Catherine Chea

It’s been a while since I’ve written a non-INFP post. Beyond my four letter code, that designates me as one of the personality types in the Myers-Briggs personality system, is me as an individual, and my unique experiences and aspirations. This is what this blog post is about—me.

Where am I today?

For the past months, I’ve been living in a cave. My work, commute, teaching piano lessons during the weekends, and completing The INFP Book has taken a toll on my energy. It also doesn’t help that it’s winter in Canada and I haven’t been getting sufficient sunlight and exercise. To make matters worse, I caught the flu this month and injured my neck after slipping on solid ice. Fortunately, my incident was not severe.

I feel as if my cumbersome past months has been a wake-up call for me to reassess what I want in life. I’ve realized that I’ve spread myself so thin that I was on the verge of collapsing. Or maybe I’ve already collapsed since, often times, I felt like I was zombie working on auto-pilot.

It was impossible for me to stay focused when I was trying to accomplish so many things at once. I didn’t give myself time to rest and/or try something refreshing. Not only that, I found the things that I was occupied with becoming too repetitive, dull and isolating. I didn’t give myself room to make new discoveries.

I decided to give up on some things in order to regain my energy.

It was a difficult choice for me to give up on my piano students this year, but I knew I could no longer keep up with teaching piano during the weekends. As much as I enjoyed helping kids develop a love for learning music, I also couldn’t live a life confined to my studio. I want to test my limits and learn about the world as much as I can. I also don’t believe it’s fair for my students that I did not have the energy to give them my full attention.

Now it’s time for me to focus on my career, my next one thing.

The “one” thing

I’m currently reading a book called The One Thing: The Surprisingly Simple Truth Behind Extraordinary Results by Gary Keller. The book talks about the importance of focusing on one thing in order to achieve our goals. Apparently, multitasking is a myth. People can’t do several things at once. If it seems like it, what’s really happening is that they are switching between tasks at a fast pace—like a juggler who throws and catches balls rapidly, one at a time. The problem with switching between tasks is that we end up burning out more quickly, as it takes energy to reset our circuit to focus on something else. That’s precisely what I was experiencing these past months, no wonder why I felt so drained.

After giving myself some time to rest and to recuperate, I already feel so much better. What I need right now is to block of my weekends to read, relax, learn, and/or try something new, so that I have the energy to focus during the week.

I also think now is the time for me to grow in my career by taking on new projects and learning new skills, such as coding. I’m excited by this thought because every time I challenge myself, and try something different, I end up going to someplace that I haven’t imagined before. It’s all part of the journey.

So why is marketing exciting?

The reason why I’ve chosen a career in marketing because I found it fascinating how it is an industry that is constantly evolving changing with technology. When I attended The Art of Marketing conference last year, it was exciting to learn about how artificial intelligence, data science, and VRs are – all of this tech stuff – is shaping the way brands connect with their audience. I know I’m not too crazy about the notion of materialism and selling products for the sake of selling, but I also think marketing is more than trying to sell a product. It’s also about building connections with people.

I find that all of my learnings from my work has also helped me better promote my messages so that I can make a positive difference in this world. I feel like marketing is the perfect blend of combining art, people, and technology to create a widespread movement. Whether it’s to promote a fashion trend, encourage people to vote, or to induce discussions about mental health, marketing is a tool to get these ideas across.

Sometimes I get so caught up in my repetitive tasks that I forget about the big picture or the initial reason why I was so interested in the work I do.