Corporate Survivor with Mei Phing : Career Growth In The Corporate World - Ep71: Work anxiety as a fresh graduate. What to do.

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.meiping.com. This is Mei Ping, your corporate leader turned career coach. I hope you enjoy, like and subscribe. Hello everyone and welcome back to another episode of my Got a Ping podcast, a podcast that you should listen to if you're serious about growing your corporate career. So we are in my 30-day client success story series where I share with you

Starting point is 00:00:43 clients who have worked with me either in a one-on-one capacity or join my training workshops and really able to see positive changes in their career so it doesn't matter right if you work with me directly one session three sessions six months 12 months or even somebody who has joined my workshop before this series is really serves to share with you some of the positive things that you can take away just like some of my clients have so today's story I want to share with you is a client who is pretty much a workshop participant but he has been following my content for some time

Starting point is 00:01:21 so this client is a fresh graduate and now has worked for less than six months. So one of the struggles of a lot of fresh graduates I noticed while talking to a lot of my connections on LinkedIn and my friends and peers is the idea of learning so i noticed that there is this habit of consistently wanting to learn but not necessarily taking action so for this particular client of mine um he has been consuming a lot of content um not just my content but any you know learning soft skills of content for some time but interestingly when he joined my Boost Your Confidence at Work, the two-week training where I actually went through more detail about understanding personalities, how to identify skills gap, and really what are some of the steps

Starting point is 00:02:16 that you can take to improve some of the core foundational skills such as communication, listening, time management management and critical thinking. What was interesting is that at the end of the training, after two weeks, right, he actually dropped me a really long message and he said that he really appreciated the workshop because it now gave him a much better idea on solutions. So what has happened in the past? Apparently, he said that because he started working, so he consistently

Starting point is 00:02:45 found himself very anxious so as you guys know if you are someone who is fairly young in your career or you are you've just graduated or about to graduate there is a general sense of like anxiety excitement but anxiety at the same time so for this particular client it's the same as well initially he was just looking forward to graduate and then after that once he found a job which is after the whole process of job search he was successful got a job pretty good company but then now the anxiety starts because that's when expectation versus reality of what is happening in the corporate world versus what you are taught

Starting point is 00:03:25 in university or even the leadership programs that you took in university none of it can actually compare to a corporate job because it's not the same and it depends on the kind of company or maybe the size of the company your boss your boss's experience all those other things so so he told me that he consistently found himself very stressed out and he always found himself not able to meet the deadline that's one thing but he's also afraid to communicate that he cannot meet the deadline or potentially couldn't meet the deadline so what he said was oh like how do i tell my senior that i um cannot finish work? Will my senior be angry? Will that affect my reputation?

Starting point is 00:04:09 Will I be seen as stupid or will I be seen as somebody who's incompetent? So I mean, I can understand that. I mean, image is very important, especially for those of you who did do really well in school, whether academically or you have taken up some kind of leadership positions where you're in the university. But what was very interesting is that actually

Starting point is 00:04:31 after the workshop, he told me that right now, he in fact managed to finish his work, like, I think, three or four days ahead of time. And now he's actually looking forward to a new day at the workplace which i thought was really interesting because it's just a two-week sort of like transformation and i know that he's been reading i don't know like scouring through content for a very long time but i think what to me the real transformation for him right is from being in a i'm so afraid i'm so anxious people will be angry at me basically all these three emotions right these three feelings can

Starting point is 00:05:14 all be summed into the feeling of like not being in control not being in control and this is actually quite a common feeling particularly for young younger professionals because when you're in school you're in university you're pretty much responsible for your own results even if you're in a group project right what is being allocated to you is kind of within your control generally speaking so when he started working he realized that oh this feeling of being out of control is so uncomfortable. And, you know, the fact that I couldn't meet expectations, you know, maybe there is something wrong with me. So this is not necessarily true, but I think the real empowerment that he got is now he

Starting point is 00:05:56 got the behind the scenes insight of what management leaders and bosses are thinking about. So I did share quite a bit during the training as well, like my personal experiences in the corporate world for a long time. So I think that insight he got opened his mind. So sometimes, people think that, oh, I need to spend hours and hours and hours trying

Starting point is 00:06:24 to learn something but they may not necessarily realize or rather focus on the root cause of the problem so particularly for this client right rather this participant in my workshop his foundational problem is really it's not so much about him not wanting to put in the effort or he's being lazy. Actually, all these are not true. But his main challenge actually is still around the expectation versus reality, right? In university versus in the working world. What is the behavior that is acceptable in university and how much and how can those be translated in the working world?

Starting point is 00:07:04 And second thing is really understanding people dynamics at the workplace. Because like I said, when you are in the university, a lot of times you are responsible for yourself. Your work does not necessarily affect most people's work. But at the workplace, it's actually kind of different. You really need to be a team player and i think that was something that he wanted to do but he actually didn't know how to do it if that makes sense because you you can you know tell everybody tell everybody that you're a team player but when you cannot finish your work or you are not doing your work in the right way you are not

Starting point is 00:07:41 communicating update to your seniors you are not you know delivering work in a way that is expected actually these are really tangible ways where you are technically not doing your part as a team member or rather you are not very effective in doing your part as a team member if that makes sense so i think that was like the real big realization for him when he attended the two-week training um you know the my boost boost your confidence and soft skills at work training where he realized that oh actually there are just so many other dynamics that i should really be aware of and like i'm putting in effort great but actually if the effort is not in the right direction actually it's not

Starting point is 00:08:24 really a good use of time and he could really see it because he really started working for four months but he's not seeing himself improving and that is actually a pretty demotivating feeling and actually that is the reason why a lot of young people end up changing a job actually it's not because the job is not suitable for them but it really comes down to two again fundamental problems similar to what this client experienced number one is the expectation versus reality issue which i actually go through a lot more detail to dispel the myth in my training but the second issue is really understanding people dynamics particularly your boss your manager or a seat your your senior so not being able to understand that kind of personality and team and people dynamics

Starting point is 00:09:09 will cause a lot, a lot of problems for you. And obviously, it trickles down to like your ability to communicate, think through the purpose of the work, organize your work, deliver on time, da, da, da, da, da. It all kind of like goes downhill at the same time. Okay. So anyway, this is just a really, really quick story to share with you guys that, right, the real success for this client is really recognizing that there is a difference between university versus the working world and really the importance of understanding dynamics,

Starting point is 00:09:41 personalities, and really corporate culture, which sometimes people don't pay much attention to especially younger professionals when you know the first three months right two three months they're so excited they forget to really focus on some of these foundational things that can set them up for success so that's why after my two-week training right this client came back to me and said, oh, actually not right now, I feel like I'm more in control. And I'm actually able to finish my work on time. And now I'm looking forward to, you know, to the next day to the next week, which is a complete turnaround, because initially, he was just saying that, I don't even know, how am I

Starting point is 00:10:20 going to, you know, face my senior tomorrow, I don't even know, right, how am I going to face my senior tomorrow? I don't even know, right? How am I going to deliver next week? So a lot of anxiety. So actually, it's moving from anxiety to strategy. It's not hope right now because he knows what to do. He's really able to be aware, understand the foundation of dynamics already. So really moving from, like I said, anxiety to strategy. So that's it for today's story.

Starting point is 00:10:43 And I hope that this story inspires you as well as empowers you to think to really understand you know recognize that you do not necessarily right have to get long-term help right sometimes it's just maybe some blockage in your mindset and like i mean this for this particular client it's just a two-week training and he really gained so much from it so So it's about making sure that you set the foundation right so that you can, again, similar to my client, move from anxiety to strategy.

Starting point is 00:11:13 So with that, I will end this episode and I definitely hope that this episode has inspired you and more importantly, empowered you to move yourself from anxiety to real strategy for career growth. So with that, I'll see you guys in the next episode in my 30-Day Client Success Story Series. Bye!

Corporate Survivor with Mei Phing : Career Growth In The Corporate World - Ep71: Work anxiety as a fresh graduate. What to do.

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