March 2018 Progress Highlights

“The things hardest to bear are sweetest to remember.”

OBJECT LEVEL (what did I do?)

A month of transformation. At the beginning of the month, I would’ve never thought I would be where I am now. Heck, I was still frolicking in Australia. It still baffles me the potential of 30 days: how much can happen (and vice versa — how much cannot happen).

Here’s the three main highlights:

• Got an accountability buddy: It made such a big difference (thanks Vaib!). I’ve always been reluctant to have recurring calls because I tend to dread them as something on my calendar, then I realized it was an assumption that I had. I can’t even express what a huge impact it’s had. This is how it works: we call each other every Tuesday for 30 mins and take turns updating each other on our last week’s goals as well as goal for next week. And some in between catchup + jokes as well :)
• Went to the Landmark conference: It completely changed how I see the world and interact with people. I was able to shed old beliefs and start anew with a more nurturing relationship with my dad, old friends whom I had assumptions about, and even had deep conversations with my exes. “You exist in relation to others”.
• Started an online program: Basically my baby — One Month Projects is an online program where I help you start and finish a project in 30 days. If you’ve been following me, it’s inspired by all that I’ve gained from my monthly reviews and monthly projects that became habits now (dance, videos, writing). First cohort is in April and I’m so so excited! 🌻

Here’s where I’m at for goals:

Writing:

• I’ve been publishing more poems than learning plans / career changes, because these days I’ve been more emotionally inspired 😅
• I want to get back to the grove of publishing 2x a week. Will most likely start the career changes series in May

Coaching:

• The One Month Project program stemmed from coaching: I wanted to make it more accessible to people, especially those close around me
• Super excited to run this online program and experiment with delivering the best coaching and learning experience possible

Consulting:

• I’m in the works to renew my contract with increased responsibilities in preparing the EdTech company to scale and gearing up for the Fall semester

Last month’s experimental project:

I wanted to crowdsource it but didn’t have enough time (rain checking this idea for the future). I decided that I wanted to focus on family relationships, especially with my parents.

Language has always felt like a barrier so I started studying more intermediate Chinese phrases. Took me a while to find resources like this, this and this. The major breakthrough though was an actual phone call to my dad as a result of the Landmark forum. I realized that I was using my mediocre fluency in Chinese as a crutch — that I wasn’t putting in the work because it was easier to blame it on the language barrier.

The phone call showed that it didn’t have to be one, especially when I’m coming from a place of openness, understanding and Google Translate.

Snippets from insightful posts:

On Life:

Mark Manson’s How to Grow Up

• during adolescence: Nothing is done for its own sake. Everything is a calculated trade-off, usually made out of fear of the negative repercussions. Ex: I’ll work / trade my time for money.
• if you have to convince someone to love you, then they don’t love you. If you have to force someone to respect you, then they don’t. The most precious and important things in life cannot be bargained with. To try to do so destroys them. Love without expecting anything in return.
• you cannot conspire for happiness: when people seek self-help, they look for the rules and are willing to play it. However, what they don’t realize is that it’s the fact that they think there are rules to happiness that’s actually preventing them from being happy.
• the best way to teach an adolescent to trust is to trust them. The best way to teach an adolescent respect is to respect them. The best way to teach someone to love is by loving them.
• thoughts or interpretations can be changed. But actions are permanent. Therefore, the only way to get at your values — to truly understand what you value and what you do not — is to observe your actions. You must sit and think critically about yourself and about what you’ve chosen to care about, not through word, but through deed.

1). first level value system: pleasure | pain driven value. ex: actions that consistently hurt yourself or others, that you find yourself excusing repeatedly and/or lying to hide. Lying is inherently selfish and designed to make way for our most selfish desires.

2). second level value system: bargaining | transactional. ex: actions that are premeditated with the desire to get a certain result out of someone or something

3). third level value system: actions motivated by deeper ethical principles that you’re willing to suffer for because you believe they are right in all contexts, regardless of the specific outcome to yourself

• difference between adult vs. adolescent: an adolescent will say that she values honesty — because she has learned that saying so produces good results — but when confronted with the difficult conversations, she will tell white lies etc.
• adulthood occurs when one realizes that it’s better to suffer for the right reasons than to feel pleasure for the wrong reasons
• most recurring emotional problems people experience are simply first- and second-level value systems that are being held onto despite the fact that they are failing. A mother who fights with her children constantly because they don’t call her with a certain regularity is holding onto a transactional approach to love — the idea that love can be quantified and measured.
• there’s nothing wrong with pleasure. There’s nothing necessarily wrong with pain either. It’s the reason each occurs that makes them right or wrong. Ex: You didn’t mess up because you caused pain. You messed up because you caused pain for bad reasons.
• people stuck at pleasure / pain compulsion need to first learn to think of things in transactional terms. To get from one stage to the next, you must get through each stage first.
• this is why research has found that the most effective ways to break any bad habit is to bargain for it. AKA writing check for $3000 if you smoke again. Create consequences for yourself. Create accountability.

On the present:

• meditation is the only intentional, systematic human activity which at the bottom is about not trying to improve yourself or get anywhere else, but simply to realize where you already are
• action may not always bring happiness, but there is no happiness without action

PROCESS LEVEL (how did I do it?)

Belief updates:

on coaching:

• For clients, what stands between who they are and who they want to be is their willingness to change: strong habits, belief systems and the gracefulness to embrace a new way of living. When you’re coaching them, you’re aiding them in their pursuit of change and liberation from unwanted habits

on work:

• Have an ideal day goal: start all tasks with a clear vision of the completed task in mind and only do the critical things that’ll get you there. Everything else is a luxury aka you can put them off for another time.
• When choosing a career, think about what lifestyle you want.
• When creating a quality product: appeal to your peers rather than the masses, it’s harder to appeal to masses and then the peers later.
• When you don’t act upon ideas, those can become lost opportunities. Marketing strategies and people will not wait for you: for example, I was planning to reach out to a popular podcast in the future, thinking that it was always going to be there. However, the creator decided to discontinue it, therefore my idea became completely irrelevant.
• If you’re so successful, why are you working 70 hour work weeks?
• Work exceptionally long hours when you need to or want to, but do so consciously, for specified time periods, and to achieve specific goals. Don’t let it become a habit because you have forgotten how to work or live any other way.

on life:

• Chinese as a language isn’t a barrier, it’s the stories that I’ve told myself and used as a crutch.
• There’s a difference between your interpretations and “truth”.

Currently reading:

• The Sun and Her Flowers
• Tribe of Mentors

Intense emotions felt:

• Driving six hours for camping and seeing a night sky filled with stars for the first time — in awe
• Sitting on the couch and being crystal clear in the present — and fear of not remembering it

META LEVEL (why did I do it?)

I noticed that I’m feeling content, but missing some of that aliveness from when I first quit my job and started working on these projects.

I realized that I’ve been making goals that are comfortable, rather than goals that would really stretch and challenge me.

I’ve been risk-averse rather than risk taking to grow.

Here’s to living big and playing a bigger game next month!

Experimental project for next month:

Strength training 💪. After skipping the whole health section of Tim Ferris’s Tools of Titans (I know, it’s literally 1/3 of the book) as well as general health advice, I’m going to take a disciplined approach to strength training 2x a week.

I’m targeting my core and shoulders so I can be stronger for dancing. Stay tuned :)

Thanks for reading! This is #11 of my monthly progress reports.