I tell myself a lot of stories. I have to be successful to be happy. And there is one fixed path to success.
I was a product of the Singapore education system. Although ranked one of the best in the world, many people (including myself) grew up with the belief that there is one single path to success. Get from secondary school to junior college. Enter a university. Do well for the exams and get a high GPA. Secure as many internships as possible. Graduate with a degree.
And I graduated like many others, feeling lost in the shuffle. It was as though we were all made from the same mould.
Chasing shadows
When I entered the workforce a few years ago, it became clear to me what that same one fixed path to success now looked like. Success in the corporate world comes in exactly one form — The yearly bonus, the salary increment, the elusive promotion.
Because we worked so hard for it, we believe everything would change once we receive it. However, the milestone would always be very fleeting, and we would strive for the next big thing to feel happy again. Life gets defined by these big moments.
And we begin to live only for the time we finally get what we have been working for. We dismiss the days which seem like every other day. The days we love and hate, the journey and the hustle. The days we genuinely enjoyed work, absorbed in what we are doing. The days we feel grateful for what we already have.
And shouldn’t life be defined by all these moments in between as well?
Success is also supposed to be a subjective term, differing by person to person, yet to me there seems to be such a definitive answer for it in our society. I was looking around me to measure my own success. I was trying to live up to someone else’s version of success.
I started asking myself: If something does not make my life feel better, should I still chase it? Is it ok if I do not want to live my life in a traditional way?
And most importantly, can I see life for more than what it is: A life beyond numbers and titles?
A work in progress
I was questioning a lot and the scariest part was that I didn’t know what the next step was. It felt like I was running in endless circles, and I was so far from content with my life. We spent a large part of our early years preparing for the ‘real world’, and it didn’t make sense to me that once out there, we were supposed to just “figure it out on our own”.
Thus six months ago, I started working with a personal coach on Collective Change Institute. I did not know what to expect initially. The first few sessions were exploratory, and I began to more critically challenge my assumptions on my values (“Why do I believe in this?”) and the priorities I lived my life on (“Why is this important to me?”).
What I found the most refreshing was how there were no expectations or pressures on how our conversations should be like. The sessions were often uncomfortable — There was a sense of raw vulnerability, especially after discovering things deep down which I knew but did not want to accept. It was a big step towards mental liberation and finding my purpose.
I tell myself a lot of stories. As I continue on this coaching journey, I am excited to see where this takes me — Hopefully this would be the new story I tell myself, one which I have written the first page to change my life for the better.
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Having gained so much personally, I would strongly recommend this immensely powerful experience to anyone who is seeking to improve something in their lives. The Coaching for Change program at Collective Change Institute is one program (free), where you get to work with a coach of your choice for 7 sessions, and donate to a beneficiary of choice at the end.
If this resonated with you, or if you have gone through this program or other similar experiences, I would love to hear more — There’s always real strength when we let others into our story.
