Fresh Beginnings

We caught Michelle just as she was heading to meet her group of close friends for their usual Friday night gathering. “It’s become our tradition, so everyone allocates that time slot every week to meeting up,” she says. “It makes it much easier to schedule things.” Michelle says that being “really anal about Google calendar” helps her to maintain a good work-life balance, as does setting fixed times for activities, such as exercise. “I’ve been doing yoga for the past 10 years or so, and it’s become very integrated in my life and central to my daily lifestyle,” she says. “I also really enjoy water sports such as diving, and I picked up cable skiing and sailing this year. Sometimes I think I was either a mermaid or a dugong in my past life.” She’s also managed to find the time to start a history club of sorts with her friend, where they pick a period in history and then watch movies and read books and discuss. “We’ve already reached our first stumbling block, though, because we wanted to focus on ancient Chinese history but there aren’t very many books in English on it!” Working in communications, Michelle says that as every client she meets is different, and she loves that she gets to learn new things about their industries, companies, and issues. She’s also learnt that sometimes it’s best to go with the flow. “It’s okay if you don’t think you’re in the right place or if you don’t think you’ve found your ‘calling’,” she says. “I feel finding your place in the working world is largely a process of iteration, and learning more about yourself via the job you’re in at the point of time, and then working from there towards something that suits you better.”