Before I go on about my story, let me tell you a little about where I am now. Working in the aviation industry, I feel a sense of belonging when I'm in such a motivated team to get the company into the skies and beyond. The feeling of playing my part in contributing to a greater good gives me such satisfaction that all I want to do is better than what I did the day before. However, this journey wasn't always this bright.
Going back to the time I graduated from college thinking the world is my oyster, the great pandemic hit and the job market became the worse it ever was where many were getting retrenched. To add gas to the flame, people like me had no choice but to return to their home country and figure life out. The aftereffect of that incident felt like an arrow to my head where all my "LinkedIn dreams" got shot straight down into the realm of unemployment reality. I felt like my life was a blank hydrophobic canvas where each time I try to paint something, the paint just slides off.
My life was made up of playing games all day, going to the gym to feed my need to achieve something, and stress eating. I was the perfect Instagram life but without a billion-dollar empire behind a door left ajar. I felt like I needed to do something with my life where I got to utilize my core strengths and interests, creative thinking and the creation of art in the form of photography and videography.
I knew what I had to do and got my ass off the curb. I started learning new post-production skills and color grading which would enhance my creative ability while I took up SEO and UI/UX courses to grow what I can produce. Before I knew it, I got lined up with an internship in marketing (more specifically, social media strategy and content creation) in the grocery retail industry. It was a soft start for me when I had a team to mentor and guide me through streamlining my workload. However, it all changed when most of the team left to jump on the next ship in their career path. I was left only with my manager and all I began taking on more than I could handle which lead to a burnout.
Being burnt out was probably the biggest lesson I could learn so far as I should have known how much I can take on despite my toolbox of skills. I was shooting, editing, copywriting, posting, SEO, leaning the algorithm and creating new projects. Now that I think back, I was like a truck going full throttle up a steep hill. But to scale that hill, one has to let the power go, gain traction, and climb at a steady pace to get to the top. It took me a whole 2 months of turmoil to realize that and since then, I've been doing better than ever.
Fast-forward to the 4th of July, I started my first full-time position as a social media executive working under a manager who was integral to the social media pioneering of one of the biggest airlines in Southeast Asia. She guided me through working in a larger organization (specifically, aviation) where competitors will stop at nothing to go head on in a very elastic market. My style had to change and my attention to detail had to be focused on the bullseye. My tasks were much clearer too and the goals I've set were easier to achieve with the help of highly skilled individuals of the industry.
Now, I'm heading a project, creating content on greater heights, and getting along so much better with a dynamic team of individuals from different backgrounds. I feel like, for once, I am home. I'm in a place where my mind can run on an open field and my tools are well arranged on a rack for me to use anytime I need them. The best part is when I started opening up to having working more closely with people and bringing my head down to knowing I'm not the best person in the world who knows it all. That is where I am and where I believe the start of my life is.
What's next is waiting to be unfolded and the key to that is doing what I love and identifying flaws. I'll see you all on the flippidy flip.
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