CocoChapters…Inspiring Millennial Girl Story
We see a bunch of photos for people hitting our feeds each day on the gram, everyone searching for more likes and more followers, but what really catching our eyes is those inspiring personalities that we should shed the light on and introduce them as a real-life idol to girls and women out there, Nicole Chan or better say COCO is an inspiring millennial girl known for loving life and hard work, this wasn’t something easy to reach, but the way she worked on her personality and life made us share with today as our INSPIRED TO BE for today…
Name: Nicole Chan
Age: 28
Location: Shanghai, China
Interests: Yoga, Camping, Hiking
How did you land your current job? and what are you looking forward through?
I’ve been with my company for almost 5 years now. I was able to land my current opportunity through the building and maintaining relationships in the company.
I’m looking forward to the cultural experience of working in a different country on the opposite side of the world! The pace of work and life here is vastly different from where I was before. I’m also excited to have the opportunity to explore – just last weekend I was in Hong Kong for a concert! How cool is that??
Tip: your internal network is just as important as your external network!
The 20’s period of our life is always full of punch insecurities especially for girls, did you practice any? and how do you manage them?
Of course, every girl has faced insecurities whether it be image, weight, confidence, where I should be in life at X age, you name it. What has helped me if I’m ever feeling insecure is to remind myself to not compare myself to others. Think of your energy as this finite, precious thing and you must carefully choose how you want to expend it. Rather than waste your energy on comparing yourself with others, use your energy on something useful and helpful like reading, learning, picking up a new sport or hobby. You’ll feel a lot more rewarded and gratified when you use your energy to learn something rather than wasting it away on things that don’t make you feel good.
Thankfully I’m in a pretty good place with my self-esteem now, but if I had to choose one insecurity right now it would probably be age. Sometimes aging freaks me out and other times I completely embrace it. Just more of a reason to live life to the fullest and be the happiest person I can be during my time on this planet!
For most of the millennials life is all about having fun, how do you balance between having fun and enjoy those years with keeping your work life and future in mind?
To me, these things aren’t mutually exclusive. Life is about balance, hence why I wrote a blog post about it. Life isn’t linear and life certainly isn’t predictable. We can’t look at these different stages in our life as separate events i.e. having fun is limited to only our youthful years because what does that mean for our future working years? That work = non-fun? For some people that may be the case, but this is an unhealthy perspective in my opinion. Life isn’t limited to only millennials. People of all ages should have fun for as long as they live. The differentiator as we grow older is that we become busier, we have more responsibilities, and with that life can sometimes be more complex, but that doesn’t mean that we need to stop having fun.
It’s a matter of adjustment and adapting. Life is ever-changing…I mean the word life means growth and change right? Life isn’t stagnant so how we adapt to change shouldn’t be either. What I write in my blog post is the balance of life – I equate it to a pie and work is only one aspect of the pie. The most important slice of the pie is your health and happiness, and you know where fun falls in? It falls into health and happiness. If you’re not happy, healthy, and having fun, how do you expect to perform and deliver at work? It’s important to adopt this mindset: make your health and happiness a priority – you need to achieve this first before you can be successful at work.
How do you manage your time between work, blogging, teaching yoga, and having a healthy physical and mental life as a millennial girl?
I know what I want in life and I have defined clear top priorities for myself. As I mentioned above, my physical/mental/emotional health are the most important priorities for me. They serve as the foundation for life. I wouldn’t be able to balance everything else (or at least sustain it) and be successful at it if I didn’t have a solid foundation. I chose to teach yoga because it brings me joy, I chose to start a blog on a millennial girl life because it brings me joy – these are things that I chose to do because I wanted to do these things and I made time for them. They make me happy. It’s amazing how much you can make time for something if you really want it.
Of course, there are ebbs and flows of life and life gets busy like it has been since I’ve moved here. For example, I’ve put teaching yoga on hold since I’ve to this fast-paced city for my new job but I’m still practicing yoga consistently. I also haven’t stuck to my weekly cadence for my blog posts because work has been crazy busy. But you know what? I just pick things back up when I can. I’m not strict or hard on myself because these are the things that make me happy as a millennial girl (not cause me stress)! These aren’t chores. I’ll admit, due to the long working hours I’ve had to make a few adjustments to get that right balance including working out in the morning. I am NOT a morning person during the week but I know if I don’t get it done then I won’t have time to do it after work (that’s when I normally hit up the yoga studio).
What are the hardships you facing now in your 20’s, and how do you overcome them?
Honestly, I’m the happiest I’ve ever been right now. I’ve gone through some hardships in the past including a bad relationship I was in which was emotionally damaging. And what I did to overcome these hardships was a whole lotta self-discovery and introspective work. You gotta break down your barriers, ego, and dig deep to do that tough internal work that most of us neglect. It takes an open mind, heart, and a deep sense of humility and self-awareness. You learn a lot about yourself as a millennial girl throughout this process (like why you were even drawn to that person in the bad relationship in the first place) and you learn the importance of loving yourself first.
There are two books I live by as millennial girl and have helped me through tough times: A Return to Love by Marianne and Williamson and The Four Agreements by Don Miguel Ruiz. I think everyone should read these 2 books– they changed my life.
What are the differences you feel between living in Boston and Shanghai as a life lover girl?
Well for starters, Shanghai is about 30x the size of Boston! Boston is a quaint, romantic, historic old city filled with history dating back to pre-colonial times. The architecture is a combination of colonial and Victorian – big indicators of how old the city is! Boston is actually one of the oldest cities in the whole US! The city of Boston is completely walkable and you’re sure to find lovers taking romantic strolls along the Charles River as the city is populated with lush greenery everywhere.
Now Shanghai on the flip side is a major metropolitan city with a population of 24 million people! It’s the newest city and known as the “showcase city” in China. In fact, the city is so massive that it would be nearly impossible to truly see the whole city in your entire lifetime. The infrastructure is mostly modern and new – you can literally watch the skyline being built up in a matter of weeks. Overall, the city is mostly man-made and you’re guaranteed to hear about a new mall opening every other week. There are the constant buzz and clatter of people talking, texting, honking, it’s the city that never sleeps in China. There are thousands of mopeds whizzing around to drop off food deliveries, and if you don’t watch out you must just get run over!
Tip: do not cross the street with headphones in!
What are the most important tips you want to give to millennial girls out there?
Stop apologizing.
Stop with the jealousy– it doesn’t help you it only eats you up. Instead of focusing on others, focus on yourself, work on yourself, love yourself, do the things that make you most happy, spend time and energy on being the best version of yourself as a Millennial girl and you will attract abundance.
Confidence – speak up (figuratively and literally), be articulate, stand tall, and strutt into that room like you own it. Self-love – girls, if you know me you’ll know that this is my mantra. This runs deep for me. It was a process for me to get to this point. Once you can truly love yourself, once you do that tough work I was talking about, your life will magically unfold around you – your confidence skyrockets and you start attracting the people you want in your life including positive romantic relationships, amazing life/job opportunities, and you even look and feel better! The list goes on. If you practice self-love, you allow yourself to receive what you deserve. And let me tell you, it feels pretty amazing.
