the courage to begin again🤍

gonna be Golden✨

Last month when my 5-year-old niece came over, she requested that we watch KPop Demon Hunters and asked if I’d seen it!

“I have! But I’d love to watch it again!” I said.

She looked a little confused. “Did you watch it when you were little?”

“No, I just watched it a few months ago. I love kids movies!”

I could feel any “cool aunt” vibe I’d collected over the years melting away with her suspicious look back at me😂.

(shoutout to Amy Poehler won the first Golden Globe for a podcast this Sunday!)

In my defence, one of the main creators and directors, Maggie Kang, said, “we didn’t craft this movie thinking that it was for children. It was really for a more mature audience. And really for ourselves.” in this heartwarming New York Times article about the 9-year-long process of making the hit movie.

Kpop Demon Hunters (2025) dir. Maggie Kang and Chris Appelhans

In the article Kang also mentioned the different Korean easter eggs you may have missed, how she was firm on hiring Korean (not Korean-American) voice-over artists, and that:

“I really liked this type of female character that was cool but also a little silly. I had been in so many animation writing rooms where we were scared to make female characters really silly, and that was always frustrating.”

Perhaps the most surprising part of the article (for those of us who are not already completely wrapped up in the fandom!) was not only why the main character Rumi’s singing voice was voiced by the actual co-songwriter of the Golden Globe-winning hit (and probable Oscar contender!) “Golden” EJAE:

“What made me say yes is the efficiency. I wrote the song; I know the nuances and how to sell it.”

but the fact that she didn’t really want to do it at first.

EJAE!

EJAE is a rejected K-Pop artist herself, who decided to lean into the behind-the-scenes world of songwriting after people told her that her voice wasn’t good enough to perform.

So when she was asked by the filmmakers if she could do Rumi’s singing vocals, she hesitated. Fear and her limiting beliefs telling her that she still wasn’t good enough to perform resurfaced.

what EXACTLY are limiting beliefs?

Thankfully, she took the leap even though she was scared, and then…Kpop Demon Hunters became a global phenomenon. Kids dressed up like the characters at Halloween all over the world, Golden was blasting on the streets in Mexico when we were there in December, and now as of this Sunday, the song has won a Golden Globe award.

If EJAE hadn’t had the courage to begin again, she would be watching someone else performing on The Tonight Show, at Macy’s Thanksgiving Day Parade, on SNL, and quite possibly on the Oscars stage!!

If you want to watch her emotional Golden Globes acceptance speech, here you go:

And in case you don’t watch it, let me repeat a lesson she reminds us:

“Rejection is redirection.”

Whether you’ve been rejected by someone else or yourself, begin again.

Yep, it’s both scary and exhausting…but that’s what separates the stagnant from the “successful” (whatever “successful” means to you)!

Whether it’s something big like dusting off a old dream, or small like figuring out another way to make a new habit stick (this week for me it’s using a Waterpik every night😂), the best thing you can do is just have the courage to begin again, regardless of the outcome, and be proud of yourself when you do.

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Btw I talked more about habits and feeling proud of yourself in last week’s post:

unpopular opinion👀: i actually love new year's resolutions😍!

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At this time of year, it’s easy to beat yourself up when you don’t follow through on a goal you set for yourself. Making yourself feel bad about it will only make the situation worse. I personally find it helps to look at the situation objectively and try to take my emotions out of the equation otherwise I end up in a guilt-spiral.

For example, instead of feeling guilty that I missed a workout, I’ll objectively reassess why that was. Was it because my body actually needed the rest? Was it was at the wrong time of day? Was it because it was raining? Was it because I stayed up too late the night before?

Once I find out what my reason for breaking my habit was, I can then experiment with adjustments, like: schedule in more recovery days after hard workouts, workout in the morning instead of at night, sacrifice a coffee purchase by splurging on an uber instead so that I don’t have to walk to the gym in the rain, or research how to train my body how to go to sleep earlier.

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If there’s a goal or habit you truly want to pursue (and it’s smart to let go of it if you realize you don’t actually want to pursue it anymore! Life is too short!) let this post be your reminder to be kind to your mind and that you have the power to begin again. Maybe in a different direction this time😉.

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On the theme of Korea because why not, here’s a gallery of film photos from my first trip there this time last year!!! I took them in Seoul and Jeju Island, and the ones of me were taken by my partner JD❤️. (Click each photo to expand it!)