The quote that best explains 2022 is from Zig Ziglar, a motivational speaker popular in the ‘80s. In his words,

You cannot make it as a wandering generality, you must become a meaningful specific.

In both my 2019 and 2021 Year in Reviews, I listed “Work/life balance and burnout” in my “What didn’t go so well” category. I also felt a low-buzz depression where I felt like I lost my passion for life. Yet, when I asked myself, if you don’t think you’re happy – what would make you happy?

The answer came up blank. I didn’t have a clear understanding of what would make me happy.

It felt like in my rush to get to where I am today, I became lost in chasing an end goal that didn’t exist. I started to become a wandering generality. I was chasing after everyone else’s dreams for my life instead of understanding my own purpose in life. In other words, I needed to explore what it means to be a meaningful specific.

With that as the intro for this Year in Review, let’s get started. This Year in Review format is from James Clear, author of Atomic Habits.

James explains how he thinks about his Annual Reviews:

But it’s not just about looking back. A good Annual Review is also about looking toward the future and thinking about how the life I’m living now is building toward a bigger mission. Basically, my Annual Review forces me to look at my actions over the past 12 months and ask, “Are my choices helping me live the life I want to live?”

Here are the questions he asks himself every year:

1. What went well this year?
2. What didn’t go so well this year?
3. What did I learn?

1. What went well this year?

🙅🏻‍♀️ I became sober for a year

At the end of 2021, I was in a negative mood that I did not know how to get out of. So I asked myself a question: “What’s the One Thing I can do – such that by doing it – everything else will be easier or unnecessary?” – a la Gary Kelly in The One Thing.

For me, the answer was clear: it was to stop drinking for a year.

As I turned 36, it occurred to me that I have been drinking as many years in my life as I have not. Drinking is so ingrained to the adult experience. From college to work, and socializing with friends – it’s all around us. This decision to drink became a default and not conscious decision.

Last year, I came across a lot of stories from women who I respected who shared their stories of becoming sober. Their stories made me realize that alcohol was no longer serving me in the way that it had for the last 18 years.

In case you’re in a sober-curious journey, here’s some books and content that helped me stop drinking for a year:

• Open Book by Jessica Simpson – I know. I know. Jessica Simpson? I grew up in the early 2000’s in the Britney, Christina and Jessica era. In a way, they were supposed to be our role models… right? Turns out Jessica has a lot to share, and I enjoyed reading her perspective. Her stories about why she turned to alcohol resonated with me and I found her sobriety journey inspiring.
• The Gifts of Imperfection by Brene Brown – This book, or any book by Brene Brown. Brene is quite the opposite from Jessica Simpson. But, Brene Brown often shares how sobriety is her superpower. The Gifts of Imperfection doesn’t talk too much about sobriety. But I found this book most impactful to me. If sobriety can help me as a super power to work on my perfectionism, then I figured I would try.
• Untamed and Love Warrior by Glennon Doyle – As a woman still trying to navigate our unfair patriarchal society, I found Untamed to be a breath of fresh air. Glennon’s stories reminds me how often we use alcohol to dampen our “inner knowing”. The voice that’s in your head that tells you something is wrong, but it’s easier to ignore.
• Christina Galbato – Last year, I joined Christina Galbato’s mastermind to invest in my passion for content creation. But, what I didn’t expect to come out of that was her inspiration and motivation for me to stop drinking. Halfway into our mastermind, she shared with us her struggles with alcohol. I looked up to Christina for her consistency and hustle so this convo took me by surprise. I felt so many “me too” type of moments listening to her story, it pushed me into my sober curious journey.
• Quit Like A Woman by Holly Whitaker – This book was a Christina recommendation. Subtitle: The Radical Choice to Not Drink in a Culture Obsessed with Alcohol. Holly covers her own path to becoming an alcoholic due to work stress (umm, I know something about that life). The book reads like a feminist manifesto against the alcohol industry, the patriarchy and more. This was the complete mindset shift that I needed to help remind me why this was a good decision.
• Gill from Sober Powered. A tip for not drinking: have more sober content in your life. I signed up for Gill’s newsletter to get tips on how to become sober. When alcohol has been a part of your life for 18+ years, NOT drinking takes a bit of unlearning, but you can do it! Many before you have.

So there you have it – I stopped drinking in 2022 and it is the single most important decision I have made for myself.

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😄 I began my healing journey to overcome my negative mindset and burnout

At the beginning of last year, I was swirling in negativity and felt desperate to get to the other side. Here’s 2 things that helped me:

• Attending Tony Robbin’s Free Ultimate Breakthrough 5-day challenge
• Work with an Asian, Female emotions coach

Tony said a few things during his 5 day seminar that helped me understand my path forward for 2022:

3 Steps for a Breakthrough: Strategies, Story, and State

Everyone needs 3 things to reach a breakthrough: the right strategy, the right story and the right physical and emotional state. But, here’s the big A-HA moment for me, Tony says people go about finding a breakthrough in the wrong order.

The biggest mistake that people make is going for the right strategies as the first step to make a change. For me, an example of this is joining Christina’s mastermind in 2021. At the time, I thought that joining a new class and learning new strategies would solve my problems. I thought I would get a spark of inspiration and find refreshed energy and momentum to get me out of my funk.

In the beginning, I did feel inspired to take some action. But I wasn’t able to keep up the consistent momentum I needed because I wasn’t in the right physical and emotional state. I started to feel the burnout juggling both the mastermind and my full time job, and I felt in a worse state.

Within the framework of “State, Story, Strategies”, I needed to focus more on my State and Stories first. So that’s what I did this year. I focused on my personal state and revising the stories that kept me in the same burnout habit loops.

Everyone knows the benefits of wellness habits – exercise, diet & nutrition, sleep. But there’s a difference between KNOWING something, and then DOING it. In 2022, I decided that enough was enough. Instead of having these wellness habits be a “nice to have”, it became a priority for me. I understood that without a healthy state, I will keep getting stuck in a cycle of burnout and stress.

Besides Tony Robbins, someone who helped me this year was my emotions coach Maggie.

At the end of 2021, I felt fed up with the various therapists, psychiatrists and coaches who I worked with. I felt like I’ve done all the self discovery I needed through these people. Yet, at the same time, at the beginning of 2022, I was deep in my funk.

As fate would have it, I met up with an acquaintance who buzzed with a high vibration of energy that I wished for myself. As we talked, she told me that she was 3 years sober (a sign that I was on the right healing path). I asked her for some advice and she recommended her coach, Maggie, to me.

When the universe gives you a sign, you follow it, so that’s how I started my work with my emotions coach Maggie. I never would have considered needing an “emotions” coach – because WTF is an emotions coach? But just as I cried weekly through therapy last year, I cried through many of my first sessions with Maggie.

Through our sessions, I started to realize how much I’ve gone through as an undiagnosed neurodivergent immigrant. We uncovered the feelings of the inner child that I’ve spent decades trying to bury. Maggie is also my first coach/therapist who’s an Asian woman. Being able to relate on that front helped me through the final stages of my healing journey.

After 6+ sessions, I started to feel a lot better. I was in a much better emotional state.

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👩🏻‍💻 I was promoted at work

You know what’s funny? I’ve been at Google now for 11 years, and “get a promotion” was always on my list of goals. But I didn’t plan for this last promotion.

Google has 2 promotion cycles per year. If you want to make sure you are considered for a promotion, you have to plan your promotion at least one cycle ahead. To do this, you need to prepare your “promo projects” for the next cycle. This way, you and your manager are both prepared to represent you through the promo process.

To get promoted, Google wants to see you performing at the next level for at least 6 months. So, let’s say you’re a Level 4. The promotion committee will want to see you performing as a Level 5.

Yes, you’re reading this right. If you want to get promoted from L4 to L5, you have to start overperforming as the next level (L5). This means you’ll get underpaid as a L4 for at least 6 months, before you get paid like a L5.

Ummmm…

Here’s the kicker, even if you try your best to perform at the next level for 6 months, you might not get promoted. There are SO many people who get stuck at the same level, trying to get promoted for more than a year. Promotions at Google is a stressful game.

The messed up part is that getting a promotion isn’t only based on your performance. You have to consider all the other people in your org who might also be trying to get promoted to the same level. At the same time, you don’t talk about if you’re going up for promotion, because:

1. Most of the time, you don’t know what level your peers are unless you talk about it, and
2. Sometimes you don’t tell others you’re up for promo because you don’t want to put your own promotion in jeopardy. You know, in case they’re going up for a promotion too. You both might have to fight for the same “promo project”. One that has the right level of strategic importance and visibility. There might only be one slot for promotion, and only one of you will get it.

But, I digress, because this isn’t a blog post about how messed up and traumatizing the promo process is at Google. This is context about why my promotion this year felt EXTRA good:

This year, I got promoted all without working through all that bullshit that I just mentioned. I’ve been promoted 4 times at Google now and 75% of the time, I’ve had to go through this additional stress of getting promoted on top of just doing my job.

So what was different this time?

• This promotion cycle, I’m in a different org where I’m not fighting other people for good promo projects. Currently in my role, all of my work is project work and I’m the only person assigned to do the project. (The new source of my stress and burnout is now ALL the projects are mine, and there’s too many of them, go figure. Grass is always greener, amirite?)
• I have an amazing manager who’s also my sponsor. She’s been so supportive of me both professionally and personally over the last few years. She’s also very aware of all the promotions BS that happens at Google. So, she proactively started the promotions process for me early because she saw that I was already performing at the next level. By the time I felt healed enough to ask her about getting promoted, she told me she already put me up for promotion.

So… that’s the story of my promotion this year. I feel so grateful that I didn’t have to go through that same stress this time around because I was way too burnt out to even think about it. It feels good to be recognized and validated for the work I’m already doing.

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🧳 Traveled a lot for both work and fun

2022 was a whirlwind of travel and fun! I spent 11 weeks around the world living the “hybrid” work from anywhere dream:

• Work from Playa Del Carmen and Cancun – 2 weeks
• Vacation in Spain (Cadiz, Seville, Granada, Costa Brava) – 3 weeks
• Vacation from London to Ibiza to celebrate of spreadculturedbutter’s milestone birthday – 1 week
• Work trip to Korea & Singapore – 2 weeks
• Work from Mexico City – 1 week
• Work & Vacation in Paris for my birthday – 2 weeks

2. What didn’t go so well this year?

🤷🏻‍♀️ Nothing?

For the first time in a long time, I can honestly say that I feel really at peace with life. Sure, there’s still some ups and downs that happen every now and again, but I’m able to manage it a lot better mentally, emotionally, and physically. I’m so grateful for being on this journey and excited to see how it all unfolds.

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🤷🏻‍♀️ Time spent on developing executive function

Okay, “nothing” felt like a bit of a cheating answer, so here’s something that didn’t go AS well this year. I think I can still do a better job of improving my executive function skills.

In my July 2022 post, I shared that I was trying new ways to implement better systems & routines into my life. I guess I crammed in way too many different things that I want to try into my year long goals. The goals aren’t very realistic on if and how I was going to get it all done.

I should plan for roadblocks to my plan like low energy days, or for work to consume the majority of my energy.

3. What did I learn?

🧠How to take better care of my ADHD brain

By the end of 2021, I was happy to be diagnosed with ADHD, but I was still really struggling to figure out what to make of it.

This is best analogy that I can use to explain what’s happening in my ADHD brain. There’s 2 sides of my brain – the ADHD side that’s like my inner child and my other side that’s my Type A perfectionist parent.

Before I was diagnosed with ADHD, my type A parent was just winging it. My inner parent was trying to raise my ADHD child the best that it could. On good days, my ADHD child is well behaved and lets the Type A parent in me work towards our goals. The ADHD child also thrives when the Type A parent is able to function. Because here’s the thing: my inner child is also me – a person who gets motivation from accomplishment :).

But, there are some really bad days. At my worst, my inner ADHD child has a mind of its own and completely drains the Type A parent in me. On those days, I have no executive function to adult, no motivation to do anything. I give in to whatever easy distraction that will make my inner child feel just a little bit better. My inner child’s favorites include mindless social media scrolling, food and alcohol.

It’s stressful for me because it’s hard to know on a day-to-day basis if my ADHD child will behave. If my type A parent has enough energy that day to take care of business like an adult. I know what it feels like when both parts of my brain work together, and I’m trying to train my brain to do that more often than not.

The biggest win from my ADHD journey is knowing that some of my issues with executive function isn’t a personality trait. There are actual strategies that I can put into place to improve things. It helped me change from a fixed mindset of “This is just how I am”, to a growth mindset of “I can make things better”.

Personal agency is so powerful, and I’m excited to continue on this journey. Tying this back to my “What went well this year?” section on what I learned from Tony Robbins, here’s how I can take better care of my ADHD brain, in this specific order:

• State: Feeding the needs of my inner child. Shifting from cheap forms of dopamine like food, alcohol and social media to more sustainable sources like exercise, travel. Creating small wins from creative projects or other healthy brain hacks
• Stories: Have more self-compassion for myself and developing a growth mindset
• Strategies: Surrender to the fact that I need better systems & routines in my life. I can do some of the easy things that are good for me on autopilot. Save my energy and executive function to go after more.

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😄Trauma – “Big T” trauma vs “little t” trauma

Throughout my 2022 healing journey, I came across the idea of “Big T” Trauma and “little t” trauma.

If you read enough self-help and psychology books, you might come across the ACEs test. It’s a test of 10 categories of Adverse Childhood Experiences (ACEs).

When I first learned about the ACEs scores, I took the test and saw that I scored a very low score on it. Initially, my low score felt like validation that my childhood was great. Especially when compared to the experiences of other children who’s clearly had to deal with a lot worse.

The story that I have always told myself is that I came from a pretty vanilla family background. My parents are SO so nice, I have a wonderful family. I never grew up in poverty, was always fed, had a roof over my head. No complaints here!

The first time that I was made to challenge this “everything is fine!” narrative was when I wrote my college entrance essays. In my mind, there was nothing interesting to write about. Life was great, so I focused on all of the things I excelled at and reflected little on my own upbringing. When my older brother reviewed my essays, he called out that I didn’t talk about the more challenging experiences in my life.

Having gone through the college admissions process himself, he knew that the more traumatic the story, the better it is to get into college. 🙃 Here’s a very relatable video from a fellow Asian American woman who talks about tapping into trauma as a way to get into college. “The Rise of the “Trauma Essay” in College Applications”

Anyway, here’s the story of my college essay. I immigrated to America at age 5 and grew up with parents who had to work 2-3 jobs just to make sure they were able to provide for us. As a result, I needed to pull my own weight in the family early in life. I started cooking meals for my family by 2nd grade to help reduce the stress on my parents. I was very self-sufficient and independent at a young age. To add to that, I grew up in Oakland during a time when Oakland had a reputation as a top murder capital in the world.

Here’s the thing, when everyone around you is living in this reality, it’s hard to realize that this is not the norm. I’ve always dismissed these things as “it’s not a big deal”.

My parents grew up during the cultural revolution in China. They had it ROUGH. So, I internalized that any of my negative experiences will never be as bad as what they went through. This is my reason to always feel grateful. I should never feel bad about what’s happening to me because let’s face it – it can always be worse.

Over the last few years, I’ve learned that this is not a healthy mindset. Yes, it’s important to feel grateful about the blessings in your life. But, it’s not helpful to invalidate your own feelings because other people have it worse. That’s why the framework on “Big T” trauma and “little T”trauma was helpful for me.

It helped me understand that EVERYONE goes through some type of trauma in their life. Immigrating to a new country is not listed as a category of an adverse childhood trauma via the ACEs test. But, that doesn’t mean my own life experiences are considered “less than”.

Doesn’t matter how you classify your trauma, it can have similar effects on your brain. There’s little difference between the effect of one large Trauma or many smaller traumas on your brain. At the end of the day, the trauma you go through in life changes how your nervous system activates. A lot of our current negative habit loops come as coping skills we develop as children to try to numb any pain or feelings related to our own source of trauma.

This is why it’s important to evaluate the patterns you’ve experienced. The moment that I acknowledged how hard it was, I felt a lot more self-compassion for myself.

On to 2023!

I feel like I’ve said this almost every year for the last few years, but 2022 truly felt like a transformative year for me. My healing journey continues, and I continue to feel more confident in my own skin. It’s a nice feeling as I head into my mid-30s.

Thanks for being here and following along. ❤️