Claudia Chan
Professional Certified Life Coach
With this being the year of the tiger, I hope you have more courage!
More courage to try new things!
More courage to speak up!
More courage to express yourself!
More courage to fail!
More courage to do something scary!
More courage to go after what you want!
More courage to find out who you really are!
More courage to let go of who you were!
More courage to let go of the expectations.
More courage to be who you are!
More courage to say F off more often!
More courage to say, this is not my responsibility!
More courage to say No.
More courage to not let things bother you.
More courage to take time for yourself!
More courage to love yourself!
More courage to say yes to what matters to you!
More courage to just do the shit you’d wanted to do for the longest time!
More courage to let go of relationships that don’t serve you.
More courage to build stronger relationships in areas that supports you.
More courage to accept help.
More courage to admit you need help.
More courage to accept the dark side of yourself.
More courage to love those parts of you that you reject.
More courage to be compassionate with yourself.
More courage to love you as who you really are.
And when you are ready to take the leap. Know that you are well supported.
You are loved.
You are whole.
One thing that I tend to do a lot is I put a lot of pressure on myself.
I always wonder if I'm doing something right. Is this action worthwhile? Am I making a mistake? How will this turn out?
This ends up being super exhausting.
So one of the things I'd been working on is to let go.
Let go of this pressure, to question whether what I'm doing is correct. Whether I've made the right decision. I just pick one thing and go.
Because what if all roads lead to Rome?
You just have to pick it, and commit to it, and go.
The rest of it is just wasted energy.
And if it doesn't? Then try again! Try something different!
We'd been so "groomed" to have to get the right answer.
But in real life, there is no such thing as a right answer.
There is just trial and error.
And what if it fails? As long as we don't die, we can always try again.
It makes things so much less daunting.
Maybe I'll find fun along the way.
And that's it! Finding fun along the way, instead of finding the correct way.
Breathe, Let go, Live.
You were made to believe you can’t do things outside of your current abilities.
What if you can do amazing things because you have hidden potential?
You were made to believe that it’s greedy if you want more than what you have.
What if you can have more and it doesn’t mean anything about you.
You were made to believe that doing hard things means it’s not meant for you?
What if you are supposed to do hard things and you can do hard things?
You were made to believe that everything is the way it is.
What if nothing is what it seems to be?
You were made to believe that you don't have the power to change things.
What if you have the power to make changes?
You were made to believe that fun and joy only comes after hard work.
What if fun and joy is supposed to be part of your life?
You were made to believe that your life is set in stone and you have to endure.
What if your life is hard now but you can make it the way you want?
You were made to believe that you need to regret your previous wrong decisions, and there is no turning back.
What if there is no such thing as a wrong decision, and you can still redeem yourself to make things better?
You were made to believe that you’re supposed to live under other people’s decisions and expectations.
What if you’re not meant to live according to other people’s decisions and expectations?
You were made to believe that your goals are not important, so you abandoned your goals.
What if your goals are extremely important, and you’re meant to make them happen?
You were made to believe that your dream is unrealistic, so you bury your dreams.
What if your dreams ARE unrealistic AND you’re the only one who can make them come true?
What if all the things you believe now, you were only made to believe them?
What if none of them are true?
And if that's the case... then what would you want to do?
Every time you despair, look inside, there is a glimmer of light guiding you.
Every time you hurt, look inside, there is a sheet of comfort surrounding you.
Every time you feel alone, look inside, there is a kind presence holding you.
Every time you are scared, look inside, there is a wall of strength sheltering you.
Every time you feel jealous, look inside, there is a shower of love raining upon you.
Every time you feel impatient, look inside, there is a calm stillness awaiting for you.
Every time you feel doubtful, look inside, there is a brilliant crystal shining on you.
Feel them, own them, be them. They are you.
What if before we’re born, we had set an intention to learn a lesson?
Maybe it is to learn what love is.
Maybe it is to learn to be free.
Maybe it is to learn to speak up.
What do you think yours is?
Since I was a teenager, probably around 14/15, I started wondering what the purpose of my life is.
I remember one morning, I was having a lot of trouble getting up, and my mom’s response was,
“Yes, I know, but that’s how life is like, you finish school, get a job, and that’s how life is (which I take it as, and then you die).”
I remembered thinking.. Really?!
I was so appalled. Because if that is true, then why am I brought into this world if that is all there is?
I grew up very bitter, and I was very much against my Chinese background. I felt trapped by all the rules and expectations.
I tried many different things, but every time when my mom found out what I was doing, she was pretty much against it.
I tried starting new businesses, I went dancing, I went out with guys of different backgrounds.
I still kept going.
When it came to starting new businesses, I found myself unable to get very far each time. It was really frustrating!
I thought it was because I didn’t know what I was doing, or I wasn’t given the proper opportunity, or I wasn’t meant to do it.
That’s when I started working with mentors and coaches.
Here was what I found.
You know the saying, “The only person who’s holding you back is you”?
As cliche as it goes, it was true. I was the one holding myself back.
It was a huge battle.
I had to work a lot on myself. I had to break through all of the thoughts and beliefs that I grew up with. I had to understand myself based on my cultural background, how it shaped me into who I am.
One day, I heard one of Teal Swan’s teaching called “Tutorial For Life”
The premise was, before I was born, I had an intention to learn a lesson. So I chose the “perfect” parents, the “perfect” surroundings, the “perfect” condition to be born into.
And that clicked for me.
I always wanted to have a voice, yet I always felt stifled.
What I was born into, was what I needed. How I was raised, the course of my life, the conditions that I believed held me back…
I had to understand why they were there in the first place.
So that I can breakthrough all of them in order to expand.
I have to breakthrough to find my own voice.
And this is the beginning of my journey.
You may be on a different journey.
When you have those quiet moments and you reflect on your life, what is it you truly want?
Maybe you want to feel more love?
Maybe you want to live more of a simple life?
What is it that you yearn for?
What do you think your journey is about?
I'd like to share with you something that made a big difference in my life! Which is to thank myself after every single action I took!
I started doing this one day because I was finding it very difficult to get up that morning.
So I said thank you to myself for opening my eyes, it felt better.
Then I sat up in bed and thanked myself for it.
I got out of bed, thanked myself.
Went to the washroom, thanked myself.
And I kept thanking myself after every single action the entire time I was getting ready.
By the time I was about to get out of the door, I felt so much better!
I kept doing it for the next few days, and it changed my outlook so much!
So I wanted to share it with you too! I hope it helps you!
I started playing FFXIV at the end of November 2021, and after playing for about 10 times (around 4-5 hours each), I reached level 51 in the main story on Dec 25, 2021.
(To give you some perspective, my husband has been playing for 3-4 years and he just recently reached Level 62 in the main story. Of course, his character is way stronger in all other areas (Level 60+ in various jobs and tasks, while mine is only in 1 area.)
Nonetheless, I am very impressed with myself, and even though it is just a game, here are 4 Life Lessons I took away!
1. Deliberately Choose What My Heart Wants!
This is the easiest thing to say, but not so easy to do.
Because I wasn’t programmed to do what I want!
I was programmed to do what everyone else said I should be doing!
I mean, my mom, school, work, culture, society.. all of them dictated how I should behave.
After this many years of “training”, I barely knew who I was, let alone what I want!
That’s why we need to get back into knowing who we are. Doing what we truly want to do is the truest definition of ourselves.
This time, I felt a tug of desire to play after my husband created a character for my son. I felt it and said, Hey, I want to build my own character too, I want to play the game too.
Then I chose to do it. That was power.
2. Plan for It, Use It as a Reward!
For this game, I definitely planned for it.
If I didn’t plan for it, 2 things would have happened.
I would either:
a) stop myself from playing the game, because part of me didn’t want to do the work. I knew if I don’t finish my work, my guilty conscience wouldn’t let me play in order to “punish” myself.
or
b) indulge so much into the game that I’d totally ignore my work.
So by scheduling it, the game is now my reward. Once I get my work done, then I can play for the rest of the night!
3. Going All In to Play Hard
I love achievements, that’s why I love playing games. That’s why once I start playing a new game, I go all in!
When I reached level 50, I crashed.
Contempt was the first to set in. I felt so disgusted with myself! My first thought was, “OMG… I “wasted” all these time to play this game!”
I had to reason with myself to say, “No, I deliberately scheduled to play!”
So I had to lovingly change my thought from, “I wasted all this time” to “I am someone who play hard, work hard, rest hard!”
4. Celebrate Myself
Since I love the feeling of achievements, it’s not a surprise that I was placing more importance on the end goal instead of the journey.
And even though I’d achieved so much by getting to level 50, I was not proud of myself at all. I gave myself 0 credit.
So I had to get myself to celebrate everything about myself!
Here’re a few things about me that I celebrated:
So here they are, the 4 Life Lessons I learned from playing Final Fantasy XIV.
Listen, we get to start living for ourselves. So if you ever feel a tug of desire within you, I hope you lean into it too!
Guilt will come up, self contempt will come up, but I guarantee you that as you keep working through these, you will keep expanding. And don’t forget to keep celebrating yourself!