People are often surprised when I tell them I studied Psychology at university because my career path in financial services doesn’t directly relate to my degree. It’s actually deeply useful, but the reason is not what you would think. It’s a science degree with a heavy emphasis on research, and its main component is advanced statistics. It encourages students not to assume anything is true, even if it’s common or popular, but to treat it as a hypothesis and validate it with data.
But university wasn’t even the start of my analytical background. Throughout my school years in Vietnam, I often achieved top grades in Maths, studying extra classes in the evenings and weekends. At A-level in the UK, I got straight A's for both Maths and Further Maths. So while my corporate career is built around mostly creative skills, where I have a natural knack, I was predisposed to thinking in patterns and frameworks. It allowed me to apply a data-driven approach to areas of my life that are often seen as intuitive, qualitative, and emotional, such as healing and relationships. This has turned out to be one of my biggest unfair advantages.
It saved me from rock bottom in my mid-20s and turned my life around completely. Back then, I suffered from anxious attachment and hit rock bottom after a breakup with a man who jokingly called himself a psychopath while behaving like one. My mind was stuck in a loop, and I was desperate to get out of it. I had to find a solution. So I treated my inner workings as a math problem, identifying patterns and applying logic to them. I looked at every experience as a data point, instead of immediately attaching an emotional response to it. I documented past events neutrally and analysed them, not to blame or criticise myself, but to break down what happened, find the mechanism, and adjust my actions accordingly. I was self-honest and was not afraid to call myself out and make changes, especially structural ones.
To rise from rock bottom, I tested a hypothesis: what would happen if I stripped down everything in my life? If I reduced it to the necessities? So I could see the end of me and the beginning of my anxiety. And it worked. I cut all undefined interactions with men, all sources of instability. I only went to work, ate, and slept. My life was uneventful, but I felt calm. Then I added social time with family, volunteering, learning new skills, travelling solo, and writing a book. I could then see the impact of these activities one by one. When I started dating again, I knew exactly when my anxiety was triggered and what to do to manage it. I’d understood the mechanisms and could use the knowledge to design my romantic relationship in a way that was safe for my attachment style. In fact, it was non-negotiable. I stopped centering romance or short-lived excitement - I centered my well-being and values instead.
I used to dream of being a self-assured, composed woman who could take time to think before she acted, who responded instead of reacting. And this analytical way of operating has helped make that dream come true. In the last few years, I’ve had the opportunity to see how my default has shifted in new situations and relationships. I observed and analysed myself in real time instead of reacting first and making sense of it later. I delayed judgments instead of jumping to conclusions. I conducted pressure tests in a measured way to obtain the additional outputs I needed to make an informed assessment. I took decisive action when more data would stop being useful. And on the surface, nothing showed. I moved along like nothing unusual was happening while running complex calculations in the background.
Most importantly, I no longer cared about having a witness for my experiences. I could manage my emotions better and hijack the system when it craved validation because I knew exactly what was going on with me. It means I could keep things to myself and act clean because I wouldn’t need to be reaching. Meanwhile - and this is important - I still let myself feel everything I needed and wanted to feel. I’m firm but also soft. I’m tough but also gentle. I’m analytical but also emotional. I can hold contradictions, and my well-being is better for it. My skills complement each other perfectly, so that I get the deep self-understanding without spiralling, and rapid self-advancement without suppressing myself and paying for it later.
It’s an art that one can master.
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You’ve done enough thinking, reading, and reflecting, but you still feel stuck. You lack the bridge from knowing to doing. It's what I teach in Insight to Action. If you're done analysing yourself in circles and want to actually progress, this is for you.
