It's a hard year starting with a great leap into the unknown embarking on my professional career switch.
[Gratitude]
Thankfully, there's always been that freelance tutoring that keeps me grounded and constantly reminds me of the person I want to be.
With 4 more months left to the internship, some personalities are starting to show - especially when conversion is on the line. There is no good nor bad in this designed scarcity that is meant for us to compete for coveted spots - just how we want to show ourselves and how we want to react to this.
No matter how it ends for me, it's been an amazing journey and I am extremely grateful for the opportunity. If life rewinds, I would do it again - would I have done anything differently? I have carefully thought about it - there are so many unknowns that I have uncovered only when I walk through them, sometimes, it's impossible to predict something one might never anticipate. I felt I have done my best.
Looking back this one year, never have I been made to learn fast, learn from my mistakes, fail fast, and approach people for help and receive so much feedback and mentorship within such a short period of time. I never really had this kind of guidance in my professional life - and I have to level up so much, so fast, adapt to so many changes, and produce results within a short period of time. It felt like squeezing years into days and of course, catching up on all my lost years and the experiences I have never had in the corporate world. It's exactly what I had hoped to gain when I took this leap into this unknown.
I have not been a stranger to struggles but I have never, ever given up. From here on, there is only onwards and upwards.
[Losing my most beloved rabbits]
2021 started off as one of the toughest years in these recent years because I lost both of my most beloved companions - my two rabbits, Smudge and Kiara. They may just be pets, but all the time since 2015, Smudge was almost next to me every day quietly watching me in everything I do. My life took a positive turn in July 2015 since I adopted him, and he's been my most supportive friend and housemate ever since. I adopted Kiara to be his rabbit pal, and one of the cutest things they did was to sit next to my legs when I was having this life-transforming interview with my current company. It's almost like they were lending their lucky rabbit feet to me.
Friends have asked me if I was getting new rabbits - I doubt so because Smudge and Kiara are really unique, and though they have passed, I know they are still always supporting me, even if they are in another realm.
[A beautiful relationship]
The subsequent months of losing my rabbits were very painful - it just felt like I lost one of the biggest anchors and supports in my life. I met an amazing guy with whom I had a short-lived relationship. I felt very happy with him - and being with him helped me challenge some of my self-limiting beliefs. Relationships require people to be willing to feel vulnerable and frankly, I still have a long way to go. Thanks to our short time, it also gave me references to what I really want in my intimate relationships. We all have our personal struggles - and mine happens to be in the emotional realm. Again, there's no right or wrong. It's part of being human - we all have something we need to learn within this lifetime.
[Date with Destiny]
Ending the year with one of the most anticipated events - Tony Robbins' Date with Destiny (DWD) virtual. I went a little over the top - booking myself a service apartment to spend 8 days 7 nights alone and in the Tony Standard Timezone (TST). The 6 days 5 nights event was in the US timezone and it translates to 12 am to 2 pm -ish every day in SGT, and was my first time staying up all night. I commit to playing full out and thankfully, the studio was soundproof enough for me to scream and shout my lungs out in the middle of the night and not get complained about by my neighbors.
I went to 3 Unleashed the Power Within (UPW) the past 3 years, but DWD is an unexpected 10x more intense. It's emotionally uncomfortable for me - but I chose to play it all out. Tony kept inviting us to feel it in our hearts, rather than constantly staying in our heads.
If you follow through the exercises, you get to go deep and figure out what are your towards and away from values, you re-write the primary question of your life, craft a new mission statement as well as your relationship vision. It is almost an entire internal life makeover. There is a deeper understanding and awareness of your subconscious tendencies - and of course, with that comes a conscious choice to rewrite that past conditioning.
I gained a new revelation that life does not need to be that hard, I don't need to be "worthy" by other people's standards to feel good about myself - and for the first time, I learned how to be at peace with myself and the true meaning of the words "I am enough.". This is truly liberating - to know that I can define my own standards, and live the life of my designs, untethered by the constructs of anyone else.
Tony always says no one is broken. So many times, so many of us have had so much trauma in our past that we thought we need to fix ourselves. We just need to be reminded of the beautiful things that have also happened and how it has changed our lives. I learned that there are so many types of wisdom; there've been so many times where I was seeking a solution outside of myself - but really, if I listened hard enough, I am enough and I know I have the answers within myself.
During DWD, I wrote a few outrageous one-year goals for myself. I have no idea how to achieve at least 3 out of 4 of those new goals right now, but like how my professional life is playing out, it will probably work out as I start walking. Let's see what the future holds.
2022 has been forecasted to be a very volatile year, but in tough times, there's where we find out what we are really made of. Here's to a very beautiful ending for 2021, and may we all summon our inner strengths to be ready for the exciting year ahead.