Written by: Eunice Cheung, Executive Contributor
Executive Contributors at Brainz Magazine are handpicked and invited to contribute because of their knowledge and valuable insight within their area of expertise.
I’ve been beating myself up lately. Feeling frustrated, restless, worried and most of all, angry. Angry at myself, for not doing better and doing more.
But the truth is, I need to show myself compassion with everything that I am doing well.
I’m sure we are all familiar with being our own worst critics.
That is the battle we must all fight, daily, constantly.
Some days, we lose and the critical voice within us wins.
Some days, we win and counter it with a jab of reassurances, self-belief and trust.
There is no mastery to this.
It is a constant journey of ups and downs that we embark on.
Life is a process of constant pivoting, tweaking, moving levers to see what works and what doesn’t.
2023 has been a rocky year with increase cost of living and the pressure is felt everywhere I look.
Increased rent, expenses, food.
It puts everyone on edge.
We are all stressed, tired, restless.
Some days, it feels hard to live a life worth living.
It sucks when you are pushed to survival mode.
I’ve been feeling it deeply all around me.
It’s easy to be consumed by the stress and the negativity of it all.
It’s easy to get lost.
It’s easy to spiral and feel sorry for yourself and wishing things are different.
So here is a way out.
You Are You Own Hero. You are Your Own Answer.
Ultimately, everything depends on YOU.
If you choose to do nothing, nothing will ever change.
Don’t depend on someone to come to your rescue.
Don’t wait for someone to do it for you.
Don’t wait for the answer to come to you.
Stop waiting.
So let’s leverage our negative emotions and redirect it.
I know it’s hard. Trust me. I’ve spent weeks and months in bed this year, unable to get out of bed, unable to do anything. It took me a long time to get out of it.
So trust me when I know what it’s like.
But life goes on and we have to keep living. Keep surviving. Keep fighting.
As long as we are alive, there is ALWAYS a chance, an opportunity for things to change.
You just have to have faith. Believe in the potential for change. Believe in yourself.
Play the long game.
Delay instant gratification.
Resist the immediate dopamine rush you get from mindless scrolling.
You Have Two Options
Let negativity take over and consume your mind
Or
Leverage the fuck out of that negativity and let it FUEL you and your work
That is what I chose to do.
I chose the latter.
I said to myself, no more sulking and feeling sorry for myself.
In this difficult time, I’m choosing to stay angry…stay so angry to redirect this energy to my work.
Using the anger to fuel me to take action, to create a post, to write a newsletter, consume inspiring, helpful, motivational media that will jumpstart my fuse.
So I never lose sight of my mission, my purpose, my business, my life’s work. My legacy.
A personal example
I’ve been consistent last year in content creation for my therapy instagram account.
But this year, I’ve found it difficult to continue, because of some personal issues I’ve had.
Instead, I’ve directed my energy into this Newsletter.
Despite the challenges I’ve had, I chose to leverage my life experiences and the difficult emotions I have felt and turn it into content.
To reflect the lessons I take from each difficult experience is no easy task.
I find comfort in the fact that it reinforces my takeaways and it is a guide of how to navigate life in better ways for you.
Because if it can reach one person and help them, if it gave them a different perspective to viewing life, then I have achieved my goal.
I can look back on in a year’s time to realize how wise it was to have gone through it and gained insights from.
It helps me become wiser and be more understanding of clients’ experiences and why people present in certain ways.
It helps me become a better therapist.
So even if it feels hard, I can’t neglect what I have been building and doing this past two years of building my therapy practice.
Even if it feels hard, even if I’ve lost all motivation, even if it feels like there is no point to it… I am holding myself accountable to remain consistent.
To never give up.
To clap for myself.
To cheer for myself and my work.
Because one day I will get there.
I will reach financial freedom.
Never, ever, give up, my friends.
Came across Zach Pogrob’s post this week.
His writing is brilliant. It evokes emotion, passion, drive and fuel within me.
He is one of the online creators that I look up to in the digital world.
“Stress is peace. Chaos is fuel. Life becomes a game of doing the impossible”. – Zach Pogrob
“You realize, all that matters, is making the dance last forever”. – Zach Pogrob
Sustainability, longevity, playing the long game used to be foreign concepts to me.
Until I indulged myself in the world of business, creation, creativity, the digital economy, that I realize and finally understood the importance of being consistent.
Playing the long game.
As James Clear said in his book Atomic Habits, small actions compound in the long term once you zoom out and see the bigger picture.
That is what life, business and everything is about.
It has become an important philosophy to me personally and professionally.
To wrap up this week:
Don’t see your negative emotions as the enemy, leverage it instead. Let it be your fuel.
Don’t give up on your dreams and goals. The key is remain consistent and persist. Stop buying into the ‘quick fixes’ and ‘overnight success’ you see on social media, it’s not real. This is.
Believe in yourself. Don’t sell yourself short, believe in the value you provide, believe in your skill set, your expertise, your experiences.
That’s it for this Newsletter.
Thank you for being here on this journey with me.
Enjoy your week.
If you’d like more help, I’ve got your back:
Join the top 5% of self-improvers by figuring our your shitty defaults patterns. Subscribe to my Newsletter here.
Get in touch HERE to book your 1:1 therapy session with me to start identifying & rewiring your patterns.
You can follow my instagram page to stay up to date with my products & services.
Eunice Cheung, Executive Contributor Brainz Magazine
Eunice Cheung is a Psychotherapist. Moving between cities growing up made it difficult for her to fit in with peers which made her question her identity. Since studying Psychology in International Baccalaureate (IB) and in university, she has built her online practice to help others question their limiting self-beliefs and understand the roots of how our conditioning through culture, upbringing can hold us back in life. One of her main focus is on Asian Culture, along with Fear of Failure, Perfectionism, Imposter Syndrome, Relationships & Identity. Eunice is a passionate and ambitious therapist, her mission is to inspire the next generation of Asians to excel, innovate and rise up to their full potential.
