A gentle nudge towards playful exploration

and why I am writing again.

Hi! I’m very excited to be on Substack. I didn’t plan on starting one but was recently inspired by a writer friend. Here’s the Ins and Outs of why I started this Substack, my raw thoughts as a founder and why I believe a little play is what everyone needs.

---

Looking back at the past few years, I find myself caught between feeling like I’ve done everything and nothing at all. In part, it is due to my attempt at running from the past.¹ I searched for stability, identity and anything for me to fall in love with life again.

It started with content creation on Instagram. I had the belief that if I could document little curated moments of my life, bit by bit, my life would become that curation. Somehow this led me to landing not one but two social media manger positions without a marketing degree. I started creating not only for personal expression but for brands and businesses. In the process, I became enamoured with the idea of having a business of my own. Now I spend my days building two: The Melrose and With Love Archive.

When I reconnect with old friends over drinks or meet new people through work, they often praise my accomplishments. Though I always thank them, a part of me never quite feels truly accomplished. More so, I feel naked and exposed when they see what I consider my “work in progress”.

The first Substack I ever read was written by Jordan Risa Santos, an influencer that I admire. She shares her journey in being a creator, a freelancer, a founder and a writer and the pressures to follow conventional strategies, conform to expectation and create impressive facade for external validation. Ultimately, she chose to stay true to what feels natural for her and embraced "being an amateur" She wrote:

“…in a time where the internet compels you to look perfectly packaged up, ready-to-sell, and fully realized, push back on it.”

I’ve been thinking a lot on this and especially reflecting on my personal conviction- the irony of striving to embody the ethos² I preach for my brand, while finding myself not fully living it out in my own life.

My brand With Love Archive aka. WLA (pronounced WILLA) is a planner meant for more, designed to store more than just chronicle dates and musings. Our mission is to inspire playful exploration through elegant tools for keepsakes, memory keeping, and personal development.

I encourage my community to “curate their story”, to engage in play, exploration and creative activities yet in building WLA, I often find myself doing the opposite. I was consuming others’ content, telling myself I’m seeking inspiration and learning from their experiences, but deep down, it was breeding massive self-doubt. The constant comparison of my progress to their milestone robbed me of my childlike curiosity and I was stuck with a bad case of perfection paralysis.³

Jordan’s words reminded me of the playful exploration I lost touch with where not knowing allows “the freedom to play , to experiment, to enjoy the journey and the process without the pressures” of perfection. I have spent way too many hours making assumptions about how my creations will be perceived and convincing myself to just wait a little longer, wait for it to be “perfect” and wait for the feeling of being “ready” to come, before I put it out to the world. But if all that we create is for validation, then we truly lose sight of the essence of creation- for ourselves, for play, for finding the delight in the act of it all.

Since February, I’ve taken some time off the internet, ruminating on “what’s next” for me and my businesses. Of course, still working on projects in the background but now really allowing them to evolve organically and allowing myself to rediscover the joy and passion that inspired their inception. I’ve also started celebrating myself thanks to a gentle reminder from another woman I admire, Liz Tran, in a podcast episode she was featured in.

I guess that leads me to this Substack- A little corner on the internet for me to truly share the ins and outs of my brain and my journey without any reservations. I started this piece of writing in my home studio, surrounded by the planners that I have designed but haven’t properly marketed and in the middle of recording my online training for The Melrose. Here, I reconnect with my creativity, letting go of the need for validation and giving myself the space for meaningful exploration. Being a journalist of my own life so to speak.

Maybe this first Substack isn’t coherent. Maybe I am just rambling. Maybe my writing isn’t the best. And maybe there are so many other maybes. But I am unapologetically sharing. Hopefully this inspires you to “play” with me- to try new things, difficult things, things you haven’t tried before and things you haven’t allowed yourself to try.

What’s my point again?

Ins:

• Playfully Explore- observe, note, experiment, create, celebrate

• Childlike wonder & curiosity

• Celebrating amateur-ishness

• Being a journalist of your own life

Outs:

• Overthinking⁴

• Following a stale script

• Impressive facade

• Overlooking the incremental progress

---

1. In short, “the past” involves strained relationship with my mother, depression, BPD and an emotionally abusive romantic relationship in my early 20s.

2. Life’s brevity demands our action. Go explore, play, create.

3. The desire to make something perfect preventing progress or launching a project. It's a specific form of procrastination driven by the fear of imperfection or failure.

4. Believe it or not, my word for the year is “underthink”. A quiet mind is sometimes needed for new epiphanies.