How I’m making space for what actually matters

On preventing burnout, starting before I'm ready, and choosing my ambition

I’ve been lying to my manager for weeks now.

When I first joined the company, I was recognized as one of the promising candidates because of my academic background. It didn’t take long for me to treat being a high performer as part of my identity. For two years, I’ve maintained this self-image of being a hard worker who can figure anything out. But recently, I've been struggling. I couldn't keep up anymore, and I couldn't bring myself to admit that I'm actually stuck.

Something needed to change—not just at work, but in how I show up for myself.

I can only say this in hindsight, but feeling stuck turned out to be an early sign of burnout. The demands of my job have been pretty heavy these past two months after transitioning to a more challenging workstream. I was also still managing old projects, which made my workload much heavier than usual.

As a result, I spent three nights last week working overtime, going until 10pm even though I was already working the whole day. I was also sleeping as late as 2am despite waking up early most mornings. I was completely sleep-deprived.

But in the middle of all that chaos, I started to wake up.

“Why am I working this hard?”

None of it made sense. I felt my anger stepping in. Not the destructive kind, but the kind that’s protective. The kind that wants to advocate and stand up for me.

That’s when it hit me: I wasn't watching anime anymore. I had no time for my creative projects. I wasn't spending time with family or my partner, Eyang.

I realized that working harder wasn't the solution. I needed to become the defender of what actually matters to me.

In this week’s newsletter issue, I want to share three ideas that helped me step back. These ideas helped me declutter my mental space and get clarity on what deserves my attention the most. Because sometimes, the most important thing we can do is to remember what we’re actually working for.

How I prevented burnout

I wrote a Substack Note while being in the mess of the semi-burnout:

The note turned out to be more dramatic than I remembered, but I can understand I was having a hard time last week. What I’m proud of though is that I mustered up the courage to finally talk to my manager about it.

During our weekly 1:1 meeting, I asked her if she could help me manage my workload. At first, I was afraid to admit that I couldn’t handle all the stress. There’s still the part of me that wants to protect this image of being a high performer, but to me, it became clear that my health mattered more than some image I don’t even understand.

So I told her I was struggling.

Here’s what worked for me: Instead of ranting about my frustrations, I laid out exactly what projects I was handling and how much time I spent on non-priority work. Then I recommended which projects I’d want removed from my plat so I could focus on my top work priority.

It worked pretty well. My manager saw I was juggling five projects at the same time, and understood that churn prevention (my top priority) needed more of my time and energy, especially since we’re doing a strategy plan for H2 2025. There was a chat-based ordering projects that no longer made for me to handle, so she talked to some team members and helped get me off it.

This helped me out a lot. I didn’t just gain back time for my priorities, I also got back the space I need for myself and my relationships. I’ve been calling Eyang almost every night now and I’ve been able to watch the new anime episodes of The Fragrant Flower Blooms with Dignity.

I also started to context switch less often, which helps me think more clearly at work. Surprisingly, I regained my energy for work too. I enjoyed having space to think about strategy and experiments. Turns out my job can be energizing when I’m not on the verge of burnout.

And of course, one of the best parts about this change is that I’ve been able to make time for creativity again. This is why you’re reading this newsletter.

This is a lesson I keep learning time and time again: Life always gets better when I communicate courageously.

You don’t need to wait to get started

I was reading

Austin Kleon

’s “Steal Like An Artist” and got hooked in one of the early chapters. The title said: Don’t wait until you know who you are to get started.

“⁠If I’d waited to know who I was or what I was about before I started ‘being creative,’ well, I’d still be sitting around trying to figure myself out instead of making things. In my experience, it’s in the act of making things and doing our work that we figure out who we are. You’re ready. Start making stuff.” —Austin Kleon

Being a beginner in the creativity space (I like calling myself a “baby creator”), I spend too much time trying to figure out who I am before creating. It’s as if knowing myself is required before I can start. Most of the time though, this just becomes an excuse to procrastinate.

It’s also turning into mental clutter. Instead of using my mind to play around with ideas, I’ve been using it to think about questions that take a lifetime to answer. Now that I’m writing about it, it feels kind of silly to think I can figure out who I am in a couple journaling sessions.

Here’s what I’m starting to realize: Creation doesn’t come after I’ve finally discovered who I am. It is by creating things that I get to know myself.

As an example, when I made my first YouTube playlist, I thought it would immediately excite me. My YouTube feed is full of playlists, I spend a lot of time listening to soundtracks everyday, and I remember having fun with Spotify playlists in high school. But this didn’t happen. I felt drained and tired by the time I uploaded my first playlist on YouTube.

At first, I thought I didn’t enjoy making playlists. Maybe it just wasn’t the right art form. But when I looked closer, feeling drained was a result of overthinking all the minor details not related to music, like what software to use or how to create my own visual effects. I ditched all of that in my next playlist. I decided to use CapCut as my video editor and still images as my video background to keep things simple. I focused more on the curation of music, which I had loads of fun with.

The results were pretty great and I started enjoying the process. It feels good to declutter my head and focus more on the doing rather than the thinking. I don’t yet know if making playlists is really “my thing,” but at least I now know what’s fun about music for me.

On choosing your ambition

I’ve been studying

Cate Hall

through her essays and podcast guestings, mainly to absorb what she’s learned about agency. On the Pathless Path podcast, she shared a question I can’t stop thinking about.

When asked how she defines ambition, Cate said:

“[That’s] interesting. I was asked a related question recently which was in the context of a job discussion. The question was, ‘How do you decide what things are ambitious enough for you to do?’ And my answer was [if] it’s something [that has] a greater than 1% chance that, when I look back on this in 10 years, I [can] decide that it’s the very best thing that I could be doing based on the information I have now.”

She explained that the 1% seems like a small number, but it’s actually a really high standard to meet. “Almost no jobs in a decent period of time that I was looking met the criterion,” she said.

I really like the question she posed, and have been asking it to myself a few times this past week: “What is something that has a > 1% chance of being the very best use of my time and energy when I look back on it 10 years from now?”

I haven’t been able to find an answer yet. But I don’t I think this question is meant to help you find the one thing you should commit to for the next 10 years. Rather, I find that it works better as a filter for what’s worth spending time on.

For instance, if I ask myself whether my current job fits this criterion, like Cate, I can’t find a single reason to say yes. Sure, my current company is growing and I like working with a great team. But this being the very best thing I could be doing? Clearly not.

This question now grounds me when I work too hard at the expense of health and relationships. It reminds me that while work feels urgent, it's not the most important thing in my life right now.

Interestingly, I do find the question to be a great compass. I don’t have an answer that meets the 1% criteria, but I have a gut feeling about what comes closest based on the context I have now:

1. Launching my own cohort-based course

2. Creating YouTube videos (again)

3. Looking for a remote job with a company based abroad

The third one feels closest, so I’ve been trying to pay attention to it. It’s also the one that scares me most because I was job hunting when I got burnt out in February. But maybe this is exactly why it’s worth considering?

There is a lot of uncertainty I’m facing in my life right now. But despite the occasional discomfort, I’m no longer desperate to have everything figured out right away. I know this will take time. It’s a journey, after all.

Even if I don’t yet know who I am or what I’m meant to do in my life, I know it will all turn out well—as long as I continue making space for what truly matters to me.

Thanks for being here!

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If you’d like to read about figuring out what to do in life:

How I'm Figuring Out What To Do In Life