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Sharing my definitions of success and inviting you to do the same.
A podcast about growth and the rollercoaster of life. Breaking barriers one candid conversation at a time. On this podcast, I don't shy away from difficult topics and speak candidly about things such as mental health, therapy, burnout, difficult relationships, career and more.
Ep. 002
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[00:00:00] Thuy Doan: Hello, and welcome to Candid and Cringe. A podcast about growth. I'm pretty sure I said something entirely different the first time, uh, I recorded, but it's all the same. I want to break barriers through candid conversation and I want us to grow together. For the second episode, I wanna talk about, um, success and what success means to us as individual people in every season of our lives.
[00:00:45] Okay. Something that I do want to touch on is, What does success mean when you're taking a break? Right. What does success mean? Um, for the day, for the week, for the month? For the year and for your [00:01:00] life. I recently did an exercise where I wrote down all of those things, including What does it mean for me to have a successful leave, which I am on right now. More on that later on in the podcast o- or right now.
[00:01:14] Okay. So for context, I am on leave right now from work for five weeks. I just finished my first week of leave. I started my leave on Monday, August 30th. And the reason is burnout. Burnout, burnout, burnout. You see it everywhere. Whether it's zoom fatigue or pandemic fatigue, or, good old work fatigue or a combination of all three or more. First week's been good.
[00:01:48] I recently met up, uh, to go for a walk with, uh, some of my coworkers and they were like, Oh man, this week is flying so fast. And for the first time, in a long time, I was like, [00:02:00] Man, this week is going by so slow. And I love it. There was even a day where I didn't even know what day it was. I haven't had that sort of thing happen in a very long time and maybe not never (lol I meant not ever).
[00:02:13] So I think the first week went well, but we'll see. We'll see if it did. When people think of success, they might think of, you know, how much money you have, how much, you know, what's their career trajectory been like, like what have they achieved? You know. How far up the corporate ladder did they go? You know. Or, if it's with relationships, it's like how many, or I guess how few, depending on how you look at it, relationships, have you been in? How long have you been in a relationship with someone?
[00:02:49] I recently, maybe a month ago, sat down with my career coach. I have a career coach, um, to talk about like, what is success to me? Because the [00:03:00] thing is. You know, just like double checking, whether you are actually holding yourself to a standard of success that is custom for you, or are you holding yourself to a standard of success that is someone else's. So I wanted to share that with you guys today.
[00:03:22] All right. Let's talk about my definitions of definitions of success. So what was interesting about doing this activity, and maybe it would be different for you guys if you did this activity, but for me, when defining success in a day, week, month, year, or your life, the two that I found easiest to do were success for my life and success for the day, but then everything in between that was kinda hard.
[00:03:51] So let's say... how would I read it in the order that I found it easy? So what does [00:04:00] success, or put another way you can think of it as, what does it, what does it mean for you to live a good life? Right. So my definition of a successfull, or good life, is that I die with no regrets. I lived in life where I stood up from my beliefs.
[00:04:18] I said what meant and I meant what I said. I actively fostered a good relationship with the people I care about. And what's important to note here is that I am not saying that I need to foster a good relationship with everyone. I do believe that you should be respectful and cordial to people, but that doesn't mean that you need to put in time and energy, you know, to a really intimate, invested extent. And so I want to draw the distinction between that.
[00:04:47] This does also mean that I don't believe that you need to foster a good relationship between everybody that is a blood relative of yours. I am a fan of [00:05:00] family that you'd choose, which could be blood relatives or not, but I'm really not into, you know, fostering a good relationship with somebody that shares your blood, just because. That's what that means.
[00:05:13] Successful life also means that, uh, as a bonus, I had a good -pact... Impact on something that's larger than me and my immediate circle. So that's a good life. What is a successful day? It means that I was productive by achieving the one to three things I'm supposed to do today. And maybe that's like a really capitalist, uh, point of view, you know?
[00:05:40] Work. Grind yourself into the ground. I acknowledge that that might be driven by that, but alas, that is what it is. A successful day also looks like I moved my body, whether that's a walk or a workout, I relaxed. Has to happen daily by having alone time. [00:06:00] I'm introverted and I need to recharge by being by myself.
[00:06:04] It's not that I'm antisocial. I like talking to people. I'm picky about who I talk to and I am picky about who I spend my time wiht. But, relaxing means alone time. A successful day also means that I slept well. That's like seven hours for me. Um, I ate all my meals. That's like breakfast, lunch, dinner, my mid-afternoon snack.
[00:06:29] Uh, also means I drank water. More water than just the a teeny sip. Um, and a successful day also looks like, you know, if I don't achieve what I set out to do, I at least feel like what happened that day was instead... was at least necessary. Like, you know, cause plans change.
[00:06:49] What does a successful week look like for me? It looks like I achieved everything I reasonably set out to achieve. I was active at least five days a week. I slept at [00:07:00] least seven hours for at least five days of the week. I give myself grace to eat junk food occasionally, because like, realistically for me, I can't eat a hundred percent clean every day, but I can eat pretty clean. But I'm still, if I want to have a chip, I'm going to, I'm going to eat like a handful of chips.
[00:07:19] Um, a successful week also looks like maybe one day... Oh, the mentality that one day or one meal will not ruin a lifetime of commitment to good health. That's a balanced perspective. What's a successful month, whether or not I had a good month, I feel like what happened was necessary for the progress I will make in a year.
[00:07:39] So this definition of success acknowledges that life is up and down. Um, but even though that month was a downer, it doesn't mean that life is a downer. That's what that perspective is. A successful year means that I'm a better person than I was last year. I strive for continuous growth but I do not [00:08:00] strive for perfection, meaning that some people might view uh, continuous growth as like taking all of the things that are not great about you.
[00:08:09] And I'm air quoting here, not great about you and trying to undo all of those things. Fundamentally, I don't believe that there are characteristics that are like ultimately bad or ultimately good. I think there... Each and every characteristic that we could have as a, you know, as a part of our personality has a pro and a con.
[00:08:32] Right. Um, and so a successful year is understanding that all personality, character, characteristics have pros and cons and not trying to become this perfect person. For example, I am temperamentally. I... Just because I'm, I'm temperamental doesn't mean, I think that, uh, you have, I have to fix it right away, but it's worth considering that the level to which that your [00:09:00] temperamental might be harming yourself or other people. That's worth considering. But not necessarily temperamental equals must fix. Right um, okay. I think I read all of my definitions, definitions of success.
[00:09:13] Now let's move on to the part where we talk about my leave.
[00:09:18] So I mentioned that I'm on leave right now for burnout. Specifically, it is a medical leave. It is a stress leave. And I got approval from my doctor, which means that, uh, although unpaid... By the way, I'm Canadian. Uh, although unpaid, it is job- protected.
[00:09:36] So I'm on leave for five weeks. I'm supposed to return Monday, October 4th. And before I went on leave, I kind of... I'm like a mega planner, mega analyzer, logical as logical as you could be, arguably. Meaning that before I went on leave, I kind of thought to myself, Okay, Thuy. How can you [00:10:00] ensure the success of your leave? Right.
[00:10:04] And I determined that there were, I would say, um, because of my personality, which is that like, I'm always looking towards the future. I'm always trying to achieve things. And I probably define my self worth, um, in terms of productivity, more than I should. The biggest risk to my stress leave going well, is that I view my stress leave as an opportunity to achieve more things. Like, How can I be productive in this break time? You know.
[00:10:39] Or another stressful way to view my leave is, Okay, it has a five week window. Then I, that means that I need to 100% heal from burnout within five weeks. And as soon as I started my leave, I, uh, realized that those pressures did exist. [00:11:00] And I've had to drag myself back from those things, right?
[00:11:04] Like for example, there's a pile next to me, uh, of books that I bought and have not read yet. The purpose of reading that w- reading them would be to become a better person. For example, one of them is like a graphic novel, about 150 years of indigenous history. It's called, This Place: 150 years Retold.
[00:11:26] But yeah, like one day I sat here, in the first week of my leave, looked at these books and it was like immediately jumped into thinking, Okay, maybe I can read this book today. And then I can read this book tomorrow and this book the third day. And it's like, you know, why is that my immediate reaction?
[00:11:43] Like, why do I look at a stack of books and think like, okay, how can I achieve this right away? Right. Knowing that a successful leave for me would mean, and here's the definition of a successful leave for me. Uh, would mean that [00:12:00] I do whatever it is that I want, whenever I want to, without the time pressure of needing to achieve something within, or by, the end of those five weeks.
[00:12:15] And so, because that was my definition of success for my stress leave, I had to pull myself back after looking at this pile of books, and be like, okay, unnecessary, just put that aside. And I did. Another thing that happened in the first week of my leave, maybe the first day or, or actually, maybe I think three days before I officially started my leave.
[00:12:38] Like the Friday, like my last day from work before I officially started my leave.... I had a nervous breakdown. And at first I didn't really understand why, because uh, surprise! I am a person that, I guess, has pushed away certain feelings for so long - like stress, anxiety, insecurity, [00:13:00] discomfort, when stuff doesn't go exactly according to plan - I pushed away those things for so long, I guess, that these days, I can't even tell that I'm stressed. Okay. I had to have other people tell me that I'm stressed. And actually it started with me taking a quiz about my energy, you know, and then, um, the result was, imminent energy crisis, which was like the level just before you're actually having an energy crisis.
[00:13:30] Um, and it was only because I did that quiz that I was like, Maybe I am stressed. And then there were other things like... my partner, I guess I have some self soothing mechanisms, like physical things that I do to, like when I'm stressed, for example, like when I am stressed, I will do this thing where I'm sitting in place, but I'm like rocking back and forth like this, or, oh, I bite my nails.
[00:13:59] So I guess [00:14:00] I bite my nails more fervently when I'm stressed. And so, you know, in periods of super heightened stress, my partner will come to me and like, be like rub my shoulders and be like, Are you good? You're like rocking back and forth. And then I'd be like, Am I good, you know? So that's the thing. But yeah, I had a nervous breakdown because, and while I was having a nervous breakdown, uh, to my partner, I realized that I had an, uh, pressure. There was a pressure that I was feeling to heal within a certain amount of time.
[00:14:37] One, because there was, you know, a time limit in a way. Um, and two, because I knew that my coworkers, although supportive were in a way waiting for me and would be in a better position to complete the goals that we set out to complete. If I was there. Right. I'm a software developer [00:15:00] where we're working on stuff all the time.
[00:15:02] And unfortunately, you know, we had to slow down a bit because I had to take time off to be, you know, to pursue better mental health and wellness. To reset. That was hard to get over. And I guess I'm still working through it. It's not like I've achieved it or anything. But, you know, in the pursuit of a successful leave. I decided to ask my therapist, I have a therapist more on that in another podcast, but I have a therapist. Um, and I decided to see her once a week instead of every other week, just because this is a, you know, we're, we're, we're on the edge of a knife here. Uh, and my, my mental health is kind of my, my long-term mental health recovery is a hanging by a thread or, you know, sitting on the edge of a knife and I really want it to go well. Um, whether or not I heal heal in five weeks or more. That is the tea on my break. And [00:16:00] some stuff that I've been working on to gain better perspective in my life.
[00:16:05] Now, I guess, continuing on the subject of, of a leave, um, maybe I can tell you what sort of things I would like to do during my leave without saying it in a way that makes me feel like I have to do it. Because like the mere fact that I'm thinking that I want to do it is a risk because of my personality and I guess my lack of ability to cope with all the things that I want to achieve.
[00:16:33] It's a risk to my mental health, but I'll let you know, I'll let you know what's going on. And then we can kind of a check in as we move along with our podcast episodes. While I did say earlier that, um, the first week of my leave went by really slowly, like to the point where I didn't even know what day it was at a certain point.
[00:16:55] It was still not as busy as if I was working, but it [00:17:00] was still, I still had some commitments that I had, you know, invested in prior to starting this leave. Some of which were... I became a conference speaker. Right. Um, I got accepted for my very first conference talk, which is something that I've been trying to achieve since July and I got accepted in August and I will be, I guess the talk will go live, um, in September.
[00:17:31] So I had to record that thing by tomorrow and I ended up recording it today and submitting it today. So I had to do that. I had to, I had to write it. I had to write it. I had to, um, I needed my designer. I hired a local designer, um, to you know rebrand my website, uh brand my podcast, and like build other things, like my presentation deck and a resume for the future that is along with my brand.
[00:17:58] I needed her [00:18:00] to finish that deck so that I could actually have a sexy deck to go to my talk with. Um, and thankfully Janel, Janel Lucia, in Toronto, she did the damn thing and we finished it. So I had to like, you know, create my sexy, uh, presentation. I had to practice my presentation. I'd record my presentation.
[00:18:25] That was a thing. Um, another thing that I'm doing as a part of like the rebranding journey as a professional is I had booked a photo shoot to like take new headshots and new branding photography for the type of professional that I am today, which is multifaceted. Like I'm not, I am a developer, but I'm also now a speaker.
[00:18:50] I am a podcaster and I'm a content writer. So I needed new pictures to tell that story on my personal [00:19:00] website. And plus like my headshots are from 2016, 2015. If you, if I release this before I rebrand, you might be able to catch it on LinkedIn and Twitter and all the places, um, or, or maybe I'll post, you know, uh, the behinds like, oh, blast from the past or something. Throwback Thursdays on Twitter or Patreon, we'll see.
[00:19:26] So you can see what my headshots were like from 2015, 2016. So that was a thing. That brand uh brand photography shoot was on Friday. That was, that was fun. I actually fun fact. I actually used to be a lifestyle blogger, like, and I say that with a slightly cringe face. Um, I used to be a lifestyle blogger and I had an Instagram and I did collabs and I got free stuff from companies and I had [00:20:00] sponsored posts and all that. But I used to be a blogger.
[00:20:03] And when I was a blogger, I took a lot of photos, um, with photographers and I got used to shooting in front of a camera. And I got used to, you know, I got used to like, what angle of my, you know, unconventional face looks good in front of the camera. And like, I developed a preference for what types of photos I like to take.
[00:20:28] Um, but even with that, experience, I felt like a little awkward being in front of the camera again, because it's been a long time, like actively shooting as the subject of a, of a portrait, but the photographer was nice. She was like, I have a Bluetooth speaker. If you want to put jams on that, you know, we'll put you in a good mood, you can. So I did.
[00:20:55] Not at the beginning because I think I was just too absorbed in the [00:21:00] fact that, Okay, like what, what, what set do we need to do now? Like what sort of picture do I need to do next? But towards the end, when we were taking more of the candid photography that I like - whether fake or real candid, doesn't matter.
[00:21:13] Like, what I like is candid photography where you're like not looking at the camera. Like I find photography where you're like super awkward. I don't... not into that. But yeah, I was pretty pumped. I am supposed to receive those photos maybe a week or week and a half, two weeks at the most, I got to decide from, from those pictures that were taken. It sounds like she took a lot and it sounds like I'll have some good options to choose from.
[00:21:46] I'm really excited. I hope like I don't need all of them to be perfect. I mean, and realistically that's probably not possible. I just need to have the moneymakers. Okay. I need the moneymaker headshot. I need the [00:22:00] moneymaker candid. And I need like really good, uh, I guess like not props, but like lifestyle, situational me doing my thing.
[00:22:11] Like podcasting writing, working on my laptop. I need those moneymaker shots. And if that's only like 10 of them, that's fine with me as long as they're 100%. Okay. As long as I never hesitate to make that my new Slack profile picture, that's totally fine with me.
[00:22:33] What else did I have to do my first week of leave?
[00:22:37] I helped my, one of my sisters move. I am the oldest of five kids. Um, and my youngest sister recently moved to the town next to mine. So I had to go back to my hometown, pack her stuff up, bring her up. And then she spent a couple of days with me and then we [00:23:00] moved her in on September 1st. So, so those were all the commitments that I basically had.
[00:23:07] But, other than those things that I had to do, I did get like much needed rest time, uh, compared to like the time before my leave. I'm somebody who, in the evening, I like to watch videos to relax. Like it could be mindless YouTube videos. It could be like a series. It could be a movie, although it's usually not a movie, it's usually like a series.
[00:23:30] It could be anime. It could be like a Netflix, Netflix show or with K-pop K-pop videos. So like K-pop videos, like before my leave, I was still doing it in the evening, but I wasn't feeling relaxed. Okay. Like, I was that stressed where even when I was doing the thing that was supposed to give me joy, I wasn't feeling joy.
[00:23:54] And I was feeling like anxiety, I guess, is what I was feeling. Still not sure. [00:24:00] I'm still not in touch with that. But this past week, I was able to watch things like actually watch things on YouTube. Um, I started and finished a show, right? It was a romantic comedy and I don't usually, I don't usually watch romantic comedies, like one, I don't watch romance usually.
[00:24:22] And I don't watch comedies either. The types of things that I like to watch are like epic fantasy adventures. Sci-fi and like niche genre that I like, are like sports and music. But most of the time, like I like things like, oh Lord of the Rings. Inception, uh, Sense 8 which unfortunately got canceled on Netflix. That sort of stuff.
[00:24:53] But I guess. Maybe because I've been so stressed, I wanted something like kinda [00:25:00] cheesy and light, I guess. But I ended up watching a romance, comedy drama. I don't know if you can call it a drama, on Netflix that caused me to cry a lot and also laugh a lot. And you know, in that brief period of time, I felt like, okay, I'm still capable of feeling emotions.
[00:25:23] Just maybe I'm not in touch with a small subset of my emotions and I'm hoping through therapy, I can, you know, re- or I guess not re- because maybe I was never able to do it, through therapy. I hope to become friends with all of the emotions that you have as a human. Because I don't know, we have a wide range of emotions. No sense in, no sense in rejecting some of them.
[00:25:50] Even if you don't like some. I have a theory about why I've rejected, even if it's, um, you know, [00:26:00] subconsciously, you know, not actively, uh, doing so. I have a theory as to why I might be out of touch with certain feelings like stress and anxiety and a really, uh, big hatred for a lack of control. And I think it's because, especially with, especially with something like sadness, okay.
[00:26:24] This is my theory. I find that between two - and I'm air quoting here - of the negative emotions, anger and sadness. I think of the two I rationalize that it's better to be angry than sad because I view anger as a motivator. A motivator for achieving things, a motivator for pressing forward, a motivator for accomplishing things.
[00:26:55] Okay. Whereas sadness - although [00:27:00] I admit is a natural human emotion, and it is healthy to grieve - I think I may have pushed that away over time, or maybe all my life, because somewhere inside, I believe that sadness drags you down and keeps you stagnant, and in the same place rather than pushing forward. And that is conflicting to me.
[00:27:24] Um, when I think of, you know, what type of quality I think is admirable in a person, which is, not necessarily that you fail, not necessarily that, you know, you have a bad day. Those are not bad things. But I admire people, and I admire myself, when despite those days or those feelings, I press forward anyway.
[00:27:51] Right. And I guess I have viewed stress, anxiety, and sadness as uh, limiters to [00:28:00] progression. Um, and now I'm in this place where I don't even know them anymore. And we'll see. This time period is about, is like, I view it as my next stage of transformation. Um, it's, it's very uncomfortable, but if any of you guys are calculus nerds or math lover wannabes like I am, you know, those points, um, I think they're called inflection points on a graph.
[00:28:30] When you have like the highest point or you have the lowest point and then the slope changes. That's how I view, you know, big, transformative periods of time in my life. Like now I am at an inflection point and those inflection points are uncomfortable. Well, when you're on the down, when you're in them, but I'm really much looking forward to that, the person that I'll become when I overcome this [00:29:00] latest challenge in life. When I become the next successful version of Thuy.
[00:29:07] And there you go more about success.
[00:29:14] So yeah, today I wanted to, you know, talk about success and what it means to me as a person and maybe get you to think about, if you haven't done an exercise like this already, formally writing down what your definitions of success are for your day, week, month, or even your year... (to the tune of Friends) I'll be there for you. Writing those down if you haven't already.
[00:29:40] Something that I've been realizing this break is, uh, even though there are things that you believe already, which could be... maybe, maybe in your mind, like, even though you didn't write it down, maybe you already have a definition of success. Maybe you have beliefs that you strongly hold to. The exercise of writing it [00:30:00] down is not even necessarily to do it if you haven't.
[00:30:06] It is more about bringing something to the surface, whether or not it's already there. And here's, here's an example. I, uh, have recently got into affirmations. Okay. Uh, positive affirmations. And I'm making this face for, you know, the people who will view this, uh, in video version. Or if you're listening, I am talking weirdly because prior to recently, I definitely thought affirmations were WOO WOO.
[00:30:42] Especially, like if you have affirmation cards or something like that. But I recently became a person who owns and uses affirmation cards. Okay. When I first started having a hard time, I pulled them a [00:31:00] lot, but I don't as much anymore. And maybe that's because I'm slowly healing.
[00:31:07] But speaking of the physicality of what you believe... What I like about, uh, not career, um, card affirmations is that even if you already believe it, there is a power that I feel, again, that sounds woo woo. But there's a power that I feel when you flip over a card, when you flip over a card and you read the thing, that's on the card. And it doesn't even have to be a thing that you're like, oh, I never thought about it that way.
[00:31:43] Because most of the time, this sort of stuff, like you already know. Much like advice. When someone gives you advice, you're like, I know, I know. But I think the powerful part of affirmation cards or wr- you know, [00:32:00] writing, physically writing down something that you're thinking is that it brings that thought or that belief to the surface , right, of your mind. Rather than just like hanging around in there somewhere passively.
[00:32:13] So I'm into career, or not career affirmations. I keep saying career affirmations, but I mean, CARD affirmations. The reason why I keep saying career affirmations is because I have an affirmation card deck that is career related.
[00:32:27] That is it for the second episode of Candid and Cringe. I really wanted to challenge myself to be open about a couple of things. Um, some, that I focused on in a big way. And some that I kind of casually mentioned, but those include... the fact that I'm on a leave from work. The fact that it is about burnout.
[00:32:48] Um, the fact that I am stressed. That I am anx- anxious. The fact that I do or use a thing that other people might think is [00:33:00] lame, like affirmation cards. And , and something that I thought was lame. Um, the fact that I'm in therapy. Uh, there are many things that I've learned about myself recently that made me uncomfortable, but a big part of who I am is, is, is being honest and being candid and being sincere.
[00:33:24] And I don't only want it to be... candor that I give myself and not others or candor that I only give others and not myself. So I need to sit with my discomfort of the things that I have learned, and I want to share them with you so that we, you know, for just the humanity of it all. And the ability to grow and share and talk together.
[00:33:52] All right, that's it. And I'll see you on the next one, guys. Toodaloo.[00:34:00]