cycling
- write lengthier posts (the one I talked about the other day)
- include more random stuff in my About + include photos of my bikes!!
- (slowly) check out ways to customize my Micro.blog theme, small CSS changes for the meantime
- Is this what I’ll do for the rest of my career?
- Is there anything I need to learn (or unlearn) with how I do things?
- Is anyone even looking for a designer with my skill set?
this trifold + fancy dcb attached bag is giving me the idea that I can just go trifold to all my lakads ah
considering how lighter it is than I expected as well 😆
meet Candy 🥰🚲❤️
It’s a Banian trifold 16" bike! Finally got all my stuff matchy-matchy hehe
bike(pack)squared 😂
Also got traffic cone valve caps from a cyclist friend 😄
One less car. 🫡
takes around an hour pa rin umuwi, more or less. Weight training ulit because of my bag 😆 Brought my laptop and iPad so I could work on stuff while at home~
Booking a motor taxi is taking longer than expected. Biking would just take me 40 minutes to an hour. Plus, it doesn’t cost money. 😛
OK, you know what, maybe I’ll bike home today. Good luck to Sunday/Monday Chi on dealing with the ride back to my unit then 😆
Things I wanna do soon, in no particular order:
📝 Getting to know myself more in the past year
Originally posted online on 25 September 2021.
I’m grateful for all the experiences I’ve gone through, both the good and bad, because these have all shaped me into who I am now.
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This past year, I think I have gotten to know myself better.
It feels refreshing to be fully aware of the things I love and things I’d rather not go into, to know where my boundaries are, and to know which things I’d like to try out, either soon or in the far future.
The future doesn’t seem as intimidating to me now as it was when I was younger. Sure, it’s still a vast unknown, but I find myself looking at it in anticipation more than fear. I know the future’s coming. I just need to prepare myself for it now. And it’s also up to me how I want to face this future.
It’s not as daunting anymore for me to say, “my future is in my hands.” I have a better understanding and appreciation of this now. It’s a bit scary to have this kind of responsibility, but it also feels empowering.
I also see where I feel like I am lacking, and where I would need improvement to become a better version of myself.
On living alone, and recognizing responsibility
I still sometimes feel like I’m not ready for certain “big” roles where I need to take care of a lot of things. Honestly, even at 25, I still feel like I’m a child. But I think this is due to my environment and where I am now in my life. I still live with my parents now. It’s helped a lot in terms of finances and stability, but I know I shouldn’t just stop here.
Now knowing this, I have a solid desire to live on my own because I want to be forced to face that responsibility of having to take care of myself and not rely on others. Initially it felt daunting to just up and go do this because I felt I had no real reason why I wanted, or needed to do this. But after recognizing this fact with myself, I feel the responsibility to see it through.
This is easier said than done, though, and given where I am based, it’s an uphill battle. And I’m privileged to have the means to attain it in the next year or so. I just need to lay it out, lest I forget.
I plan to do that in the next couple of months. That’s not something I can just “cram”, even though other people do inevitably do that anyway. Hopefully this is something that I can follow through until the end.
On working and being with other people
I also understand more how I work by myself and with others. I’m maximizing my want to be clear on things by showing that through my over-communication online.
Especially in the setting where remote work is now becoming a norm (one, due to the pandemic, and two, due to shifting needs in the industry), I value the “soft skills” I’ve learned as an Internet savvy kid back then. I was always responsive when chatting with people online, and did my best to be as respectful as possible, since I recognize that I am talking with actual people on the other side.
One thing I do know I need more help with in, is dealing with others in cases where it’s not so “positive”. This is one thing I do think I am getting better at, the more times I have to do it. I put it to myself to absorb the lessons from other people’s experiences that they have shared, either to me directly, or to stuff I read online.
It’s one thing to know about it, it’s another thing to execute it by yourself. And that’s when the learning actually happens. That’s when you know what you need to do, what not to do, and what to improve on to the next. And you keep on doing it. Keep on doing it, until you get better.
Thankful for the company (the group of people kind)
A lot of the things I do now, I learned because of the people around me. I have learned so much from my family, my friends, my colleagues, and even random people-turned-acquaintances from various sources and settings. It helps to get yourself out there, even when sometimes you feel like either you think that others will think you’re ridiculous, or if you think that no one will notice you anyway.
Good news: either way, it doesn’t matter. What matters more is if you like what you’re doing.
I’m grateful for all the experiences I’ve gone through, both the good and bad, because these have all shaped me into who I am now. And these experiences have also helped me pave the way in front of me, in the way that I want for myself. Sure, this can get derailed because of things that are out of my control, but one thing I know about myself is I can adapt to the situation. It may not be as fast sometimes, but I do end up getting through it.
I’ve survived this far, surely I can keep on going. What’s important is to always try.
📝 Figuring out where to go and listening to our inner selves
This was originally posted on 4 September 2021.
Some advice on what to do when feeling stuck and sharing some reflections on how I move forward
//
I’ve been in the industry for around 5 years now. I’m at the point where I’m thinking about the next phase of my career and wonder how I should grow. I have enough experience, yet I still doubt if I’ve done enough. Other people even look up to me already since I help organize knowledge sharing sessions and workshops in the local tech and design community.
Despite having gone so far in my journey as a UX professional, I still feel stuck. So now I ask myself, what’s next? Where do I go from here?
Which career path to choose
This tweet from David Hoang struck a chord to me since its topic was timely:
If you’re working in a more traditional work environment, you may feel inclined to go the managerial route after a few years of working. After all, that’s how it has been ever since and is probably how you’d visualize your career progression.
But what if you enjoy your work as an individual contributor? You just want to keep creating and honing your craft, and managing people is the last thing you’d do for work.
If you’re like me, who’s leaning towards staying as an individual contributor for now, you might be asking yourself:
And so on.
Is this all there is to it?
It’s easy to feel stuck since the increase in prowess doesn’t mean an increase in scope in what you handle. You might be honing your visual design skills, yet you’re doing the same kind of mockups and user flows for different projects.
You might even start to doubt your own skills since you think you’re not doing anything different. If you try to learn other things — on top of everything else you need to do — it may feel discouraging since you either don’t have the time, energy or capacity to get started and focus on it. In my case, I think I’ve reached my skill ceiling for visual design. So now I focus on organizing and maintaining design systems instead.
I pride myself on building libraries for the different projects or prototypes I work on. But every now and then, I need to choose which one to focus on. Either I don’t complete the end-to-end flow for a particular prototype, or I don’t have time to maintain the component library for the next few weeks. Unfortunately, both have their own consequences.
Work is work; we won’t run out of things to do. And as tasks pile up, we eventually reach a cap on how much we can do. We all have our limits. We can’t take on everything all at once.
Taking a step back and looking inwards
At this point, I’m already overwhelmed. I can hear my inner voice saying, “How do I even grow as a designer when I don’t have the proper space to do so?!”
Nowadays, though, I’ve learned to stop and take a moment to collect my thoughts. I do my best to remember my achievements, no matter how trivial. This keeps me grounded and helps me feel better about myself. Accepting my limitations and recognizing my past achievements help me feel unstuck from where I am now and focus on the present.
The main thing here is acceptance: that for everything that needs to be done, you can’t take them all at once. It’s not the end of the world if things don’t get finished.
I’ve learned over the years to not discredit my work, even though it’s easier said than done. It takes practice, but it’s doable. It may be hard, but it’s achievable.
Giving yourself credit
There’s nothing wrong with giving yourself a pat on the back. It’s important to remember that despite possibly having so many downs, there are also so many ups in your life.
The person who deserves your utmost trust is no other than yourself. And if you’d rather design 50 screens for a prototype or maintain a design system instead of “moving up the ladder” and managing a team, then just go do that! You don’t have to pressure yourself to do otherwise. You may opt to consider the possibility, but if it really doesn’t feel right with you, then just don’t do it.
Listen to what your inner self is telling you. Whether it be about where you want to bring your career and dealing with things in the present, no one knows what you want best except yourself. After all, it really is up to you.
And in my case: I still like what I’m doing. And if I want to change things up, then so be it. I’ll go wherever I choose to.