one day? or day 1.

Welcome

Thank you for visiting my “work in progress” website. Like a house under construction, I hope the bare structure gives you a hindsight of what this will be. A place for my creative work, how I can make life easier for you — and so much more. If anything, this website has been long overdue for a lot of reasons.

What held me back

#1 Perfectionism — as an artist designing for so many clients I’ve been so lost on my personal brand. I often look at others and compare myself, my skills, my range of work and what I can offer.

#2 Juggling too many hats — apart from being a freelance designer, I also have an important role in our family business. It requires my mental and physical presence and decision making. I’m also a parent and a homemaker who can always use extra help.

#3 Identity crisis — I started freelance design work right after I got married. Looking back, I had quite the guts to take a leap at the unknown. Perhaps I wasn’t ready at HOW MUCH CHANGE I’d be opening myself into. I moved to a new city with dialect I can’t speak & understand. I embraced the work (workaholic coping mechanism I must say), coz staying in means I’m not a stranger to my own room. A few months after, I have a baby on the way. And its just been work x family x constant adjustments ever since that I’ve lost track of who I really am.

#4 The pandemic — has not been kind to us. Unfortunately, I live in a country with poor pandemic response. I had grand self-growth plans for 2020 which all went bust (ok, maybe not all). My child has not returned to school physically ever since February 2020. Emergency funds depleted. Our family business in a halt and I got crazy monitoring statistics and every government benefit we can be eligible for. Everyone staying at home means more chores for me. Then distance learning is mandated and my working hours are reduced to crying time.

The motivation

I’ve never been more depressed in my life and haven’t badly wished to be anywhere in the world but here. My mind has been through very dark places, and being confined for so long at just home and office never made it easy. Throughout the pandemic, I only had 1 beacon of hope and that is in the person of a woman who is “anti-fragile”. This woman for years been thrown all the garbage and misogyny which she never deserved, and yet is still the first person to help the needy. She goes above and beyond her being a spare tire of the political system. SHE SHOWS UP E-V-E-R-Y-D-A-Y. How can I be more like her? How do you carry that laser-focused perseverance to meet and exceed your goals?

Dozens of inspirational people on Instagram, but only her work ethic shook me.

Promise to build each day

I’ve decided to — #1 DO IT. Just START. Make a list of what you need to do. Sort it by priority. Delegate if you can. What can I do to make the task easier? Is there a workaround? Think about time you can FREE if you get done with one task. The time I spend typing here is a result of those daily decisions to just do things. #2 NOBODY ELSE WILL DO IT FOR ME. — so don’t think that moving to another place would make it any easier for you. In fact, it could be way more difficult than all the adjustment phases you’ve endured. Do what you can by yourself. Pay someone else take some things off your plate if you can afford. #3 CHOOSE MY HARD. Everything has been hard these past 2 years. Relearning / tearing down what you’ve built in order to progress IS HARD, but it also paved way for me to find functional tools I can use. Writing is hard and time-consuming especially when its been a long time since. But it is also a form of expression; an outlet of pent up thoughts and emotions. #4 BE MYSELF. In the sea of social media, its easy to get lost and be swayed by trends. It takes discipline, and probably time to be unafraid of who you are, what you do and what you can offer. If I could picture the realization, I can compare it to a Pinterest board that’s been cleared. And you slowly find your favorite pieces and recognize why they’d look good on you. Until finally —its a brand new you!

—And so this is DAY ONE.