Sometimes you win, sometimes you learn.
Last year, feels like a great year. A turn of events and everything came crashing.
There’s a meaningful project that I’m working towards.
I feel more connected to myself. Being more open and sensitive.
Along with that, I made a commitment to improve my family relationship.
Then late Dec, my grandma passed away. I flew back, took a break and felt misaligned since.
General lesson
- It sucks right now, and you need to rest.
- Rest till I reach cold boredom (feeling great without needing to achieve anything).
- Diagnose issue before solving.
- Face up to the brutal fact and emotions.
- Release emotions from the body, and come back to see if there are lesson to learn.
- Meditate and back to the body.
- Separate what’s in my control vs not.
- Accept what’s not in my control.
- Call friends and ask for help. You are not alone.
- Feeling alive comes from feeling great in peace.
Storytelling (NPR-style) is hard
I underestimated the level of effort needed to create NPR-style content. I was enamored with Start Up and Millennium podcasts. As one of my story producers grew busier, I was left with expectations that my resource could not meet.
- Find another story producer.
- Find an easier content format that can hit the same goal.
Content > learning
As I ceased the content production, I lost motivation to study coaching. Initially, I thought it was due to the funeral. Or maybe the coaching takes too much out of me. Finally, I think it’s because I enjoy creation more than learning. Learning was support for creation.
- Diagnose the issue before finding solution.
- Find a coach to help me unpack.
Doing too much
Learning + creating + working + traveling = intense.
As I travelled from UK to France, there was the language barrier to contend with + weekly traveling + winter, add layers of difficulty and caused decision fatigue.
On top of learning about coaching, I was also learning about story-telling. I generally enjoy learning, but there’s a point of “too-much.”
- Travel slower. A city a month.
- Find another story producer.
- Pause.
Grief well
After coming back to Singapore, I had 2 weeks break from the podcast and coaching. Not realizing I was running on the past week’s momentum.
I had a cognitive expectation of doing and achieving. I did not adjust my expectation, then I grew anxious when I did not do those expectations.
- Journal to unpack.
- Rest till rested. From hot boredom to cold boredom.
- Allocate a “no schedules plan” for 2 weeks, till cold boredom.
- 15min of awareness meditation daily.
Failing sucks. I hope I will look back at this article when I face another failure.
And I hope there’ll be more failures.
