Do you have a passion? If no, what are you trying out? If yes, what are you doing about it?

A robust person is hard to break. They are multifaceted and skilled through hard work and determination. However, they are not impossible to break. When things head south, they crumble and lose their identity like a straight-A student losing their status as a top performer.

No body told me "you get out of life as much as you put in". Well, I've learned it the hard way.

"I'll try" can become a halfhearted promise of follow-through rather than decisive action.

Tokyo 2024 is underway with few achieving their goals, and many defeated but already switched their gears towards the next opportunity. They reverse engineer their workout plan towards their goal with a list of things to work on, understanding where they are and where they need to be. Here is my reflection of my current self and who I need to be by the next summer Olympics, the Paris 2024.

I hereby announce that I would like to become an Olympian. Not in the traditional sense of qualifying for the Olympic games. Instead, I want to develop the routines and the discipline that makes any Olympian.

There is a reason why public speaking is a common fear. Having many eyes on you incites fear and activates your lizard brain, taking over any rational thought.

Your opinions are valuable and are encouraged to be shared. However, it doesn't mean you can open the flood gate of criticisms and expect everyone to accept the punches.

"If you learn to wear the company's hat, your scope will grow and you will enjoy your work much more."‍

One of the serendipitous benefits of transparency is that simply by sharing data, performance improves.

In Give and Take by Adam Grant, he writes about the power of purpose to improve not just happiness, but also productivity. His answer, like many brilliant insights, seems obvious once it's pointed out. The big surprise is how huge the impact is.

I vividly recall mentioning that being a designer is 50% working with people. I feel like that was an understatement.

Moments of anger reveals a glimpse of your naked self. This is an opportunity to learn about what moves you.

The title is intentionally misleading. This journal isn't about my struggle of getting to where I am today but rather about a characteristic that the stories I tell are missing.

Kaizen is one of those words being thrown around in management and I find it helpful in life. It roughly translates to "continuous improvement" or as designers call it, the iterative process.

Medical bills ... are an issue that can very easily and in pretty short order overwhelm a lot of families.

I had the opportunity to present my design assignment to three designers as part of an interview process for a UI/UX designer position at a design studio. Post interview, I followed up with the designers and were fortunate in receiving feedbacks from all three (If you are reading this, thank you!). Here, I try to digest my experience and learnings from the experience.‍

One day, you and everyone you love will die. And beyond a small group of people for an extremely brief period of time, little of what you say or do will ever matter. This is the Uncomfortable Truth of life. And everything you think or do is but an elaborate avoidance of it. We are inconsequential cosmic dust, bumping and milling about on a tiny blue speck. We imagine our own importance. We invent our purpose—we are nothing.

A couple months ago, I reached a conclusion that a good designer (in my opinion) is a designer that makes the most out of his/her opportunities. The definition had to be detached from seniority, job titles, or companies; and so it seemed to fit the criteria well.

Reading Drive by Daniel H. Pink got me asking "What qualities do I look for in a company I would like to work at?"

I am Thai and lived in Thailand for over two decades but my Thai proficiency isn't reflective of that. Largely due to my negligence, believing that majority of my adult life will be spent overseas.

I will be reflecting on a fable I wrote for leisure when I was in high school. It was written to capture my profound realization on the influence of mindset of highly effective people. Today, I revisited the document for the third time, reliving my memories and the moment of epiphany from having this thought.

My personal therapy when I lack motivation, or hit a mental wall, or feel stuck.

Irrelevant notifications can distract us from the things that matter to us most.

Every year, I start the year with a phone call to my close relatives to greet them a happy new year. During the call today, my cousin asked me "I don't know what to study in University. Nothing stands out to me" (Translated from Japanese).

Recently, I have been reflecting more on the Engagement-at-all-cost philosophy introduced in the documentary 'The Social Dilemma'.

I was stuck. I did what I thought I needed to do as a junior designer. My plan was to take part in projects, create an enticing portfolio, and apply. I believed that was the recipe to land my dream job.

I learned about myself through introspection by asking numerous if-then questions.

That's disgusting. Who would treat unsold books this way? That's what I initially told myself. But after seeing shelves after shelves of book covers vandalized, I hypothesized "What if the person who did this, is not a person?".

My mother is planning to visit a temple of wealth and career prosperity. Since I won't be joining her, she asked if "I have anything she can wish for on my behalf" and this got me thinking.

‍As a designer, I find myself being the interviewer more frequently than the interviewee. Today, I have the chance to be one, so I document my experience to better understand the journey of a remote user interview session from a participant's perspective.

"Some junior designers believe that presentation isn’t as important as process on their portfolio. However, when competing with hundreds of other candidates that can do the same things as you, it is. Try to stand out."

For my third of the Steal Like an Artist series I tried something new. Yesterday, I came across the Grammarly Ad, and today I tried to get inspired from it.

If you check my internet history, Youtube will be listed every day. Their interface isn't considered fancy, they just work and that is why I wanted to replicate its simplicity in this challenge.

The simplicity of Google’s home page had much to do with its success. For my first challenge, I am replicated the infamous google homepage. How hard could it be?

As part of Steal Like an Artist challenge where I try to replicate digital interfaces to unpack the intricacies of UI design, I ran into the question of what resolution should I replicate screens in?

Today, I am starting a daily challenge to reproduce digital interfaces. This is to not only expand my understanding of User Interfaces but also seek to understand the creative decisions behind each pixel.

I write to reflect, to articulate my thoughts, and document my decisions. Writing this first post has made me realize that although I had always wanted a personal journal, I forgot the reasons why I did.