What is Approachary?
Hi, I’m Cecilia Wong.
Approachary is my project to promote positive development and wellbeing.
On positive development
We are all on our journeys of becoming. What we are thinking and doing today will shape who we are tomorrow. When we continue to write our life stories, what are we bringing into our storylines? I want to support us (you and me) to instil positivity. This positivity, of course, is about happiness, health and achievement; it is also about being able to rebound from our failures, pains and heartbreaks and experience growth and flourishing.
When I think of positive development, I have positive psychology on my mind. This paradigm shifts our attention from fixing the problems to asking “How can we live better and fuller?” There are things that we cannot control in our lives, but we need not be limited by our circumstantial constraints. No matter who we are and where we are, we can make things better. Who says we all have to leap? We can take small steps, one step after another.
With Approachary, I particularly want to focus us on our decision making and the trajectories we create. There are many voices telling us what to do and who to become, how do we choose which ones to listen to? In my PhD with the University of Melbourne, I had the privilege to listen to different career stories, and it’s clear to me that we all crave to own a life that we find meaningful—the meaningfulness defined in our own terms. So the question is, “How can we proactively create this kind of living?” It’s not about finding the pathway, it’s about making it happen.
On wellbeing
Concerning wellbeing, I am thinking of physical, psychological and social wellbeing. While we all inevitably face challenges that test or even hamper our health, I want to support us to have a smooth sail through the rains and storms, and live as good as we can. My work on wellbeing evolves around my wellness framework that has five components: Heart, mind, emotions, body, and people.
With Approachary, I participarly want to support us to build a better relationship with ourselves. In this world that propels us to constantly ask, “How have I performed?” “Did I meet the expectations?” “Did I look good in other people’s eyes?”, I want to draw our attention from self-evaluation to self-relatedness. This shift of focus is important because only when we learn to be gentle, kind and supportive to ourselves do we find the comfort, safety and strength to become who we want to be.
Be gentle, kind & supportive to yourself, and create your trajectories.
The Work
I’m committed to creating resources. By resources, I mean I’m working on books, newsletters, articles and videos. I also draw to illustrate my ideas.
With my background in business management, counseling psychology and social research, I’m aware of the rich resources across disciplines. Hence, the concepts I work on are informed by the theories and evidences in the literature. My work however is not simply summaries and applications of the existing knowledge; but I’m learning from the scientific evidences, making sense of them through my thinking and observations, and conceptualizing them in ways that reflect my beliefs, values and goals. Not all of my ideas are original, but they are authentic.
I have no claims that my ideas are all evidenced-based (they are not), but I intend to use quality and quantitative research to support the concept development.
Approachary is still very young.
I launched Approachary on 1 June 2026, and am building it one brick a time.
As I’m trying out what works and what doesn’t, I’m expecting adjustments and improvement. Thank you for being patient with me.
I am here.
Thank you for thinking of contacting me.
I’m thrilled to learn about how my work has supported you or any suggestions that you want to share with me. Please let me know what you have in mind.
Cheers, Cecilia