And no, we are NOT referring to the cliche break up line.

We're talking about all the ways you reject yourself, before the world ever gets a chance to (or not!)

In this episode, Anna dives into the invisible limits we place on our own lives—the stories we tell ourselves about who we are, what we deserve, and how we’re perceived. And how those stories end up shaping everything.

Because maybe the person preventing us from achieving what we all want is not "you," but "me" after all.

Sources:

The Dartmouth Scar Experiment

Psychology Today Article About the Scar Experiment

The Pike Syndrome

The Scar Experiment & Elephant Story

Share Your Story: ⁠⁠The Confessions Vault ⁠⁠

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Email: annashuyizhang@gmail.com

You’re not stuck. You’re just scared of picking wrong.

In this episode, we're talking about the perfection paralysis problem—the reason you hate your job but haven’t applied anywhere, the reason you’ve been “thinking about” starting something for years… and the reason doing nothing somehow feels safer than doing the wrong thing.

From overthinking Netflix choices to comparing a $100 mic to a top podcast in the world (yes, I did that), this is a brutally honest breakdown of how perfectionism quietly keeps you exactly where you are.

If you’ve been waiting for the right moment, the right plan, or the right version of yourself—then you gotta listen to (and watch!!!!) this episode.

Sources:

The Jam Study

Psychology Today: Three types of Perfectionism

Three Types of Perfectionism Paper (Hewitt & Flett)

Share Your Story: ⁠The Confessions Vault ⁠

Tik Tok | Instagram | Substack

Email: annashuyizhang@gmail.com

In this episode, Anna sits down with Maggie Arai—former law student and aspiring intentional human rights lawyer, turned 4x founder and social entrepreneur—to talk about what it really looks like to walk away from a path that made sense on paper, but didn’t feel right in practice.

Join them as they talk about:

• The difference between being disliking something because it's hard vs. disliking something because it's wrong for you.
• The pressure of sunk costs
• The less glamorous side of entrepreneurship that people don't often talk about and social media rarely portrays
• The loneliness epidemic and how the commodification of convenience has fundamentally shifted our ability to form meaningful and long lasting friendships with those who matter the most.

Check out Founders who Give a F*ck: https://www.fwgaf.com/

Share Your Story: The Confessions Vault

TikTok: https://www.tiktok.com/@thefiveyearplanpodcast

IG: https://www.instagram.com/thefiveyearplanpodcast

Substack: https://substack.com/@thefiveyearplanpodcast

Email: annashuyizhang@gmail.com