JustinTime

How do I go about making and maintaining friendships? How do I balance being authentically me and being offensive, or people pleasing to fit in and taking constructive criticism?

The way we talk to ourselves is extremely important, and if you're constantly putting yourself down, you might just end up believing yourself.

The voice in your own head is crucial to how you view yourself and ultimately how you'll behave. Be sure to direct your energy at your improvement and not your beratement.

We can very easily get caught up in social media's hype of self-care and perceive it as everyone needs to adhere to certain kinds of self-care. But it's highly specific to YOU! So figure out what helps you get out of a rut when you're low, but also what helps you celebrate and feel appreciated by yourself when things are going fine.

We all have a personalized version of self talk for different situations in our lives. When we play sports, get work done, make a mistake; we all have a different kind of self conversation in these instances, and we use it to either cope with what's happening or motivate us to do better.  

However, sometimes we can be overly critical of ourselves in our own heads, and end up bringing ourselves down instead of motivating ourselves. But where do we draw the line between uplifting motivation kinds of self talk and flat our self deprecating conversation?

Let me preface this by saying I HAVE ONLY EVER CRIED IN ONE MOVIE!! Like i almost NEVER cry at movies. NEVER. Well. Almost hahaha.  

When I found myself failing to fight back the tears, I realized that the issues I had been pushing away for so long were finding any reason to rise to the surface and remind me that they were there. I took this as the tipping scale to push me to find a therapist.  

I had been contemplating therapy for a very long time, but I had never doubled down until that day. I knew that whatever I was facing could no longer be put off and ignored, SO HERE I AM!! 

Crying isn't weakness. It's your past hurt showing and telling you where the wounds are so that you can begin to tend to them.

I love episodes like these where I just get to share my thoughts about things in my life. There's nothing more genuine and refreshing than just allowing myself to express my won thoughts. I've always loved sharing them with you, and I hope you like listening and giving me your 2 cents too!!!

I recently had a conversation with my friend, Kylie, about preparing for a masters application and how to rewrite a resume. A few days after that conversation, she got a job!!! I was elated and wanted to share about that conversation. 

I'm super excited to get to collab and produce some simple content for Listen! Kuching. They're collecting articles and videos about having relationships in a pandemic, and this is my 2 cents about the topic!

If I could go back in time and give myself some advice, I'd have done quite a few things differently. There are things that I could've done to make the transition into taking my masters a lot smoother, and this is what I would've done!!!!

We'll never please everyone, so that means we're bound to displease someone at some point in our lives. But that doesn't make it any easier to deal with when it happens, especially if you believe in your ability on that matter. 

I got a bad review for my tutoring and my self-perception really took a hit. How do you guys deal with this?

I'm sure we've all been there when a friend is in need. But how do we say the right thing? How do we properly comfort them without making things worse?? Today I talk about what I learned in an online seminar regarding just that, and my personal experience and opinion on the matter!!

I used to surround myself with "friends". I felt the need to constantly be around people, please people, and provide help to people. While I still believe in helping people, I have learned to help myself in that process. I didn't always bear my soul out to close friends, but I have learned the necessity of doing so. 

It gets so incredibly tiring trying to please the world and walk the journey of life alone, so I'm incredibly glad and grateful for the people who have encouraged me to rely on a strong and small group of people for support, and leading that encouragement with action. 

I hope for everyone that you'll show love and grace to yourself, and find a small group of trustworthy and genuine people who will love and support you :)

The past 2 months have been particularly challenging for me, and I found myself having NO motivation at all. I woke up feeling shitty, and just had NO drive to do anything.   

A friend got me out of the house and really shocked my entire system, and that was the shock I needed to get back on track. I hope I'll be able to shock you guys too ;)    

Music: Jay Someday - Mind Travel (Vlog No Copyright Music)

Applying for my masters in this pandemic has been such a different and eye-opening experience for me. 

My college Biology lecturer once told me: "If you're going to someone in the medical profession, wouldn't you want them to have been a straight A student?"  This stuck with me as I contemplated my future journey into counselling, because it held me to a different standard of excellence. 

Now as I apply for the next step in this journey I'm reminded of that same demand of excellence.   

Music: In My Clouds - LAKEY INSPIRED [Free Copyright-safe Music]

Reminder that personality traits are on a continuum!!! They're not black and white. We just tend to be more or less dominant for each trait :)

I've always believed that knowing more about your own personality empowers you to be more accountable for your actions and thoughts. You'll also be more empowered to change your behaviours, dispositions, and even subconscious judgements!!

What are your Big 5 Personality Traits???

Music: Chill sakura Hz (No Copyright Music) 

Have you ever wondered why a class of students won't ask questions when a lecturer asks if they have any, until that one brave student does?

Or how some people may see someone breaking the law and not do anything about it??

That's called the bystander effect!! The 3 main things contributing to this effect are: Diffusion of responsibility, evaluation apprehension, and pluralistic ignorance!!

While humans have the capacity to learn to become helpless, we also have the capacity to learn to be hopeful again!!

Using the 3 P's, we can actually build a resilience AGAINST depression and anxiety!! We can teach ourselves to be more optimistic by critically analyzing the bad things that happen in our lives. 

I recently completed a Positive Psychology course on Coursera, and it really shed some light onto this topic which I thought I was familiar with. 

It showed me a lot more about the HOW of this mental state. People actually project their past experiences onto their future possible experiences. They have decided for themselves that they can't escape whatever negative stimulus comes their way. 

Music: (no copyright music) chill type beat daily royalty free music prod. by lukrembo

I've always known that I wanted to do counselling, but I recently got swayed when I was told that counsellors can't diagnose patients. This affected me in a bigger way than it should've as I felt very much "second class".   

Speaking to people who were in the profession really helped me correct this thinking, but I couldn't help but wonder if there were other people struggling with similar distinctions in the field of psychology.   

Education and learning are life long journeys. I don't need to pressure myself to make "the perfect" decision right now.   

Music: Branch (Prod. by Lukrembo)

I will fight till the last point is scored. It's just how I was brought up and trained. No matter what sport I'm playing, it's not over till it's over.  

It got me wondering: "How come some people give up so quickly?" 

Turns out that you can train yourself to persevere!! Using the neurotransmitter called "Dopamine", you can actually "trick" your brain into focusing on more important things like goals and achievements, and not the pain of the process!!

When I train in Muay Thai, I was taught to match the speed of the person I'm padding for. So if we're training, we should take it slow, because if the person starts to rush and get aggressive, I'm gonna have to match pace with him.   

This got me thinking about how I can go from 0-100 real quick if somebody starts yelling at me, and vice versa if I start yelling. My body language and non-verbal communication will paint a very clear picture about how I feel.   

Therefore, I'm trying to control all of my little social cues, especially when I get angry, so as to avoid needless conflict. I want to solve misunderstandings peacefully, so that we need not escalate it into something bigger.  

After a recent interview didn't materialize, I started self reflecting on my own actions.   

Do I run away from problems that I face; do I avoid uncomfortable situations; am I unconsciously hindering myself from facing challenges?  

I believe that I'm in control of my choices, but I noticed how I avoid uncomfortable scenarios. 

Are you short-changing yourself too???  

Music: (no copyright music) chill type beat branch free vlog music prod. by lukrembo

I recently tuned into a webinar with Jay Shetty where he talked about how to find and monetize your passion.   

Obviously I don't have much input on the monetizing part, but I loved how he illustrated finding your passion; going from interest to passion to purpose.

I recently watched a video by Tim Ferris the explained how we use "keeping busy" as a disguise for our personal laziness.  

I found that intriguing because this was so evident in the MCO period, where I was trying to just DO something, but I wasn't really moving towards a goal of any sort.   

I hope you guys will be able to catch your "laziness" and avoid indiscriminate action, and move towards planned and meaningful actions.    

Song: Joysic - Roses (Vlog No Copyright Music)Music promoted by Vlog No Copyright Music.Video Link: https://youtu.be/LW5DhQcdMDw

Shout out to Nalni (BurntCaramel) who requested this topic!!!  

Acting, speaking and presenting isn't something that came naturally to me, but it's something that I learned how to do. It's like a performance; the more I practiced, the easier it became to deliver that performance.   

Things like castings and acting STILL make me incredibly nervous and self-conscious, but it makes me proud whenever I've done it.   

What are things that are outside of your comfort zones???

Sam told me to share our conversation about job applications, so here it is!!

When I first graduated, it was tough for me to know WHICH jobs to apply for. I had little to no experience, and I had NO idea what I wanted to do or would be good at doing. 

It started out as applying for EVERY job under the sun but after a couple years I was able to learn more about myself.  i know which departments I'd rather be in, and what industries might suit me better. 

It takes time to LEARN about yourself, and some jobs that you apply for you just KNOW you won't want. That's actually how you being to learn. When you picture yourself in that job, you just know it's not for you.

From pursuing your passion to self-development, Melissa is someone who lives the life, and walks the talk. 

We had an amazing time talking about work during MCO, handling criticism, and upgrading our character. 

Living in a multi-racial and multi-cultural society, we're bound to have different beliefs, people, and attitudes. Unfortunately, we'll also have different treatment. 

I witnessed this first hand as I was refused service by a Tesco worker after she had helped a couple right before me. 

It's easier to blame it on race and get angry, but it got me thinking as to WHY are some people racist??

This is what I found :)

I've been on and off with my videos but now I wanted to hone in a little bit. 

I want to document my journey and show the struggles I go through in hope that it'll help someone out there with something similar, or even inspire you to start what you've always wanted to start!!