Corporate Survivor with Mei Phing : Career Growth In The Corporate World - Ep21: Disconnect for your mental health.

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 for you as an extrovert, you shouldn't hate being alone and it's really okay. Hi, we are now at the midpoint of my five-day, five-part Extroverts Connect series,

Starting point is 00:00:46 and I'm really happy to have you here with me. So as an extrovert, you really enjoy the company of other people. You enjoy social interaction, be it a coffee catch-up, a meeting, a party, a get-together. So that really excites you and you really enjoy meeting different people and really talking to people. And I think that's really amazing. The thing about always putting yourself out there and always being at the forefront of social interactions and engagement with other people, there is a flip side to that.

Starting point is 00:01:31 And that is this. You rarely have time for yourself. And sometimes I wonder if it's by design. Because generally extroverts do enjoy time with people. And what is not being spoken enough is whether or not extroverts do enjoy time with people and what is not being spoken enough is whether or not extroverts truly feel okay to be alone. So fellow extroverts out there who are listening to my podcast, I would really love to hear from you. Do you just not enjoy being alone because that's the pull factor of spending time with people that energizes you? Or are you afraid of being alone and that's why you hate that?

Starting point is 00:02:15 Because there is a sense of discomfort and possibly overthinking and whatnot when you spend time to yourself? Or is it a social label that you might be seen as uncool, unhip, because you're not out there at the latest party this evening? So there could be different reasons why extroverts don't want to, maybe not don't want to, but don't really enjoy being alone. So let's talk about spending time alone. Because sometimes spending time alone does get a bit of a bad rap in the society today when we're all always chasing for the next cool and big thing. Spending time alone allows us to slow down, pause, reflect on the activities and the goals that we have and essentially, you know, what we have done and are those really the

Starting point is 00:03:17 right things for us. Sometimes when we're so busy out there chasing the next thing, we might reach the end of the road and then only realize that that's not what we want. This is something that's quite common in the society today and I'm also seeing the rise of people looking for life coaching, getting direction and guidance and whatnot. And I truly believe that if you only take some time to pause and take some time for yourself, that will really help you a lot in getting clarity. Also, I find that as an extrovert, because you're naturally very outward looking, so you look to your outward environment to get inspiration to get stimulated to get um you know the enthusiasm and the high energy there is also the constant need of like

Starting point is 00:04:14 wanting to get advice from other people and wanting to always seek guidance from outside. But the realization I want you to have for today is sometimes the real realization comes from the inside. And let me ask you this. Think about a time when you spoke to maybe a friend or your boss for an advice or for some guidance. After spending some time listening to that advice, how often did you actually implement? How often did you take that advice and say, okay, fine, I'm just going to do it? Or sometimes, you know, there's that nagging feeling of like, well, you know, I think what they say makes sense, but I just don't know if that's for me. I don't know if this is what I want. Maybe I need to go and ask someone else. So if you, when you find yourself in that situation,

Starting point is 00:05:18 I want you to stop. Stop going to other people'll it will reach a point where it's just enough of seeking guidance advice and tips already you just really have to go into yourself and find some clarity and find some peace and quiet so that you can decide for yourself and i talk a little bit about this in my You Need to Make Your Own Decisions podcast as part of my Top 10 Soft Skills series. So if you haven't checked it out, you can feel free to do so. The thing is this, right? Right now in this society, it's seen as uncool to go within. So when you hear words such as like meditation, you know, yoga is always tagged to some sort of hippie culture, but the background of yoga is never this, right? It's about creating clarity of thought through focus. So meditation is a very, very good exercise that I would highly recommend for you to quiet your

Starting point is 00:06:27 mind as an extrovert in fact meditation is something that's really brings benefits to anybody out there who is first willing to remove that negative connotation tag to meditation and give it a try so i've personally tried it for myself i mean i wouldn't say that like i'm an active practitioner because you know you do have to create time and have that structure and discipline to to meditate there are lots of meditation out there that are the guided ones they are also the ones um with you know pretty relaxing music so that you can actually have that space for yourself and that that is really critical so it does bring a lot of rewards being able to think clearly and really tell apart the the key important pieces from just the noise and if you're in the corporate world and in business or in business as an entrepreneur i'm sure you know by now that the business world the corporate world is a messy one

Starting point is 00:07:32 it's very dynamic it's fast paced a lot of things are happening at any time and the same time it's also very complex there are a lot of relationships, very matrix reporting lines, a lot of people that you have to deal with. Basically, lots going on. So sometimes as an extrovert, you get very hyped up when you see a lot of activities going on because it kind of feeds into your default preference that generates a lot of enthusiasm,

Starting point is 00:08:04 a lot of inspiration in terms of like the things that you can do, the projects that you can join and the tasks that you can support. And I think all of that is great. The thing is, like I said, you know, being alone and away from sometimes, you know, a lot of the busyness, the overwhelm, it pays massive dividends in the long run. Like I always say, it's so critical to go slow so that you can go fast. Otherwise, you may end up pushing, pushing, pushing forward because you're just spending a lot of time with people and at the end of the day, you might just hit a rock wall and ask yourself what actually happened. And sometimes, you know, being alone helps remove the overwhelm as well because sometimes when

Starting point is 00:08:58 you're overly stimulated, you find that you start overthinking, you'll start feeling overwhelmed to the point of inaction, which takes away from your natural default, which is a very inspired, energetic person, enthusiastic. So time alone actually is okay. Just because you're spending some time alone doesn't mean that you're a weirdo i mean if you're interested you can always check out one of my podcasts i think it was titled introverts are not weirdos where i talked about why spending time at home it's completely normal and it is normal because in life it's all about yin and yang, right? It's the duality of operating between the two spectrums. And this is the same in life, in corporate or in business.

Starting point is 00:09:55 So imagine that you're in a corporate world, right? There will be times where you just have to do the work on your own. But there will also be times where you have to be a part of a team and really contributing and supporting one another. So both will also allow you to demonstrate value. So imagine if you're part of a, if you're in corporate and every single day, you're always looking for someone to talk to all the time. How would that be seen? And I'm not sure if it'll completely be seen as entirely positive, but there's really something for you to ponder on.

Starting point is 00:10:31 So that's it. I know sometimes this bit, some people find it very difficult to absorb it, so I would leave you with a question and ask yourself, why do you hate being alone and what do you not enjoy about it? And kind of really go deep within your own personality and your own thoughts. And you might find something and you might learn something about yourself that you have never known before. Alright, so till next time bye

Corporate Survivor with Mei Phing : Career Growth In The Corporate World - Ep21: Disconnect for your mental health.

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