Corporate Survivor with Mei Phing : Career Growth In The Corporate World - Ep236: 3 ways I simplified my life to improve my career and work-life balance.

Episode Date: December 5, 2024

✅ Watch FREE WORKSHOP, newsletter, work with me ⮕ http://www.meiphing.com ✅ Corporate Survivor™ is the ultimate career course for 9-to-5 working professionals, just like *you*, who want to enhance corporate world mindset, skillset and strategy so you can NAVIGATE + GROW your career with clarity, confidence & opportunities... 🚀 ⚡ 📌 ABOUT THIS PODCAST: Welcome to Corporate Survivor with Mei Phing — ex-Corporate Leader turned Career Coach & Founder of The Corporate Survivor™. On this podcast, Mei Phing shares her corporate world insights, experiences and wisdom so you can grow your 9-5 career with clarity, confidence and opportunities. ✅ WEBSITE ⮕ https://www.meiphing.com ✅ FREE GUIDE ⮕ https://www.thecorporatesurvivor.co/freeguide ✅ NEWSLETTER ⮕ https://www.thecorporatesurvivor.co/mondays ✅ CAREER COURSE ⮕ https://www.thecorporatesurvivor.co ⚡

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 2016, I felt like I was in a mini mental health crisis because at that time, I was managing strategic projects. It was a highly intense job and I was taking on probably way more responsibilities

than I would have taken at that job title. And more importantly, I didn't really have a good way of managing my work-life balance and specifically how I'm handling my workload and the way that I'm also carving out time or lack of carving out time for my personal life, my friends and family. So in this episode, I want to share with you the three ways

that I've simplified my life to better my career and essentially having that work-life balance that I really wanted. And these are really, really important lessons that I picked up from 2015 and 2016 because I didn't do any of these things. However, after reflecting and after kind of like going through that phase of madness, I think these are the three things that I hope that you'll find it helpful, that you can definitely implement immediately to simplify your life and simplify your mind so that you can actually concentrate, you can focus, and you can gain so much more clarity to achieve the career goals and the work performance goals that you actually want. So the first way that I simplified my life is to have a work uniform. So what do I mean by a work

uniform? Now, one of the things that, not even one of the things, like imagine every single day that you wake up to before you even go to work, right? So that's Monday, Tuesday, Wednesday, Thursday, Friday. So that's five days that you need to dress yourself. And one of the struggles I see in many people, and this is something that I personally felt as well, is opening my wardrobe and wondering to myself, what should I wear to work today? Oh, I see a lot of clothes.

You know, which is the one I should pick up today? When was the last time I wore this dress? When was the last time I wore this dress? When was the last time I wore this color? And, you know, which is the top and which skirt and blah, blah, blah. So essentially, that is actually a lot of decision fatigue at the beginning of the day. It's like, there's already a level of anxiety, but I haven't even walked into the office yet.

It's just literally at like 7 a.m. in the morning. And I find it super duper stressful. And obviously, I was really going to walk into the office and every single day is a highly stressful, highly intense job. But I find myself getting that little bit of anxiety. It didn't feel a lot, but imagine it repeating every single day. So that was something that I gradually realized that it was an additional layer of stress

that was basically pointless. So what I did was, I had a set of what I consider work uniform. So at the time, I was working at Standard Chartered. So at Standard Chartered on Fridays, you can just wear whatever you want, but there are four days of office wear. So what I did was I bought a dress.

It's the exact same design. It was only in navy and black. So basically, I have eight dresses, right? So that's like week one and week two. I had eight dresses that looked exactly the same. It's just in black and navy. And I rotate them every single day. So every single day when I open my closet or my wardrobe,

I didn't have to think about all these colors and all this decision and stuff like that. I just picked out a dress that looks exactly like all the other dresses in my closet. It's the work-appropriate color or other color that I didn't have to think about. Was it red color when I wore this yellow dress and stuff like that? It didn't have any of that.

And I found it super duper helpful. So that was basically my work uniform for the next few years as I was working at Santa Chartered. And I felt that it was quite easy in the sense of I didn't have to waste the additional mental energy of like thinking about oh should I go for this or that early in the morning like all the brain juice is reserved for my actual job which I found super helpful this is something that you can consider as well like maybe in for your wardrobe or maybe for women like makeup and stuff like that I mean

I can't give much advice on makeup because I don't use makeup but it's just something to think about if let's say you find that there's just a lot of heaviness and a lot of like decision making in the morning or right before you step into the office it's like think about what are the activities that you're doing in the morning before you actually step into your office before you start your working hour and those are the things that you want to make it as easy, as streamlined as possible so that you can start your day more positive, more relaxed, and a lot calmer, which I found super duper helpful for me.

Now, moving on to the second way that I've simplified my life to ensure that I have work-life balance is assigning very specific rules as to the timings that I'm actually going to enjoy my personal life. Now, if you're in a very intense job, or maybe you're in a job where it's normal to work late, or maybe you are used to working late all the time, or even on weekends, I found it very important to set a specific rule that I know that I need to switch off my computer

and step away from my workplace. So I'll give you an example. As I said, I used to switch off my computer and step away from my workplace. So I'll give you an example. As I said, I used to work in a bank. It was a very highly intense job. Basically, I was in Singapore, Asia timing, but then we have colleagues in London and New York. And basically, it could be a 24-7 kind of job if I don't stop. So what I did was I kind of set very specific rules to myself and I told myself that if I have't stop. So what I did was I kind of like set very specific rules to myself and I told

myself that if I have to work late, right, meaning like beyond six o'clock, if I have to work late, I'm okay to do that on Monday, Tuesday and Wednesday, but Thursdays, Fridays, I will not work late. So in order for me to make that happen, right, meaning follow the rules, the rules for Meping's personal life, the rules for Meping's personal life, in order for Meping's personal life to exist, I started scheduling dinners or catch-ups with my friends on Thursdays and Fridays. And to make sure that I'm not committing to working OT,

working long hours because I didn't make any other plans, right? So I started scheduling, you know, whatever I wanted to do, like dinners with my friends, you know, yoga, exercise or whatever, I schedule it on Thursday and Fridays. And whenever, you know, someone asked me, oh, maybe can you stay today? I was like, okay, today I can't stay on Thursdays because I have plans. And I can say, then I'll tell them that, you know, if let's say there's something else, right, maybe in the future we can schedule it on Tuesday. So I kind of like make it extremely clear that, hey, this is the day that I have plans, right? I am going to prioritize my personal life.

So I found it extremely easy because otherwise what happened in the past was I would feel bad. I'm like, if I see other people working late in the office, then I feel like I want to stay with them, which I know is not a very healthy thinking, but that was the natural thing that I felt that I wanted to do as a team player, which is not a very healthy thinking but that was the natural thing that i felt that i

wanted to do as a team player which is not a good thing but as i said i found the um the little bit of effort to actually schedule in right schedule in my personal time and actually by choosing and blocking out like certain days and slots that say okay this is actually where i'm gonna actually enjoy my personal life and to make it happen um I found it actually super duper helpful. And I never felt guilty after that because I knew that like, okay, I have very specific slots, specific days that if I need to go over and above, I'm fine. But there are also some specific days where I have to prioritize myself. I have to also prioritize my own work-life balance. I have to prioritize my mental health.

Otherwise, it's not happening. So I decided to do that. And after a while, it was fine. Like I felt that I had that routine, which is a very positive, you know, sort of like work-life routine that went on. And then my colleagues also gradually understood. And then they started saying that, okay, you know, don't schedule meetings with Mei Ping on like Thursday evenings

because she's not going to be around, which worked out as a win-win situation so it ended up really well and finally the third tip of how i simplified my life to improve my career to better my career is to declutter is to declutter because i strongly believe that if you are in a chaotic environment at home then that is going to are in a chaotic environment at home, then that is going to translate into a chaotic environment at your workplace. Because whatever that you see externally around you, your environment, it will mess up your mind too. So for example, if your physical environment is very messy,

it's going to be very difficult to have a clear mind because it's so messy, it's chaotic all the time. So how can you truly focus, right? So it's kind of like running into a circus and then to be able to say, okay, I can still focus 100%. Obviously not because there's going to be distraction. There's just going to be stuff, stimulation all around. So if your environment is so messy, then it's very likely that you'll find that layer of anxiety that's going to be there all the time. But you can't pinpoint where the anxiety is coming from. It's like you don't feel fully comfortable when you're back home. You don't feel fully comfortable in that environment. And the worst

thing if it's a home environment. But again, like I said, you can't pinpoint why you don't feel like fully calm after your office hours and actually going home. But that layer is still there. So I challenge you to

kind of like think about your entire environment and if there's any space that you can declutter to make your environment not necessarily cleaner, but I think like less distracting and really only have things that you are actually using and you actually want.

Because for me, I found it super duper helpful because sometimes like when you're so busy at work, and that was kind of how I felt too, when I was extremely busy at work, the last thing I wanted to do was to go and manage my stuff right and the worst thing is that like when you're really stressed out at your job the thing that you might want to do is to go and shop for more stuff like to buy more things and the things then accumulate into a bunch of stuff clutter and that actually creates more chaos

around you so that's something that I definitely found happened to me. Like I said, this is all in like around 2016. So what I did, what I did then, and it's actually a habit that stayed with me up until today was to do a massive declutter. Just got rid of stuff. I got rid of stuff that I didn't use. I didn't really like, I was never going to use again. And these are the things that is just everywhere. And now I would say that like overall, like probably since the day I started in 2016, I probably got rid of about maybe 70, 70, 80% of my stuff. And that has given me so much more clarity that has given me so much more focus. And interestingly, how it helped in my career is that it kind of like trained this level of analytical thinking and decision-making, which is kind of interesting. And why I say this is because

when you're in the process of decluttering, there's actually a lot of analysis and decision-making skills that's being trained because you're actually looking at that item, whether it's a piece of clothes, maybe like I said, it's a piece it's a clothes um maybe it's like i said it's a piece of clothes or it's a bag or it's a shoe or whatever it can be whatever right you're actually looking at the thing and asking yourself that okay actually is this something that i will use that is it in good condition when was the last time i used this right do i ever want to use this again right is it still aligned with like whatever that

i want to do in the future and do i want want to still keep this closet, blah, blah? They're ultimately coming to the decision point of like, okay, I'm going to get rid of it. I'm going to get, I'm going to donate this or I'm actually going to keep it and next time I'm going to use it and so forth. So that's actually a lot of thought process that goes through

and I found it super duper helpful because it kind of like keeps me sharp. So like I said, it's not just the focus point, but I think it does train that little bit of decision making as well. So I would definitely challenge you. And this is also a conversation that I had with one of my prior clients recently, which is if you find that your environment is in a mess and your mind is, you find it very difficult to focus, you're distracted all the time. You feel like you can't follow through a certain decision, then you really want to think about

your environment and how that is actually impacting negatively the way that you are processing your thoughts to the point of actually making decision to be able to focus at your job. Just because your life and your environment, maybe there's an opportunity to simplify a little bit further.

So these are the three, I would say, pretty unconventional things that I've definitely done to simplify my life and in a way also help to simplify as well as enhance my career. Because I strongly believe that

the person that you are in your personal life is usually the same person you are at your office at your job so if you are disorganized in real life right in your personal life the chances of you being disorganized at your job is extremely high right if you're someone who is very decisive in your personal life the chances of you being extremely decisive at your job when it comes to anything that is work-related or career-related, usually there is a pattern as well, right? Whether it's a good pattern or negative pattern, I leave it to you. However, I hope that you find these tips super helpful to help you to move forward. And by just simplifying a couple of things in your life, you will be able to simplify a couple of things in your life you will you will be able

to see a lot of benefits in your career as well so i hope you find this useful and if you haven't followed the corporate survivor podcast make sure that you follow on youtube spotify apple and all other podcasting platforms and i'll see you in the next episode bye