The truth about this process...

The game of life doesn’t have a save file that sits there for you to scrub over and over again until you get it right.

You don’t magically “level up” one day from fixed to growth mindset, grind for a few years and “level up” again from growth to aspirational mindset. It simply doesn’t happen that way.

It’s a continuous, analog process; a language that needs usage.

The living language

Like so many children of immigrants, I went through a stage of rebellion against my dual heritage and decided I only needed to speak English. Over that period of time, my ability to communicate in Mandarin withered until I could barely string together a sentence, let alone a paragraph.

It wasn’t until I started feeling like a strange in my own home that I decided to reclaim it.

The renewal took time, and eventually I even went on to take Chinese courses in college and work overseas for a few years. I faced challenge after challenge in immersing myself in the culture and language. I avoided speaking English for as often as possible and became fairly comfortable navigating the ins and outs of daily life in Taiwan.

As I steadily try to do the same for my own children and pass on what I’ve learned to them, I keep these experiences at the forefront of my thoughts.

The challenge of doing so is one that is a constant stressor for me. Even though I’m now a teacher at the Chinese school that I attended as a child, I’m well aware that I have my own limitations in my vocabulary. My children hear Mandarin daily because of the daily check-ins I have with myself to maintain balance.

It’s tempting to fall back into old habits of my youth as they get older.

As much as I want them to understand the full extent of their heritage as Asian Americans, I also want to communicate and share my values and beliefs with them. I’m not a perfect teacher or a perfect parent or a perfect example on any level, but I strive to be an example for them to follow.

It’s not easy to be a parent, and this adds an entirely level to it.

Build the habit

Part of the digital heirloom project is to bake the renewal process into your routines.

It’s a language. It’s a living document. It’s your blueprint, the framework in which you continuously move forward on a daily basis. The flexibility of the ebb and flow like the tides is how I imagine it to be. There are good days and bad days, days when you feel like you’ve made significant strides in your progress, days when you feel like you slid back down into the abyss.

The overall long-term momentum appears when you commit to the process of reflecting on things daily.

Create something. Log your progress. Pick a few metrics that will move you forward. Share your obstacles and how you addressed them with others and leave a repeatable process as a guide. I know this is familiar territory for most of you, but it bears repeating.

Habits don’t materialize overnight.

Writing is one of the keys

I’m fortunate that I started laying the groundwork for this project when I was a child.

I have notebooks and scribbles that I can use to map out and reflect on what happened then (daily activities, thoughts, dreams, ideas) that seem like someone else wrote them. There are threads that connect me back to that person, and those are the threads that I can now extend into the future.

It doesn’t matter if you didn’t do it in the past. What matters is that you start pushing yourself forward.

Shifting your mindset is like finding a lever to lift that rock that’s pinned down your future self. With each day that you press on it, the rock budges just a little more. Show up every day and check-in with your efforts, whether it be to cultivate a new perspective or reconsider an old one.

With time, the future you will be freed from that rock to run the next lever…

I’ve shared my thoughts on the mindset shift to help you tackle that pile of luggage you’ve been traveling with your entire life. Unpack your inherited thinking from your family, your friends, and your mentors. Verify, vindicate, or discard as you determine whether they hold water or not.

Adopt the habit to continuously move with growth and aspiration.

P. S.

Wow, four concepts covered. I’ll take little break as usual to write on a few ideas that I’m chewing on.

The next weekly series will focus on your values and principles: what we stand for, and how we pass these on.