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Happy March! To me, March symbolizes the start of Spring which is my favorite season of the year. This in itself, has gotten me very excited for the month ahead. As I’m excited for the month ahead, let’s take a pause and reflect on how the past month of February went. -- Stephanie
Lifestyle:
This month seems to be a blur though looking back it was quite fruitful in its own way. February is the month of Valentine’s day, which seems to set the tone for the month. Other than me loving the colors red and pink, I don’t necessarily have strong thoughts about this holiday. Some people love it and some people hate it, I’m typically indifferent. When I look past this month, what I see is a month of personal growth, self-love, fatigue, and growing relationships. To be honest, I had to take a look at my photo album and calendar to remember all the events in my life this month lol! Either I’m losing my grip on memories or the days just seem to fly by.
Professionally: It feels like this past month has been go go go. We’re leading up to some of our virtual webinars and first in person event at our largest annual summit, with everything coming up in the pipeline, it feels like I haven’t had much of a breather at work. On a more interpersonal note, I’ve also been making the effort to voluntarily show up in office at least once a week (voluntarily, I know right who am I lol) but it has been quite nice. It’s given me the chance to grow deeper connection with coworkers I wouldn’t see otherwise, make use of our nice office space (I’ve been digging working in the cafe vibes), and practice my driving skills. Something else I’m proud about this month at work is putting myself out there and signing up for coffee chats with leadership. I’ve always lacked self confidence here and have been afraid of sounding stupid and taking up time. I thought I was signing up for one chat as a start, but ended up signing up for 3 leadership chats. All went well and I am proud of myself for putting myself out there, and like one leader said, no one knows you as much as you do so you have to always advocate for yourself. This is actually a good segway to my professional relationships outside of my current company. I’ve always been afraid of reaching out to my ex-network of leaders, thinking I’m just taking up their space or they don’t remember me. Well, I put myself out there after seeing a leader I admire post on LI. To my surprise, it was well reciprocated from her. You really never know until you try!
Family: I actually started off the month with a day trip to a neighboring city casino for a vietnamese night event show. It was nice bonding with my family as often i feel like we exist in the same place but we don’t actually spend quality time. Day trips like these helps me feel like we’re truly present vs existing alongside one another. This was also the month where I had to have some difficult conversations with my mom especially. While I love my parents -- growing up the way I did, in the circumstances I was in, makes it very hard for me to feel okay with doing things that I want to, if I don’t get my parents’ blessing, especially my mom. Earlier this month I had to have a tough chat with her and it led to opening up bigger topics -- lots of emotions involved but eventually it went well. Not necessarily a happy ending for everyone, but one that we can compromise and work on.
Personally: I’ve been learning to love myself more and having more confidence in the person I’ve grown up to be. It’s always an uphill battle to be honest, and I always have a ton of doubt. Maybe it’s a mix of my upbringing and my anxiety, but I’ve never been very confident about myself. This month consisted of many solo dates and friendship dates. Friendship wise, I had a little galentines brunch at home with Pearl and Sadie. I was also able to get to know Pearl better on a personal level post-work and try out Rumble together (something I’ve always said I wanted to try but never took the lead until now, and it indeed left me very sore). We ended the month with a bang at the samsung event, it’s always a fun time with them regardless of what we do.
While some friendships are smooth sailing, this month I also had to put my foot down and communicate with some friends where I didn’t feel a fit with and don’t have the mental capacity to always be present. It was tough voicing out how I felt and that I couldn’t always be there for everyone, but part of loving myself also means being true to myself and those around me.
Last but not least, February was a month of enjoying solo dates too! I shared this in my vlog, but I’ll shar it here -- there’s a difference between growing up self-sufficient due to circumstance vs choosing myself as an adult. It doesn’t mean I want to stay alone forever, but I’ve learned to enjoy my own company until the right person comes. If its not the right person, I don’t want to force it. Speaking of love, this month I also embarked reading the book Attached: The New Science of Adult Attachment and How It Can Help You Find and Keep - Love. I’m about ¾’s done so not quite done with the book, I’ll save my review and commentary after I’ve finished reading the book. Here’s to working and learning about myself.
Lows + Lessons:
Progress on speaking up for myself against the typical norm. This month I had two incidents of speaking up. The first one was tough as it was with family. I won’t go into the details, but growing up mostly following the norm and being obedient, mostly doing what my mom wanted from me, made it harder to speak up for myself as I’m older. Even though I know I’m self-sufficient, there’s something inside me that will always be restless until I get their approval on most things. This restlessness is something I’m trying to work on. The second occasion where I spoke up was with a friend. I also won’t get too in the weeds on this, but as tough as this sounds -- I no longer felt like this friendship was serving me. I felt like I was just serving this friend by being a listening ear, but I wouldn’t feel comfortable opening up to them vice versa. It was a tough convo to have because I didn’t want to hurt any feelings, but I had to make the decision that felt right in my heart. Here's to learning and unlearning things.
Embracing my single status While I’ve grown up quite self-sufficient due to my upbringing (as I keep repeating lol). But on valentines day, a couple friends did open up to me about feeling lonely and that in return did have me thinking about loneliness myself and my past, present, and future. I don’t necessarily have someone in my life I can realistically see myself in a romantic relationship with right now and I don’t want to be in something just to be in something. However when the time comes that I do have someone i’m interested in and it’s reciprocal, I’d love to see where life takes us.
My pick of the month: Samsung Galaxy Experience Pop-up event
Ok tbh it’s just a selfish excuse to make use of these photos hahahah. The real pick is probably Rumble. I love quality time with the people in my life and I’m glad I was able to do these activities with the people I care about. While the samsung event was cool, it’s more about being able to experience it with my friends.
This month is going to go by in a flash, I know it. Happy March and Happy (almost) Spring! So excited for what’s to come.
Have a great month. Chat soon in April
-- Stephanie