Wednesday, July 28, 2010

Breaking out from my comfort zone


Six months ago I was posted to an existing branch in a rural town called keningau located at the heart of interior Sabah. It is also the central for all the government agencies through out the interior of Sabah. The roads are good and it is connected to the other smaller rural town. If you are driving from the capital city kota kinabalu, it is only 1.5 hour drive but be warned of the steep terrain as it passes over the crocker range.Depending on the time of day, You will be greeted by the thick clouds and cool refreshing breeze along the crocker range, something that I truly enjoy especially coming from a hot sunny climate.

I have not imagine myself working here before but the lateral transfer was a whole new thing for me. It is both enriching in experience and opportunity to make new friends. I am glad that my new office colleagues are warm and friendly which made my move so much bearable. Despite my move, I have decided against moving my family here as this would be a temporally thing for me. This meant that every weekend I would take a 3 hours journey by car and ferry to my hometown island Labuan. Weekend have never seemed so exciting and meaningful till now.


View Labuan in a larger map

Accepting the transfer gave me the opportunity to learn new things. Honestly, I did not accept it immediately, the move was more of a job necessity rather than by choice. It is common to see nowadays, companies restructuring and downsizing as means to business survival. People become jobless and at times no VSS was offered. Either you take the transfer or leave, Period. This is inevitable and the faster we learn to accept the fact , the easier it is to prepare ourselves for the unpredictable future. Getting out of my comfort zone has put a stretch in my financial budget and also my family. I kept reminding myself, that I had to be mentally tough to weather this challenges and I quickly learn to adapt to my new surrounding and make the best in any given situation.

If you ever get caught in this kind of situation, I can only advice you that mental toughness is critical to your sanity, keep your emotions at bay and have a clear forward plan of what you want to achieve and move on.

Sometimes we plan so many things in life, but life has it's ways of offering new twist in our plan. Every decision you make is never wrong but only bring you to a different conclusion.

1 comment:

sharon said...

Thank you for sharing, i enjoyed reading your blog and i totally agree with your advice as stated:

If you ever get caught in this kind of situation, I can only advice you that mental toughness is critical to your sanity, keep your emotions at bay and have a clear forward plan of what you want to achieve and move on.

I think you should be a mentor or start up a company like that, if you do, count me in boss,ehehe, all the best to you always.