S1:E11 Overcoming Indecisiveness (Part 3 on Guilt)

[: 00:00:00

[00:00:23] Things were going well. And I remember being really uncomfortable. And feeling like, when is this all going to go away? And it didn't go away. And so do you know what I did? I self sabotaged. I said to myself in the kitchen, I remember looking at the stove going, I am bored. And I look back now and I understand what happened.

[: 00:00:44

[00:01:05] Welcome to Asians breaking ceilings. I'm Jeanny Chai, founder of Bamboomyth.Com and confidence coach for Asian American female professionals. The goal of this podcast is to ignite your confidence, to empower you to overcome imposter syndrome. So you can finally break that career ceiling and get what you want in life.

[: 00:01:26

[00:01:49] So we're going to give you some strategies on how to finally overcome this and realize this is not a way to live to your best potential. If you want to find out what your biggest roadblock to success is, you can take the free assessment that I created for you for Asian Americans at the show notes.

[: 00:02:07

[00:02:32] Hello, ceiling breakers. Welcome back for another episode. I want to ask you. When you were growing up, what was the general environment of your home? Did you feel like you had freedom, you lived in peace, you woke up excited for life, you were happy, you were free of worry, and that things were relatively easy?

[: 00:02:55

[00:03:20] A lot of us grew up in poverty, and we knew our parents were stressed out and tired, and so we watched them be sad or depressed and picked up a lot of their emotions. If you grew up in poverty or chaos, You're more likely to remain comfortable in that condition than you are when there's peace and joy and freedom.

[: 00:03:42

[00:04:03] And it's almost uncomfortable, because I know many of us I've talked to have said, it's almost uncomfortable when things are going well, because, and then you'll say one of two things, I feel like the sky is going to fall, when's the next bad thing that's going to happen? Or when's the next shoe going to drop?

[: 00:04:20

[00:04:37] I talked to many people from Ukraine, Romania, et cetera, where there is a feeling of if we're lucky, if things are going well and we don't know when that luck is going to run out. The problem with this is that as humans, whatever we're used to as children tends to be the pattern that solidifies, that hardens.

[: 00:04:57

[00:05:19] And I wanted to have awareness and realize that a lot of the things that we overthink about. I'm going to share many different categories of that today. You don't have to take that on anymore because you're no longer living in a time where there is anxiety. There is scarcity. Now there is danger. There is a lot of trauma.

[: 00:05:40

[00:05:58] And so I hear this many, many times. If a parent went bankrupt or you went through poverty, you're living in constant fear that's going to happen again. If you We're a big disappointment or something happened in your life where you disappointed someone you're afraid that's going to happen again if you made a mistake in your past and now you're afraid the same thing's going to happen or if you lost a job you're so afraid again that you'll lose another one and so we think it's going to repeat itself we feel history is going to repeat itself and our brain is so sure that we feel anxious when it doesn't repeat itself and we almost self sabotage we almost make that you Thing happened because we're so uncomfortable when we are not experiencing the same pattern over and over again.

[: 00:06:41

[00:07:00] Stress can cause cancer. Stress is meant to be a signal, an alarm, where we can fix something and, and feel better. It's not meant to be a week long, month long, year long kind of thing that you're just used to. But I know for us, many of us growing up that way, you know, from kindergarten 18, That's how we lived and so that pattern is now stuck in your brain and in order to change that it completely is possible so don't worry that it's genetics or your DNA or your personality if you are a worrier or you have anxiety or you feel guilt a Lot for the decisions you're making and you don't want to disappoint people.

[: 00:07:38

[00:07:58] My mom was the first of, I think, eight children. My dad was the middle child of like 18 different siblings. And so I have a lot of relatives. And it always felt like in an Asian family, you're only allowed to be as happy as the least successful, unhappy relative, right? Like everybody is supposed to go and help the one uncle or whoever that's having a hard time and you know, life has been hard to him and we have to, we have to help him and if anyone else is too happy or celebrating their life, it almost feels like you're being selfish.

[: 00:08:31

[00:08:48] There's always somebody who's more miserable than you. And if you're not allowed to be happy because they're miserable, well, no one's going to be happy. And so, do you understand what I'm saying? You have a cycle, don't you know? Don't you see in your family where there's a constant source of stress or shame or embarrassment or, difficulty.

[: 00:09:06

[00:09:26] If you were the first one, I've heard people say, instead of feeling proud, instead of feeling a sense of accomplishment and happiness, I felt guilty. Right, that none of my other relatives got the chance. I was the only one. Why did I get so lucky? And there's this guilt, happiness guilt, which again, causes more stress and doesn't do you any good.

[: 00:09:50

[00:10:07] My father was one of those people who he was the only one of his brothers and sisters who came to the United States. And as a result, even though he was a graduate student and we weren't making a lot of money, he felt obligated to give everyone else money. And that turned out to be a big fight.

[: 00:10:23

[00:10:51] You feel selfish enjoying all the good fortune on your own. How does this affect you? Possibly many of us are in difficult situations right now at work and maybe your company has seen some difficult days. And people have been leaving, for various reasons. And what I hear oftentimes, very often, especially the Asian Americans, is that we are the last ones to leave.

[: 00:11:14

[00:11:40] Or the reason is because I'm not a quitter or I can't let my new hires down because I just hired them two months ago. And if I were to leave, it'd be like betraying them, right? That is guilt. resulting in overthinking, which means that we don't put ourselves first, right? We end up being the martyr. We end up being the ones who will take a hit.

[: 00:12:06

[00:12:28] You're probably doing way too much work and not delegating enough, and so instead of feeling guilt for leaving, I'd recommend that you start looking at what do I want? Right? The antidote to guilt is to be able to say, what do I want for my health, for my career, for my security, for my happiness? And so many of us, our meter is so far off.

[: 00:12:55

[00:13:22] put you in a better position, or you make decisions that get you out of difficulty, but other people stay there. You're going to get better and better at this. You're going to get better at guilting yourself. And over time, what we have is now a neurological problem where You have built connections in your brain where you automatically, you automatically will go to anxiety, sadness, even depression if you think about letting other people down.

[: 00:13:52

[00:14:09] Families where. They have banded together and said, you know, one kid is the ugly black sheep or one kid's skin coloring is too dark and she's not pretty, or this kid is the the dumb one. There's so many families that will outwardly talk like this and damage. And really emotionally abuse one member that person really needs to leave in order to heal and recover and yet in the name of family, we all stick together.

[: 00:14:35

[00:15:01] If you have been beat up, By your relatives and your family doesn't protect you, the same thing is going to happen to you at work because again, what we are used to as young children ends up being the exact comfort zone that we're going to attract and create for ourselves when we grow up. And so this is not your fault.

[: 00:15:21

[00:15:43] Again, this is not your fault. Guilt could actually be addictive. Many of us who are used to chaos and used to pain and suffering and blame and stress, there's an adrenaline rush, that is accompanying the way that we live. And when we don't have that adrenaline rush and things are actually easy and peaceful and calm, We go into withdrawal.

[: 00:16:08

[00:16:36] What are some? characteristics and Habits of yours that you have learned about over thinking putting other people first putting yourself last feeling guilty for receiving Feeling guilty for having too much happiness or being happier than other people. Maybe they'd be jealous because of your good fortune.

[: 00:16:59

[00:17:14] Before we continue part two of our program, if you'd like to know what your biggest roadblock to success is, go ahead and take the free 12 question quiz I've created for you. It's in the show notes called free assessment. And if you'd like to follow me on Instagram, I will keep you notified of when new episodes come up.

[: 00:17:35

[00:17:52] Many of us, including myself, used to feel like if it's too easy, you're getting away with something. If it's too easy, you're being lazy. And so we'll pick things that are the hardest. What I mean is that we'll pick the most difficult projects in which the clients have been known. Right. To be a total pain in the ass and we'll do it.

[: 00:18:11

[00:18:31] Right. You wonder why this has been so difficult. And the reason is because you pick projects and you pick people and things that really don't set you up for success. And my dear ceiling breakers, this is an internal problem. It's not that everywhere you go, problems find you, but somehow in your upbringing, in your environment, you have learned that easy.

[: 00:18:55

[00:19:15] When they're disrespectful, when you put up with doing things that are boring, when you put up with things that are way beneath what your capabilities are, right? When you put up day after day with toxic personalities or political silos that don't get you anywhere, when you put up with a culture that is discriminatory, that kind of bad, no one needs to put up with.

[: 00:19:38

[00:19:58] Because again, happiness oftentimes is not our motivating determinator, right? We don't make decisions based on happiness. Many times we make decisions based on what we call being practical, right? Or responsible. And I want to address this next because many times I've heard people say, you know, I'd rather be doing X, Y, Z.

[: 00:20:18

[00:20:37] I will stay in this job that gives me stress. That doesn't feel like fulfillment. That is just something that pays the bills because I want to be responsible. I want to be practical and I don't want to hurt my family or let them down. Well, the difficulty of thinking this way... Is that I call it overthinking, who's to say that if you got a better job or started your side hustle that you wouldn't be full of happiness and joy and inspiration that would actually even influence your family more, that you could afford more things in your life and have a better impact on the world you live in.

[: 00:21:14

[00:21:32] So many of our parents, mothers growing up, especially, did you feel like they had this competition almost as to who has more stress in their life? Are they, I, yeah, you know, my child, this and my uncle, that, and I've got this problem and that problem. It's almost a competition to see who has more stress.

[: 00:21:48

[00:22:06] Right. About not being lazy. About being practical, responsible, being, no time to have fun. That is a big theme I see as well. Somehow we create responsible and practical with having no fun. And so many of us know what we like. We would like to play volleyball. Many of us want to travel. We want to go to Australia and New Zealand and Europe, all those places we haven't seen.

[: 00:22:28

[00:22:54] And if you, if you think like this, and this is how you make decisions, right? Year after year, guess what? This is how your whole life is going to be. It's going to be one big sacrifice of you making decisions based on guilt. And I used to live like that. And let me tell you all the areas that I used to feel guilty about.

[: 00:23:17

[00:23:38] And we had one pair of shoes we wore for years and years. And so it felt really bad to buy something new. You've probably heard of my previous episodes. I used to buy everything at garage sales. Not because I liked them, but because they were cheap. And because I would feel guilty buying something at full price, right?

[: 00:23:55

[00:24:22] And I feel bad. I feel a little bit guilty that they're not experiencing that freedom. And then it causes me to almost shrink in my business. I don't go out there and get even more success because I feel they'll be even more jealous or feel more bad. And so I'm making decisions based on random people. I don't even know being jealous of me.

[: 00:24:40

[00:24:57] But you know what, what I say, it's not your monkey, not your circus. If your company has such a position that is so bad that nobody wants it, you don't deserve that. It's not your problem. And so we need to cut those ties when they're motivated by guilt, because you know what? No one's gonna watch out for you if you don't, no one is gonna just hand you a box of happiness if you don't start learning how to make decisions based on having freedom, allowing yourself to have joy, allowing yourself to have a sense of fulfillment and definitely allowing yourself to no longer live with anxiety and worry and thinking about other people's opinions or your reputation because of something you do that you think is gonna be selfish.

[: 00:25:46

[00:26:11] There's this nurse who worked with hospice patients. And she wrote a wonderful article that you can Google and look up. I'll put the resource in the show notes. And it's the, it's the called The regrets of the dying. And the number one thing that everybody said was not, I wish I'd worked more hours at work.

[: 00:26:28

[00:26:48] And again, if you look at the closest people that you grew up with, did they know how to be happy? And if the answer is no, you deserve happiness. And you learning and teaching this to any children you have and the people around you is going to make a bigger positive impact than you guilting yourself and thinking that you're making choices for them when in fact it doesn't really affect them that much, what you do.

[: 00:27:15

[00:27:36] We're doing something that's hurting us for the sake of other people that it may or may not actually affect. We're afraid of calling out other people's mistakes. We're afraid of making other people look bad at work, and so we'll hide things under the rug. In, in countries, China, Japan, Korea, Singapore, perhaps there is a precedent for that.

[: 00:28:01

[00:28:34] You're going to be blamed for it. And so one of the tips I teach my clients right away is if you're not set up for success, start talking about that. Start letting people know the expectations are really low that this is going to succeed. Or I need this headcount. I need this support in order for us to get appropriate positive results.

[: 00:28:54

[00:29:13] And so we need to, we are allowed to change our mindset on this. We're allowed to give ourselves permission to have freedom, to use our intelligence, to use our compassion, to use our leadership skills, to be who we are without being afraid of disappointing others, of hurting their feelings. Those are all guilt motivated actions.

[: 00:29:35

[00:30:03] If you were not afraid of feeling guilty and you gave yourself a chance to be happy, how might your life look in the next six months? Would you delegate a lot of the tasks that you don't like? Would you have a conversation with your supervisors and your team about modifying your role so that it actually brings you joy?

[: 00:30:25

[00:30:51] Would you be starting that book? Would you be doing something for yourself and having, spending more money delegating stuff that other people can do, such as the chores, such as the cooking, such as childcare, so that you have a chance to live right now, not when you retire, but a chance. To have joy every week through activities that you love, through seeing people that you care about through giving yourself the rest, rejuvenation, and comfort that you deserve every week, not just once in a while when there's no work, if you didn't feel guilty anymore, but other people's opinions.

[: 00:31:33

[00:31:54] Cause the reality is you might be too old and creaky to do a lot of these things. And the reality is if you don't practice happiness and joy now, you will not know how to be happy and joyful. When you retire, you'll just look for the same amount of stress and anxiety and chaos that you've been used to all your life.

[: 00:32:11

[00:32:39] What's good for everybody. And it's not necessarily about who is suffering the most, who is giving up the most, who is taking one for the team most. Those kinds of actions don't lead to success for everybody.

[: 00:33:00

[00:33:36] Next week in episode 12, we're going to discuss how to keep your confidence up before you need to meet someone who feels like they are your superior, or perhaps someone who you feel is a bit more qualified than you.

[: 00:33:54

[00:34:05] If you've enjoyed this episode, please do give me a positive five star rating on Spotify or iTunes, wherever you're listening to this. And more importantly, please share this with your company, your friends, any Asian Americans who you want to support so that we can all become ceiling breakers and experience authentic success without the stress.

[: 00:34:25