Before I continue with my “unpacking everything” blog series, I like to take a quick moment to thank a few of my subscribers for their recent engagements and support of my blog:
I know this isn’t much, but I still wanted to show my genuine appreciation. It’s these little things that we sometimes take for granted. But I don’t want to make that mistake ever again. These days, I’m trying to be more conscious and aware of all the tiny little blessings in my life. Appreciate the little things man.
Which also leads to my segue, after some considerations in recent days, I’ve made the decision to set some of my posts to “subscribers only”. I’ve chosen to do that because I feel like some of those thoughts and feelings that I wanted to share (while totally authentic and genuine), should be reserved for at least some people to read about. I mean, if you are just going to visit my blog from time to time and not actually read or interact with me, then well, maybe you shouldn’t be able to see and read everything there is to know about what’s going on in my life.
Anyway, that’s just my thought. I’ve also decided to make this series of posts, all “subscribers only”. And my entire “Being a UX Engineer” category will also be the same. Most of everything else can be for public viewing. But I will certainly play by ear on some of those. Occasionally, I may decide to privatize those posts too.
Anyway, thanks guys for being great supporters! So, shoutouts 📣 and kudos 🙇 to you. Thanks for helping to make my day everyday this past week.
Alright, let’s begin our final unpacking for this week then.
Focusing on What I’ve Done Right
Being an Asian man (hence I used a random smiling Asian guy for my featured pic), I’ve been brought up in this culture where my mother is always trying to tell me that I’m never good enough. That no matter what I do, I could never truly measure up. I do have siblings, but both of them were considered to be “smarter” and “more intelligent”. They also appeared to have “more successful careers” than I do. To be absolutely objective about this, my parents were never what you might consider traditional Chinese parents (not that we’re all from China or anything), but it was more of that cultural norms and accepted beliefs among our culture. They tend to view and see success differently than perhaps our western cousins.
Anyway, not to speak for other Asian families, but for me, growing up, I’ve always felt very self-conscious about my actions. Constant self-doubts were a norm.
“Did I do my homework well enough?”
“I scored an A! Yay! But shit, I think I could’ve gotten a distinction.”
“I came in 3rd in class. But my cousin is still in a better school than I am.”
After many years of living like this, it shouldn’t be a surprise that I always found it really hard to see the good that I’ve done. More likely, you might think of me as someone that’s always very critical about my own work. I would scrutinize and triple check my work. I would be more critical about myself and what I want to do than perhaps others around me. And when I did fail, or make mistakes, man, that guilt that I experience is enough to drown me sometimes.
I had to Fail. I had to Make Mistakes. I had to Learn.
So, that’s what the past decade was like for me. Well, more like two decades if we want to be strict about it. For the past two decades of my life, I have been trying to make my own path as a professional. I knew very early on in my career who I wanted to be. But back then, the industry wasn’t ready to accept someone like me. So, I tried to fit in the best I could. But that also didn’t worked. Without a choice, I decided that I was going to take the risk of following my own path.
This decision to take my own path came with risks for sure. I always understood that there’s a chance I could fail. That nothing I do would ever work, or pan out. But I also knew that if I wasn’t willing to try, I would never really know if it was possible either.
So I took risks, I made certain decisions along the way to try and further my cause, my beliefs that UX would one day be the thing that everybody is now talking about. Today, UX is finally a norm. But that wasn’t the case almost 20 years ago. Back then, everyone thought I was spouting nonsense. It’s true. I felt like an alien for most of the time as a software developer.
So I went into freelancing because I saw it as the only way I could have a say in how I want to treat a client & manage a project. And it provided me with a way to follow my passion while also advocating better UX. Sometimes, my risks would pay off, other times, I would experience failures too. But with those mistakes and failures also came precious experience, lessons and wisdom that I now have as the top UX Engineer and Front-end Developer in the world. I had to make those mistakes. I had to allow myself to experience those failures. If I didn’t, I would’ve never know just how far I can go on this journey.
But this journey of allowing myself to make mistakes and experiencing multiple failures along my journey also came with a heavy price for me. I have so much pent up guilt and regret about certain actions and decisions that I had allowed myself to make over the years. Some decisions were genuinely what I thought was best at that time, with the limited information that I had at that time. But unfortunately, there were also a few dumb errors and mistakes that I’ve made along the way too. Silly ones. Ones I wished I had the wisdom that I had today not to make them then. You get my point.
Remembering the Lessons & Embracing the Good
That is where you will find me today. At this very moment while I’m unpacking my thoughts and feelings. I’m also learning, in this very moment, how to tell myself to remember those lessons and wisdom that I have gained from my past mistakes and failures. While at the very same time, to also embrace and see the good that I have done along the way. It’s so easy for Asians like myself to be so self-critical that we lose sight of all the positive things we might’ve done along the way. We have spent so much time convincing ourselves that we’re not worthy, not good enough that we end up turning away opportunities where we might actually be overqualified, or good enough for. It is truly a sad thing to experience and witness.
So yeah, I need to figure out some way of reminding myself on a daily basis that, “Yes, you have made some mistakes. You have experience these failures. But you have also gain some invaluable lessons and wisdom from it. Focus on that. Now take some time to think about the good that you have done also. You have done [this]. You have achieved [that].”
When it Comes to Consistency, You Have Always Been the Best
So that is the first thing I want to unpack and start with when it comes to thinking about the good that I have done over the past two decades. This is not to say that there weren’t bad moments, or bad seasons in my journey. There were always some kind of challenge or obstacle along the way. So, it would only make sense that there would be seasons where I couldn’t be as consistent as I wanted to be.
But when you take all of those things out, and really consider what I’ve been trying to do/achieve along the way, I am actually the most consistent person you can ever find in my line of work. While my work has never been “revolutionary” in any way, I have always been the most consistent guy. It can be in my freelance project work, or it can be my technical writing; regardless of what it was, I am always always the most consistent guy at it. And my numbers also speak for themselves.
Just this morning, I’ve noticed that my own LinkedIn page has a nice 13.4% increase in impressions. While impressions are not the same thing as actual views. When we compare past impressions and growth rates, I’d say that 13.4% is quite consistent with my 13~15% growth range when it came to impressions.
And where consistency is concerned, so was/is my overall performance as a front-end developer and now, a UX Engineer.
Best Skills Demonstrator in the Market
The other thing that I was also extremely good at (some have called me “gifted”, but well, I’m not sure, maybe I just want to be modest about that) being able to conduct demonstrations. When it comes to my skill area, I was always very natural and able to showcase my skills by creating video demos and technical articles to explain what I’m doing and show others how they can do it as well. It’s perhaps one of the reasons why I was able to conduct more than 300 demos and PoCs during my rather short stint with Progress. The company I worked for between 2015 and 2017. I was there as a Senior Presales Engineer, and part of my role and responsibilities is to conduct those demos and aid the Sales and Marketing folks when they need to meet a client or partner.
This isn’t just me blowing my own trumpet either. I have testimonies from fellow colleagues and partners from that time period. Let me see if I can pick one from the list…
I was GOOD. REALLY DAMN GOOD when I want to be. And this is definitely something I can be proud of. That is also part of the reason/reminder that led me to want to take a more proactive step in building my new Portfolio.
I’m still calling it “Portfolio v2.0”. I haven’t thought of a more interesting name for it yet. Anybody got any cool ideas to contribute?
Storytelling through the Crafting of Portfolio V2.0
This is where I want to end my unpacking for today (and the week). The 3rd and final strength that I’ve discovered along my journey is having this ability to tell a story. And it’s probably part of the reason why I became a featured technical writer FOUR TIMES in a row in the past. Being a great technical writer isn’t about just being good at providing instructions, or being amazing in our skills. It is about being able to tell a story while doing all of that. As it turns out, I have that ability. Quite naturally even.
So, when I finally decided to work on my next portfolio, I also decided that I want to include an element that I didn’t employ the first time around when I was working on my first portfolio. I wanted to use this new experience and journey to also share my story. Share the story of what I’m trying to build, and why I’m building them. It’s about sharing my challenges, my head banging moments (if any), and how I eventually overcame those challenges and found the right solution. But most importantly, I think this is meant to highlight the things that I’m learning along the way. That even an industry expert (or someone at the top of their game) still can learn new things, discover new and better ways to do something. I think that is really important.
Final Closing Thoughts
As we finally end the week, I want to take a moment to appreciate and be grateful to those that have been with me, supporting me and encouraging me this week. Your likes, your comments, have really given me hope and encouragement to keep going. And I really appreciate it. This week truly started out like a bad week out of hell. All the things that could go wrong went wrong, and well, I’m not really going to dwell on that. For now, I only want to focus on the actions and decisions I can take today that will lead me going forward.
Have you been following and reading this series of blog posts that I’ve written? What are your thoughts so far? How did you find it? Also, do you happen to struggle with the same thing when it comes to being critical about your past actions/decisions/mistakes? I like to think that this happens more commonly among the Asian culture and families, but I’m not ruling out that it can also be found in families all over the world. I love to know how you are dealing with it in your own ways and in your own culture. Can’t wait to read about your experiences in the comments section.
Thanks for reading guys! I’ll be back with more shorts in the coming days.
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