Corporate Survivor with Mei Phing : Career Growth In The Corporate World - Ep177: Quitting social media for a happier career.

Episode Date: June 4, 2023

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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. Quitting social media might have been the best decision I ever made in my career. In this episode, I want to share with you how social media distracted me from focusing on what actually I was supposed to be doing at the workplace,

as well as offer you some tips and steps that I've implemented to really help me better manage my social media and making sure that it doesn't affect my work and to also ensure that I can continue to grow my career. So if you're ready, let's dive in. Before we begin, I just want to quickly define what I mean by social media as we go along with this episode. So social media to me basically is like fast-paced content that is very dopamine driven and you feel like you need to keep scrolling and scrolling and scrolling. For example, TikTok, Instagram,

and to a certain extent, LinkedIn. So if you're listening to the Corporate Survivor podcast, it tells me that you care about education and that's really the content I talk about on the Corporate Survivor podcast, whether you're listening on Spotify or watching on YouTube. So subscribe and also sign up for my free career newsletter where I send you exclusive content and more in-depth tips to help you grow your career at www.mayping.com.

Okay, so let's get started and really talk about the impact of social media that I've noticed in my own career as well as the careers of all the private coaching clients I have as well as the students sign up for my career course, The Corporate Survivor. So as I look back in my career, I think there are three ways that social media was really affecting me negatively at the workplace. So the first one is really my focus and attention span. So think about the time that you are really busy, or maybe you are faced with a difficult or challenging task, or maybe you have to work with a stakeholder or a client or a colleague that you really dislike. And I've been there too. Now, we all know logically, it's actually better to just do the task or just, you know, get the work done or talk to that difficult person. But it feels like our brain just tells us that, hey, since it's a difficult situation, let's not do it. And let's just, you know, maybe just go on social media and like take a mental break. If you spend a lot of time

social media, I think you know what I'm talking about in which there are a lot of like exciting content. That's why you keep scrolling, right? Like maybe you were intending to be online for 10 minutes and you end up spending an hour or maybe two hours. And it's like, when I go back to work, it feels different different it feels like even more difficult to maybe focus on a very specific task and you know let's be honest at the workplace as a nature of your job right it's not that everything is always going to be very easy sometimes it may there may be very difficult tasks that you need to focus you need to concentrate on but I found that it was very difficult for me to focus and it

became particularly worse after I spent a lot of time on social media, whether it's that day or the day before. So definitely that affected me a lot. And I think the third one is really the inability to slow down. I feel like everything needs to be really fast and I became really impatient because the thing is like, if you spend a lot of time on social media, there's just a lot of content and there's the whole FOMO factor. But at the workplace, things are slower in general. Things need some patience. And I feel like at that time, like the more I spend time on social media, it feels like every day, I expect something very exciting to happen at work. Now, over time, as I've reflected on it, I realized that these are not really the characteristics or qualities that would

help me grow in my career. It's not something that really would help me make a successful career, because that means that I'm always in a rush. I'm always hot-headed, I'm always looking for shortcuts which is not good for the overall work quality or even my professional reputation as well but that's just something that social media has trained me and maybe it has trained you as well. So if you can resonate or relate to any of these situations that I've just shared and if you're watching on YouTube, definitely drop a comment and let me know. I love to see and rather hear from you how many people are actually struggling with this exact challenge that I have definitely struggled with as well. And I think that as compared to a few years back nowadays, it is really even worse. I feel like the attention span,

it's like we can't even watch a 15- video even a five second video feels painful so I guess what I have gradually learned like over the years is that you know if I cannot even focus on a video that's 15 seconds and maybe if you're listening to this podcast right now and most of my podcast episodes are between 10 to 20 minutes and if you can't even focus on what I'm saying, then how are you going to enjoy a career and really be happy and be satisfied and have an idea and to really plow through in your career, maybe for the next 10, 20 or even 30 years. I mean, I guess at a minimum, you're talking about 10 to 15 years if you're listening to the podcast and you're a young professional. Now, let me share with you the three steps that I have taken that in a way helped me quit social media in a more sustainable way that didn't affect my career, but also allowed me to have a little bit of an enjoyment and not the fear of missing out.

Now, the first step I've always applied is, personally, I don't believe in social media detox. Social media detox means that you just cut everything off and when was the last time you tried to go on a diet and to cut every of your favorite food out? I don't think that's sustainable at all and trust me, I've tried, it never worked. So the approach that I found a lot more helpful for me is quitting social media for majority of the day. So what I've done instead, like by reversing, by reverse engineering this process, what I've done is to actually tag social media time to my breakfast, lunch or dinner time. So for example, I made it very clear to myself that fine, if I'm at the workplace, I'm there to

work and not get distracted and make sure I don't get fired. So what I do is that in the morning when I'm having breakfast or I'm commuting to the office whether I'm in a train, in a bus or potentially driving a car, that's when I enjoy social media. Then the next slot would be then lunchtime. So lunchtime usually is maybe an hour, maybe one and a half hours. So that's when I will scroll because I'm having lunch and this is just something to relax and chill out. Then after that, maybe dinner time, I do use a little bit of social media as well, but just making sure that it's kind of tied to the times that I'm eating so that I don't over chill and rather over obsess or be too addicted. Now, personally for me at night,

I don't really use a lot of social media. I think at night is actually a lot better to listen to podcasts or watch videos on YouTube. And that's kind of like my personal preference so I can calm down, chill down and get ready for the next day. So as I was saying, the first approach really is like bucketizing the slots for social media time. And the, in my view, like what has really worked for me is really tying it to the eating time because like, you know, you're not going to be eating for like 20 hours, right?

But you can be scrolling social media for 10, 20 hours a day. So tying it to the food time kind of like gives me that bit of boundary, which I feel helps a lot. And then quitting social media all the other hours. So I found this to be super duper helpful for me. Then the second way where I manage social media all the other hours. So I found this to be super duper helpful for me. Then the second way where I manage social media is I only follow a few people that I want to learn from. So for

example, maybe I'm looking to improve my career right now and maybe if you're listening to the podcast that you are as well. So I will follow one or two people or mentors that I feel that, hey, I think their approach makes sense. So for example, if you're listening to this podcast right now and you think that whatever Mei Ping says makes sense, the advice that I'm giving is very practical, is strategic, and you feel like you want to try, personally, I would pick one or two, maybe even up to three experts to listen to, and I commit to following their advice for the next 30 days.

Because the thing I noticed in myself is that sometimes, you know, I would scroll on social media and I'm always looking for like the best advice. And maybe you are as well. And think about it like, how many career experts do you follow? How many health experts do you follow? How many relationship experts do you follow?

And if you're telling me that you're following hundreds if not thousands of people, then tell me how are you going to be sure that which advice is best for you? And are you ending up just reading, reading, reading this advice, but not actually implementing it? Or even worse, you might even get confused by all the different advice, because guess what? Every expert has their own perspective, has their own approach. So I found that for me, once I started following a lot of people, a lot of experts to be telling me or rather advising me or giving me perspective on what to do, the more confused I became. So I think there is a point where you started by looking for solutions and then it gradually transitions into

I am confused, right? So whenever you find yourself in that point, I think it's really helpful to pause and really look through all the people that you're following, all the accounts that you're following, and making sure that those are truly the experts that you are willing to commit to applying their approach and to really, you know, take into heart their advice at least for the next 30 days so that you can see results for yourself. So as an outcome of this, I guess, perspective change or rather mindset change on my part, I actually went through all the accounts that I followed, all the people that I followed, and I just unfollowed a bunch of people because I didn't feel that these were the people that would be helpful for me. In fact, the more tips I see or rather the more updates that I see from these people,

I feel even more anxious, I feel even more anxious, I feel even more nervous and I feel like I'm not doing anything right. So whenever I feel those negative feelings in myself, I will just go through that list again and just unfollow anybody that makes me feel bad. Now, there's of course a little caveat here in the sense of like, it doesn't mean that, you know, every time someone gives a different opinion that you potentially disagree with is a bad thing. It could just mean that you are maybe not mentally ready to listen to that advice. And maybe some of those, you know, you can give it a bit of time just to see what else the expert has to say. But I would say,

generally speaking, like 99% of the time, I would just unfollow because what's the point to make you, to make yourself feel bad, right? And the third way that I found super duper helpful to better manage this is really looking at certain pieces of content. And I actually personally don't consume that many tips or strategies that much in a day. So for example, as I said, if you are only following two to three experts, that means that you are not going to be for example, as I said, if you are only following two to three experts, that means that you are not going to be bombarded by every single thing, by every single person.

So that means that the content, the tips that I'm getting, the strategies, the lessons that I'm getting, are actually a lot more curated and a lot more specific than I would actually dedicate the time to apply what is being taught. And personally for me, I prefer longer form content because I do think sometimes on social media, what happens is

that you get like like billboard sort of like pop hits sort of content. So what I mean by that is you get, everything looks really easy on social media. Oh, you just don't have to do anything magically, you know, you're going to become the top performer magically, you can earn

six figures. I feel like that's not really realistic and yes I do want to hear about other people's success because I think it is very inspiring but personally I kind of prefer content from that's a bit more long form so podcasts you know YouTube videos that's a little bit more curated or maybe blog posts newsletters I really like as well because I feel like, yeah, we all like to see the successes and achievements, but I also want to get more depth, right? I think on social media, sometimes I think we all get confused and I mean, I definitely get confused is that I consume a lot, but I feel like I'm not getting the meat of things. Does it make sense? Like, I feel like I still don't really know the context. I don't know what exactly I need to consider. I don't really know how it's actually going to work. But I've already read like 100

posts for the day, which makes me feel productive, but actually I'm not productive. And to be honest, it took me a really, really long time to like try to get out of it. And that's definitely one of the lessons that I've learned as well. So tell me, how do you feel about social media? Does social media make you feel good, inspired? Or does social media make you feel bad, anxious and stressed out? So if you're watching on YouTube, make sure that you drop me a comment. I love to hear from you and really hear about your experiences as to how do you find or whether do you find social media affecting your career in a positive sense or negative sense? Does it affect how you behave at work and your focus at work? Positive sense or negative sense?

Definitely drop a comment and let me know. And also let me know out of the three steps that I've shared with you, which is the one that you're going to try first. Are you going to quit social media and only use it during specific breakfast, lunch and dinner time. Or the second method in which you are going to only follow two to three expert accounts and unfollow the rest. And the third one is whether you are going to slowly transition from binge-worthy fast food sort of content and tips into something that's a bit more in-depth, such as podcasts. So let me know out of step one to three,

which is the one that you're willing to try first, then drop it in the comments. Let me know. know and again if you have not subscribed to my career confessors newsletter which is really the best place that you can get exclusive content special offers as well as regular coaching from me every single week make sure that you subscribe at www.mayping.com aside from that i look forward to seeing you in next week's episode of the corporate survivor podcast and if you have not subscribed already make sure sure that you do so. Till then, all the best in your career.