It has been a hectic month with so much admin and physical manual labour for my house. Along with my day job and the major projects that I am running this year, it is basically close to “all hell break loose” moment these days. Well, at least the major defects are fixed now and my house didn’t have water seepage issues during the rainy season in the past few days. In fact, it is not super cold in my unit which I guess is a fortunate thing?

I still manage to meet my friends for dinner every week so my social self care is still there. Unfortunately, I am not getting much exercise other than my weekly personal training session. Time to really refocus my efforts back on my self care and make time to keep myself healthy.

I managed to get a new hand carry luggage from Lojel at 30% discount yesterday. 🙂 They have 10% discount for regular colours and 30% for white, yellow and red colours. Well, the red colour actually looks nice to me so I just decided to get that. 10 year warranty for Lojel and the ease of access for laptops for the hand carry luggage is a plus for sure. When my Echolac luggage warranty is over this October and when the zip spoilt again, I will probably buy another Echolac or Lojel luggage. I’m sticking to luggage with warranty for their parts going forward.

There’s this trend on social media that I saw in Instagram whereby people shared about an imaginary date with a younger version of themselves. I think I will try it out here haha.

I met my younger self for coffee this morning.

She was 30 mins late and was feeling very apologetic with many excuses. I was 1 hr late and walk in like a boss. Okay lah, got apologise but not as apologetic as my younger self and definitely no excuses because I just suck at time management and it has gotten worse. Hahaha.

She ordered iced milo with ice (with sugar) as it is a guilty pleasure for her and the drink is not cheap so she don’t drink it often. I ordered earl grey black tea latte without ice and without sugar because I drink it daily and should at least cut down on my sugar intake if I am drinking it daily.

She told me that she is very worried about not able to get into an overseas university on scholarship for her bachelor degree so she cannot escape the horrible environment at home. She is also worried about unable to pay for her university fees and have to go out to work after A levels. I told her that she ended up having both bachelor and master degrees from NUS. Not getting scholarship to study overseas is fine because she was able to survive through the horrible environment and came out stronger. It is still tough and is getting more difficult but the end is nearing. She doesn’t need to worry about the finances as much as she thought because things will always work out fine because of her tenacity attitude.

She told me that she don’t know if she is ever you find love or learn to love others since she was not loved. I told her that she found love and got betrayed/scammed and recovered. She came up stronger and went on to achieve more in other aspects of her life. She knows how to love others unconditionally by nature.

She told me that she is worried about having to stay with her parents forever. I told her that we are opening door 2 days later to our forever home. I already got the keys and I am inviting her to stay with me. It’s much bigger than expected and it is a private property so she definitely overachieved for her age and background.

She told me she is worried about finances. I told her she might need to only because she is always a spender. Just continue to save before you spend and you will be fine. Trust your instincts. I think at that point, she thought I was going to give her good news and comfort her more but some things never change as we are both brutally honest even as the time passed by.

Happy Chinese New Year everyone! This CNY has been peaceful so far. I managed to avoid my sister and brother-in-law so far so it has been peaceful. They came over and I went hide in my bedroom until they left. I’m definitely putting boundaries to protect myself and to prevent a repeat of last year CNY drama. My sister also didn’t give me red packet (angbao) via my parents so it is like saving money for them. My parents also didn’t give me angbao either so I am helping them to save money.

It’s not like they were looking for me when they visit either. My sister brought my nephew to my bedroom door and knock on the door when they are about to leave. Needless to say, I ignored the knocks. When my nephew said bye to me at the door, I also replied and wave towards the door too. It’s unfortunate but I need to set strong boundaries to protect myself. I would love to meet my nephew in person someday but I doubt it will happen anytime soon…

I received a call that my Hermes mini constance bag is back from Paris workshop after 5 months on the CNY eve so I went down on CNY Day 1 to collect it before heading for my gym workout. Haha. I’m getting more disciplined in exercising. 😀 Very happy that my bags are all united now. I should spend some time to take a bag family portrait haha.

This is a question that my leadership coach, Felicia Du, asked during my last coaching session yesterday.

I replied pretty quickly and said, “I have always being the odd one out so it is like normal.” Then she laughed and said something like if you are not exceptional then it is really odd for you. That was a really good question because subsequent questions, she was asking me to reflect why I always strive hard to be exceptional and what was the first time I was exceptional.

Then I thought back and realised that the first time it happened was when I am in primary 6. At a mere age of 11 years old (because I am a December baby), I managed to study hard in 1 month to do better than expected for my PSLE. I didn’t do well for my preliminary exams for PSLE. In fact, I was supposed to go into Normal Technical stream. I panicked at that time. My parents weren’t worried since they had never planned to send me for degree education. If I can somehow get a diploma, their job is completed because I can just go out to work with a diploma.

Luckily, I managed to get into Express stream after I got my actual PSLE scores. I got into the 4th class (out of 5 class) in the Express stream on my first year. After a year, I got into the 2nd class. In that second year, I realised I am a late bloomer and my academics went even better and I made it to the top 10 students in my entire school cohort for some school subjects. On my third year, I made it to the top class in Express stream and took up the triple science and double math subject combination. It is one of the hardest subjects combination offered by my neighbourhood secondary school at that time.

My coach then told me that among all of her clients (mostly in China), I have one of the rare strengths (Commander) and talents (most of my top strengths are in the Influencing/orange space), especially for a female. Everything is pointing towards leadership role for me but I am not in a leadership role somehow. She thinks I will end up in a leadership role somehow – be it within my current company or another company.

She also mentioned that a lot of her exceptional clients are driven because of childhood trauma- the need to impress their parents. Something that is quite linked to Asian culture. However, she can see that I have that fire in me which is quite different from the rest. I’m also quite used to being the exception and is comfortable with my own success. It is like the norm for me. 😀

I am also reflecting more on this topic and I think my fire was triggered by fear. The fear of inability to protect or take care of myself. If no one loves me then I should at least love myself. I think that’s the line that I have been telling myself everything I have a setback in family/relationships. As a result, I have to push myself to greater heights and achieve so much more that I am able to protect and take care of myself. That is probably the fire within myself. Driven by my desire for self protection.

It’s really interesting how my coach can sense this characteristic of me in the third session of coaching. I’m pretty impressed and no wonder she is working as an executive leadership coach for so many years…

Now back to doing the homework (journaling) that she gave me. Interesting how my career coach from US also gave me the same homework/feedback. I need to make sure that I don’t fall into the traps of my strengths and work on improving my awareness.

It’s my first day of work in 2025 and I am starting the work day right by waking up earlier than usual, reaching office earlier than usual and wearing brand new clothes (new top and jeans which I got from my US trip). Not to forget my new shoes from Sunny Steps and with my new perfume from Chanel (Les Exclusifs de Chanel Comete). Hehe. May this year be a great year and I hope I can get promoted this year. Fingers crossed!