111: 2021 End of Year Reflection

Dra. Yvette Martinez-Vu

All right. Hello, everyone. This is Doctora Yvette. This is my first time a recording from Portugal. I have arrived, I cannot believe it. I've been here for about a week feels like it's been forever because I had several pre-recorded episodes for you. And now we're getting to the end of the year. And I'm here to offer my end of year reflection for you all. Hopefully, the tech and the sound is okay, I am in a new kind of office space, this small space has an echo. I'm also using a mic. So we'll see how the quality is. And if it doesn't work out, I'll just switch from mic to headphones or something else. But let's try it out for for this episode.

Dra. Yvette Martinez-Vu

Alright, so for my reflection, there's so much that I want to say and I think not enough time because I'm trying to record this while my baby's taking a nap. But when I think about end of year reflections, I think about where I was a year ago. And you know, perhaps you might be thinking about where you were a year from today. For me, a year ago, I was on maternity leave, I had just had my baby, I was taking some time off to try to recover from C section which is rather major surgery. I had pre recorded some episodes that I was releasing every other week.

Dra. Yvette Martinez-Vu

This time last year in the podcast, I got to talk about what it means to set new year intentions, which is something I like to do every year. I also talked about abundance and scarcity mindset, because abundance was a really big word for me this year of not letting my fear of scarcity of losing things of taking risks get in the way of me taking big leaps. So I got to talk about that last year.

Dra. Yvette Martinez-Vu

I also was getting myself mentally prepared for coming back to work after taking some time off, I had never in my life taken that much time away from work and from academic work in particular. And I sincerely thought that I was a while on my way to becoming the Program Director of the McNair program. And I was really proud to be at that point in my career to have had a healthy second child without any major complications. To have bought a home, which was a lifelong dream with that I thought would never be possible, especially in light of having debt, student debt in particular. And you're probably thinking, well, what changed? And some of you have listened to other podcast episodes, I've hinted at it, I've mentioned it here and there.

Dra. Yvette Martinez-Vu

What changed was that I went back to work. And I was burnt out. And I needed a change. I didn't feel challenged enough. I wanted to do bigger things I wanted to reach bigger audiences, I wanted to try new things. And then came this wild idea of moving abroad. Then came this wild idea of taking a little baby podcast, and building it into a business. And here I am now.

Dra. Yvette Martinez-Vu

And I can tell you that the most overwhelming feeling I've been experiencing is peace. Peace, like I've never felt before. It's almost unreal, it feels like I'm in a different world and a different temporality and a different dimension. And visit easy kind of doing what I'm doing living where I'm living. No, it's not. But I'm just so grateful to be in this space. And it feels like it's the right thing for me at this point in my life.

Dra. Yvette Martinez-Vu

So what is my message going into 2022 the message that I want you to take in I want you to allow yourself the ability to dream. I want you to, well, first of all, the semester the quarter is over for you. So I want you you know you're probably getting ready for the next quarter the next semester. But before that starts, I want you to rest and I want you to also dream, day dream, dream in whatever way shape or form. And think about, well, if I didn't have to worry about what other people think? If I didn't have to worry about making money? If I didn't have to worry about all these obligations and expectations and responsibilities, if I could do anything that I want it, what would I be doing with my time? What would my life look like?

Dra. Yvette Martinez-Vu

Envision it. Sit there, imagine yourself in that position doing that thing that you that seems like this big, wild, crazy dream. That exercise alone can be life changing, because sometimes we get so caught up in the daily grind of doing all the things that we need to do. so caught up in the next deadline or next thing or next thing, you can barely take time to breathe or to rest that you forget to dream that you sometimes could even reach the point where you forget what makes you happy, you forget kind of what you want to do, you're only doing things that other people want you to do. And I don't want you to lose that that ability to dream.

Dra. Yvette Martinez-Vu

This reminds me actually, I had the same conversation with someone a few months ago, where, you know, they wanted to talk to me, they had heard that I was leaving my job that I was trying to move abroad and wanted to hear more about it. And we went into this conversation about dreaming. And I asked this person, what would you like, if you could do anything in the world without worrying about anything else? What would you do? How would you spend your time? How would you live your life, you know, intentionally. And then they told me about playing instrument playing music, perhaps applying to new jobs. And the list went on and on and on. And I just saw this look of joy in their face in a way I had never seen before. And of course, our conversation came to an end after about an hour or so.

Dra. Yvette Martinez-Vu

And then I went on moved on to things we hadn't touched base. And I heard back from this person a few months later. And they messaged me and told me, I just want to send you an update. I just accepted the position of X at grad division at a University of California. They created a new office, I will be the head of it. And I just want to thank you for being an inspiration. I want to thank you for the talk that we had a few months ago that really motivated me to focus on what I wanted, and signed off with a couple of heart emojis. Who, wow, wow, wow, wow. One conversation became the catalyst became the impetus became that thing that led to them, applying to jobs and landing this new job that's like a dream job for them.

Dra. Yvette Martinez-Vu

So you just never know where dreaming can take you. So that's why I want you to, to take this seriously and try it out and keep dreaming especially if you give yourself the time to rest. The more you rest, the more of a capacity you will have to dream. Now, I also want you and thinking about the new near, new years and intentions and end of year reflections, I want you to think about where you are now. So are you about to graduate college? Are you in finishing up your first year in grad school? Are you in the middle of grad school in the thick of it? Trying to finish your quals? Advance to candidacy? Did you just get your PhD?

Dra. Yvette Martinez-Vu

So where are you now? Where are you in your life? Maybe you're a parent, maybe you just had a child? Maybe you are engaged? Maybe you just moved in with a partner. Maybe you have decided to be single and live the single life maybe you have decided to move on your own? Where are you in your life and think about how there's a good chance that where you are now is likely a dream of the past. And you know not everything in your circumstances are ideal, that's for sure.

Dra. Yvette Martinez-Vu

There's a lot a lot of grief I haven't even covered about on the podcast about the grief and the grieving process and the whole grieving process of transitions too it's it's hard work. Life isn't always easy. But there are parts of your life right now that you dreamt of having. In the past, maybe you dreamt of having a roof over your head and have you dreamt of having enough money to pay your bills and to buy groceries. And, and reflect on that.

Dra. Yvette Martinez-Vu

For me, when I was in college, that was my dream from elementary school all the way through high school, my dream was going to college, I didn't even know what that was. I had not set foot in, you know, on a college campus, but it was a big dream. My dream, you know, in college was to go to grad school. So that was my dreams. And when I was in grad school, that's, that was my college dream. When I had my first full time academic job, that was my dream in grad school. I couldn't wait for the day when I no longer had to take tests and made assignments, worry about finals. I wanted that to be in the past. And trust me that will be in your past eventually, too.

Dra. Yvette Martinez-Vu

And now as a solopreneur, mompreneur, edupreneur, or whatever you want to call me, this was my dream just a few months ago, I couldn't wait to be in charge of my own schedule. I couldn't wait to be my own boss. I couldn't wait to set my own earning goals, and so on. And then I feel like it's still not over, there are still many more dreams that I have, there's still so many more things that I want to do. And so I just right now I sit with the immense feeling of pride in myself, for all that I have accomplished this year. And for all the things that I know that I will eventually accomplish, and I don't have to do them right away.

Dra. Yvette Martinez-Vu

It's not a race, about who's does the most in a year and who has the biggest accomplishment in a year. It's not a competition either. Or at least I don't think it should be. But for myself, I'm so so proud. I'm proud that I got to support another graduating class, and helping them with completing their degrees getting into grad school. I'm proud that I quit my job and became an entrepreneur, I am proud of filing my LLC, I'm proud of reaching the 100th episode for my podcast. I'm proud of working with coaching clients, and helping them apply to fellowships apply to grad programs, and proud for applying to get a Portuguese visa. I'm proud of, freaking proud of moving my family abroad. So I'm so so proud.

Dra. Yvette Martinez-Vu

And I hope that you can, you yourself can think about everything that you went through this year. And sit back with pride. And with motivation, like this is why you do what you do. This is why you're gonna keep going. You know, and even if at the end of the day, all you did was survive this year, surviving is enough. And eventually, you will get to a point where you're going to start to see what thriving can look like. I'm in a point in my life, where I'm starting to see what life can be like while thriving. It's unbelievable to be here on the other side, and like quite literally on the other side of the world.

Dra. Yvette Martinez-Vu

And I want you all to dream, I want you all to thrive, I don't want you to lose hope you're not doing any of this in vain. You know, some of you might be waiting to hear back from grad programs, some of you might be trying to take a break despite having this long list of things to do. I remember one day all of this will be in the past, when they are gonna sit back and think. Wow, I did that. And wow, look at where I'm at now. And that's how I feel right now. And kind of that's what I want to leave you with. I want to leave you with this homework of looking back at at your year reflecting back on all that you've done.

Dra. Yvette Martinez-Vu

I want you to dream in big, big, big dreams. I want you to be proud of yourself. I want you to rest. I want you to have everything that you've ever, ever wanted. And you will get there a little by little slowly. Like I said it's not a race. Those are my thoughts for the end of 2021. I do I wish you all a really happy new year and I'll talk to you all next time