Corporate Survivor with Mei Phing : Career Growth In The Corporate World - Ep08: Trust yourself to make decisions.

Starting point is 00:00:00 Welcome to the Corporate Survivor Podcast, where we talk about how to grow your career confidence, build your skills and value, increase your salary, and the many lessons we learn in the corporate world. For more career support, click on over to www.mayping.com. This is Mayping, your corporate leader turned career coach. I hope you enjoy, like and subscribe. In today's podcast, I want to talk about why you need to make your own decisions and what is holding you back. Making decisions is the hallmark of a leader. It shows that you are confident enough to take the next step forward.

Starting point is 00:00:50 And taking the next right step forward is all that matters. Progress is still progress. The worst thing is procrastinating and then waiting for something to happen. Like I always say, hope is not a strategy. This is something that I tell every single one of my coaching clients. It's so important to remember. And if this is the first time that you are hearing about my personal motto, I want you to take a pause and let that really sink in. And after that, you can put in a visual reminder, probably somewhere you can see every day. It will bring you immense value, I promise.

Starting point is 00:01:45 So making decisions and specifically why some people are afraid to make a decision. It's all down to the fear of making a wrong decision. People don't like to be wrong. And especially in the education system today, in this part of the world, if you don't already know, I live in Asia, where paper qualifications, good grades, good marks, being obedient, these are highly valued prizes in the society. So there's always a right answer in order to get that A in school or in university. So this subconscious perception that there's always a right answer for everything is ultimately what is holding you back.

Starting point is 00:02:30 In life, it's not so simple. In a complex, dynamic workplace, things are not so clear-cut. You may not always have the right answer, the perfect answer. In most cases, it doesn't exist. So it's really important to recognize that. So back to what I said, people are afraid of making the wrong call and it cripples them because then they end up dwelling over it. That's one. Number two, they constantly reach out to peers, managers or friends to seek advice. So it's good to get other people's opinions, perspective and feedback. I think those are excellent approaches. But if that's what you find yourself constantly doing, that's something that you need to recognize,

Starting point is 00:03:27 is that you are actually afraid to make a call. Hence, you are constantly seeking opinions when you already know what your decision is. It's just that you're afraid. And you're seeking validation from other people to tell you that, okay, go ahead. It's the right thing to do. You know, no matter what other people tell you, if deep down you really have somewhat of an answer, whatever they say, it will not kind of seep in. So you end up

Starting point is 00:04:00 jumping from one person to the other, constantly seeking advice and also justifying your position until you get an agreement. This is not how you get along with people. So if you haven't heard any of my earlier podcasts, there's one episode where I talked about getting along with others. So check that one out also. So back to what i'm saying constantly bombarding people with your questions because you're hoping for this answer that you have in your head you just want them to i guess see your point of view and give you that assurance and validation it doesn't work like that and even if they tell you yes go ahead if deep down you know that that's not what you want then you're still going to say

Starting point is 00:04:43 well i don't know i'll think about it, blah, blah, blah. So this whole thinking about it is just sitting about it, procrastinating about taking action. So this is a skill. It's maybe not so much of a skill, but it's that courage to take a call. It's all about accountability and taking ownership, taking responsibility. And apparently now, there's something that people are very uncomfortable with. So I can give you a couple of examples in the corporate world, in business, and even in your personal life. So we'll start with the corporate world. So if you have ever been in team projects or some sort of deliverable that requires support from different people,

Starting point is 00:05:30 you will notice that it is not often that a lot of people will put their hands up and say, okay, I will take charge and let me do this and I will own this piece and that piece. It doesn't happen very often. In fact, what you will commonly see is people saying, well, you know, my scope is only this. I can't help you with that. I'm very busy. I don't know.

Starting point is 00:05:50 I only know this. The other stuff, you just have to figure it out yourself. That's why too many cooks truly spoil the soup. And even beyond that, too many cooks makes the kitchen come to a halt. That's what I truly believe in. And I completely get some corporate cultures that really value seeking opinions, getting collaboration and getting, you know, a collective decision.

Starting point is 00:06:20 But ultimately, someone has to make a call. There's no point getting five, 10, 100 people in the room constantly seeking feedback because we don't want to piss the other person off or we don't want to piss another department off. But ultimately, that's why the projects don't move. And if you are in any of those, if you've ever encountered any of those situations,

Starting point is 00:06:42 I'm sure you completely resonate with what I'm saying right now. And let me know, let me know if this is true. In business, it's also something that's quite interesting. Because right now I'm in the coaching world and it's a transition for me from, you know, obviously my very senior level positions in corporate last year. So I'm right now in this coaching world and obviously coaching is a business aside from the part where we really help people change their

Starting point is 00:07:11 lives. What I've seen a lot and I continue to see are people who are learning. So they're seeking knowledge, which is great great but knowledge without action is useless they're seeking knowledge and they are constantly having chit chats with other people other you know people in the service line asking them what do you think i should do this and that like i say it's good to seek perspectives, right? It's good to learn what other people are doing and get their opinions on what your situation is. And that's great. The thing is that ultimately it's down to you. You have to take the action, right? And on the flip side, something that I tell all my coaching clients as well. I can give you the guidance. I can

Starting point is 00:08:06 help you get clarity in your thought and I can give you perspectives and insights as to why something is happening when it's happening to you, right? But ultimately, you need to take that action. I'm not with you 24-7. I don't know what's going on, right? It's about taking ownership, making a decision and committing to a decision and say what? You know what? I'm going to move forward and I'm just going to decide to do this.

Starting point is 00:08:33 And whether it works out or not, then we'll talk about it later, right? And then we'll review it and then I'll get some feedback and then we'll work on like the next best step. But until you decide to take that step forward nothing happens like actually nothing happens so now i'll give you a final example on how this can translate in your personal life so ultimately this all comes down to procrastination

Starting point is 00:08:59 right and one thing that is that you i guess you might hear quite a bit of is people maybe putting off cleaning their house or tidying up their room, clearing their garage. It's all ultimately procrastination because it's something that's scary, it's overwhelming, it's quite a bit. And you feel, you know what, it's fine, just put it off to the next day. I don't want to deal with it right now. So when you say that you don't want to deal with something, that's when you have mentally shut down. There's nothing else that anybody else can say for you to absorb and say, you're just going to do it.

Starting point is 00:09:41 And sometimes tidying your room is something as simple as that. And even people who tell me that they want to start their decluttering process so that they can have a more organized life. And I also work with clients like that. And it's really about making that decision to say, I will spend 20 minutes today just to clean up this section of my room. It really only starts with that but it's making taking that decision whether the impact is a big or small one that remains to be seen right

Starting point is 00:10:14 the first thing is you actually have to decide that you're gonna do something and choose a direction that you can head to. So everything is moving so quickly nowadays that if you're not moving forward, you are actually moving backwards, even if it doesn't feel like that right now. But one year, three years, five years down the road, that's when you will have this massive wake-up call and say, oh my God, what just happened, right? How did people move ahead of me so quickly? And how did things move so quickly

Starting point is 00:10:46 that I wasn't even aware of? So I'm telling you right now, get aware and make a decision, commit to it and move forward.

Corporate Survivor with Mei Phing : Career Growth In The Corporate World - Ep08: Trust yourself to make decisions.

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