you really are.

Conventional goal-setting wisdom is to set a goal, create an action plan, and then pursue it. If you fail, revise your targets and try again. The problem comes when we face goals that can't be achieved, say due to societal limitations (e.g. you can never repeat senior year of high school with the same batch of classmates) or physical limitations (e.g. age limit to enter competitive swimming). Also, there are times when we don't progress in a goal despite multiple tries. So does that mean we have failed? This is where knowing the message of your goal is important. In this episode of The Personal Excellence Podcast, I share: What it means to know the message of your goal 3 reasons why knowing your message can be that difference between struggling and thriving, being miserable and being happy 4 goal scenarios of how to apply this concept — losing weight, building your blog/business, being a professional athlete/performer, and improving your relationship with your family — and how this can relate to you 3 questions to ask yourself in any goal pursuit Listen to the podcast via my online player, Apple Podcasts, Spotify, TuneIn, Amazon Music, or subscribe directly to my RSS feed. The Personal Excellence PodcastShow Menu Podcast Subscription Menu Listen on iTunesListen on SpotifyListen on GoogleListen on TuneInListen on CastboxListen on PocketCastsListen on OvercastSubscribe via RSSWhat is the Message of Your Goal?Show Podcast Information If you've found The Personal Excellence Podcast useful, I'd really appreciate it if you can leave an honest rating and review on iTunes. Your review makes a difference and will help spread the message of conscious living to the world. Thank you! What is the Message of Your Goal? [Transcript] Welcome to The Personal Excellence Podcast. The show that's all about helping you be your best self and live your best life. Now, your host, Celestine Chua! Celestine Chua: Hey everyone, welcome to The Personal Excellence Podcast Episode 3, I'm Celestine Chua from PersonalExcellence.co. I want to thank you for listening. We have over 4,000 downloads for the podcast so far which is amazing because we only have two episodes so far so including this is the third one. And we've just launched for a few weeks! So I'm so grateful to all of you for tuning in. I'm just looking forward to creating more great episodes for you. Let's get to today's podcast topic and this is a question that I want you to think about, which is: What is the message of your goal? What do I mean by this? I thought of this topic when I was reading a reader question on my Facebook a week ago. This reader was telling me about his aspiration and ambition — which I think is marvelous — to be a professional football player. He has been facing difficulties along the way and he wanted my advice on the situation. My advice to him was to think about the message behind his goal, which is what I want to talk about today. So let's talk about what I mean by "the message behind your goal." The Message of Your Goal Here, message means, for whatever is the goal you want to pursue, what is the reason that you want this goal? What is the intent that you want to make happen? For example, let's say I want to improve my relationship with my parents. I want to take them out on a vacation. The message here could be, "I want to better the relationship with them. I want them to be happy." So why is it important to discover your message? The first reason is, think of our goals as one expression of our message. So maybe you want to lose weight. Losing weight is the goal itself. But maybe your message is you want to have a healthier body, you want to live a longer life. So here, losing weight is merely one expression to be healthier. And by knowing this underlying message, you can think about all the other goals that can help you realize this message. The second reason is some of us get attached to our goals when it is our mess...

PE reader Jessica wants to know how to deal with depression when it comes to our goals. Have you ever felt depressed when it comes to working to your goals? Perhaps because you're procrastinating, not taking as much action as you wish, and/or not seeing the results that you want? You're not alone. In this episode of The Personal Excellence Podcast, I share my experience of how I felt depressed for a good chunk of last year about my goals, and how I've been addressing that. I share 3 simple tips to get out of your funk and stay out of it. Listen to the podcast via my online player, Apple Podcasts, Spotify, TuneIn, Amazon Music, or subscribe directly to my RSS feed. The Personal Excellence PodcastShow Menu Podcast Subscription Menu Listen on iTunesListen on SpotifyListen on GoogleListen on TuneInListen on CastboxListen on PocketCastsListen on OvercastSubscribe via RSSHow To Deal With Depression When It Comes to Our Goals?Show Podcast Information If you've found The Personal Excellence Podcast useful, I'd really appreciate it if you can leave an honest rating and review on iTunes. Your review makes a difference and will help spread the message of conscious living to the world. Thank you! How To Deal With Depression When It Comes to Our Goals? [Transcript] Welcome to The Personal Excellence Podcast. The show that's all about helping you be your best self and live your best life. Now, your host, Celestine Chua! Celestine Chua: Hey everyone, welcome to The Personal Excellence Podcast Episode 2, I'm Celestine Chua from PersonalExcellence.co. So today we have a question from Jessica, who wants to know, how do you deal with depression when it comes to your goals? I think Jessica is recording from her laptop mic so that's quite a level of background noise. But do listen closely because she has some excellent points in her question. So here we have, Jessica. Hello Celes, my name is Jessica and my name is Puerto Rico. I've been reading PE since I was 16 and right now I'm 21, so I'm a faithful PE reader. I want to ask how to deal with depression. In what sense? I'm referring to depression in goal setting. For example, you have these goals and you wake up every morning and you say, 'Wow, today I'm going to do this, today I'm going to do that. You know, I'm really prepared today, I'm really going to do that.' But when it comes down to it, you realize the hours pass, the days pass, the months pass, the years pass, and nothing happens. And that can be very frustrating and eventually lead to depression. I think a lot of people can really relate to this, to this feeling of really, really wanting to do something but not being able to do it, possibly because they're procrastinating or because they feel emotionally not ready. And that's basically my question. Thank you. Thank you so much Jessica for your question. So if I heard you right, I think you mentioned that you started reading PE when you were 16 and you're now 21? So that's been five years! That's amazing! And I love your question. Depression when it comes to your goals. How many of you guys can relate to that? Maybe you are feeling depressed because you feel like you're not taking as much action as you should for your goals. Maybe you are feeling depressed because you have been procrastinating on your goals. Or maybe you feel depressed because you feel like you should be achieving so much more than what you are seeing. For me, I can totally relate to that. I was feeling quite depressed for quite a last chunk of last year actually, and I've been just feeling depressed because I feel like I'm not achieving as much as I should. That's because I have just so many plans for PE, for all of you. Like I want to be writing this article. I want to be creating all those different courses. I want to upgrade the members portal. I want to create all these new video tutorials. I want to do all these interviews. But somehow or rather,

Hi everyone! :D Today I'm super excited to announce the launch of the Personal Excellence Podcast! So for years, I've been writing articles at PE and creating content for all of you, but I've never created a podcast — until today. After getting requests from some of you and also thinking of my plans ahead for PE, I decided that it's time for me to start a podcast so that I can better serve all of you. Listen to the first episode, where I share why I've created this podcast and what you can expect in the episodes ahead. Thank you! :D Listen to the podcast via my online player, Apple Podcasts, Spotify, TuneIn, Amazon Music, or subscribe directly to my RSS feed. The Personal Excellence PodcastShow Menu Podcast Subscription Menu Listen on iTunesListen on SpotifyListen on GoogleListen on TuneInListen on CastboxListen on PocketCastsListen on OvercastSubscribe via RSSIntroducing The Personal Excellence Podcast!Show Podcast Information If you've found The Personal Excellence Podcast useful, I'd really appreciate it if you can leave an honest rating and review on iTunes. Your review makes a difference and will help spread the message of conscious living to the world. Thank you!