Latest / You're Overqualified Podcast - Career and Leadership Strategies for Women / 102. You Know What to Do, You Just Aren't Doing It.

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102. You Know What to Do, You Just Aren't Doing It. · You're Overqualified Podcast - Career and Leadership Strategies for Women

• 0:08
  Hi, I'm Danny Tan, and if you are here, you are in the right
• 0:11
  place. Welcome to the Pivot and
• 0:13
  Promotion podcast where we say forget the rules because they
• 0:16
  weren't written for us. I'm Danny Tan, I'm your host as
• 0:19
  well as career and leadership coach and a proud advocate for
• 0:22
  redefining what success and leadership looks like.
• 0:24
  And here's what I know. You can lead at any level, you
• 0:27
  can pivot at any age, and you can make moves that feel right
• 0:30
  for you. Whether you're climbing the
• 0:32
  perfect ladder, starting something completely new, or
• 0:34
  just figuring out your next step.
• 0:36
  I've got you covered with strategies, stories, and
• 0:38
  straight up inspiration. So let's make some moves.
• 0:46
  Welcome to today's episode. We're going to talk about, you
• 0:48
  know what to do, you just aren't doing it.
• 0:51
  So at times we may say, oh, you know, I'm not sure.
• 0:54
  I'm not clear. I don't know what's the next
• 0:57
  right step. But in reality, you do know what
• 1:00
  to do, you just aren't doing it. And I'm definitely going to talk
• 1:03
  about it in the lens today of being a founder or an
• 1:06
  entrepreneur and say, you know, there are a couple things that
• 1:09
  have been coming up. So the first thing I would say
• 1:12
  is you are clear on your strategy, but you're just not
• 1:15
  executing on it. And So what is the reason why?
• 1:18
  So you have mapped out the vision, you know your
• 1:21
  priorities, you even blocked out time on your calendar.
• 1:24
  But the action just keeps stalling, especially on the
• 1:27
  projects that may require things that are uncomfortable like
• 1:30
  visibility risk or some big leadership decision.
• 1:34
  And so this isn't a gap in strategy.
• 1:35
  You're not missing more strategy.
• 1:37
  It's actually a resistance pattern.
• 1:39
  So I want to like highlight that It's not a gap in your strategy,
• 1:43
  it's a resistance pattern. That's why we say, you know what
• 1:47
  you need to do, you know what you want to do, you just aren't
• 1:49
  doing it. And so here's an example.
• 1:51
  I have a Co founder. She knew that her next step was
• 1:54
  to delegate OPS to a new team member, either to hire somebody
• 1:58
  or to figure out who else on her team could do the OPS and
• 2:01
  systems piece within her business.
• 2:03
  So she could really look at the high level strategy that needed
• 2:06
  to be done for her business to move forward and continue to
• 2:08
  grow. She just had a hard time letting
• 2:10
  it go. She kept jumping into the
• 2:12
  day-to-day tasks that needed to essentially be handed off to a
• 2:15
  team or even a new hire. And so I kept saying to her
• 2:19
  like, hey, you know what you want to focus on?
• 2:21
  You've been coming in like week after week talking about how you
• 2:24
  want to be focusing on new partnerships, new
• 2:26
  collaborations, developing the product line.
• 2:29
  But you keep going back into these day-to-day tasks of like
• 2:32
  operations and systems. And is this working?
• 2:34
  Is that working? Is that really going to help
• 2:36
  drive you forward? And also is that like where your
• 2:38
  zone of genius is? And so when we had that
• 2:41
  conversation, we kind of had to say, like, OK, if you know what
• 2:43
  needs to be done and you keep doing the same thing, let's kind
• 2:46
  of talk about what how would you explain or name why you don't
• 2:51
  want to let it go or let somebody else take it on?
• 2:53
  And the biggest thing that came up was it was just a discomfort
• 2:56
  of letting go, right? And also the fear of not being
• 3:00
  needed in this in this capacity of being the person who is the
• 3:04
  go to the problem solver is needed to solve these things.
• 3:07
  And so we had to kind of like, name that and say, like, yeah,
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  it's uncomfortable and scary to let something go and to give it
• 3:12
  to somebody else and feel like, OK, like I actually have a
• 3:15
  little bit of different kind of pressure on me of being able to
• 3:19
  focus on the strategy and growth of the overall organization
• 3:21
  versus being in the day-to-day, which, yes, the day-to-day is
• 3:24
  great. It helps like our dopamine.
• 3:25
  It's like checking the list, you know, crossing the things off
• 3:28
  our list, checking the boxes. But when realizing what it is
• 3:32
  that you really need to do, it's like, OK, so, you know, how do
• 3:35
  we kind of focus on that? And so the biggest thing, you
• 3:38
  know, we were saying was how to build a leadership team that is
• 3:42
  going to be able to handle those day-to-day tasks, handle the OPS
• 3:46
  in the system. And for her to really focus on
• 3:49
  the strategy and vision and being able to trust that they're
• 3:52
  able to take care of it. And to trust that now her new
• 3:55
  her new step was really going to be to focus on overall growth.
• 4:00
  And so by doing that, we were saying, OK, how do we create
• 4:02
  structure for you to focus on what the mission is, what your
• 4:07
  goals are by quarter and how you're working towards them to
• 4:10
  help grow this overall as as well as having reviews with your
• 4:13
  leadership team. So you're feeling a little bit
• 4:15
  good that you're not out of it completely, but you have some
• 4:17
  updates on how things are going in the day-to-day.
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  So that was the biggest thing that we had to make a shift for
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  her there was that the vision hasn't mapped.
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  She knows what her priorities are, but she just kept stalling
• 4:26
  on acting on that because she was staying too much in the
• 4:29
  weeds. And a lot of that comes up
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  typically because we know it's going to take us to do something
• 4:34
  a little bit different, whether that's like increased visibility
• 4:37
  in your marketing or becoming or being a public speaker or
• 4:40
  there's some kind of risk because you're trying to, you
• 4:42
  know, create a different product line, open up and expand the
• 4:46
  market that you currently speak to.
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  Or you're making some tough leadership decisions.
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  Like, for example, do you hire somebody?
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  Do you train someone new? You have to have a conversation.
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  And so my question for you is, where are you defaulting to
• 4:58
  comfort work instead of doing the work that actually moves
• 5:02
  your vision or your business forward?
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  So it may be time just to shift from doing to actually leading
• 5:09
  in something. So super curious for you, where
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  are you defaulting to comfort work in general instead of doing
• 5:15
  the work that's going to actually move your vision
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  forward? Because it's so easy for us when
• 5:19
  we feel like there's resistance to something new to stay in the
• 5:21
  patterns that keep us comfortable.
• 5:22
  And we're like, oh, this is still helping, but is it helping
• 5:25
  your overall bigger mission in general?
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  And I'll, I'll say this for me, even for me personally in, in my
• 5:31
  business, I've had lots of moments of like resistance, even
• 5:34
  though I knew that I wanted to grow or support or evolve
• 5:36
  certain things. But it's scary.
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  It's scary to make ourselves more vulnerable.
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  It's scary to have more levels of visibility.
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  It's scary to know those things are coming.
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  And so it can be easier to stay in the day-to-day tasks that we
• 5:47
  know that help us feel safe. That shows, Oh yeah, I'm working
• 5:50
  towards something. But does it overall serve what
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  it is that you really need? So the next thing that I would
• 5:56
  say is knowing is not the same thing as leading, especially
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  when it comes to resistance. So you may know the path, but
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  you were caught between logic and fear.
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  So again, it's this thought of like, I know what needs to be
• 6:11
  done, but you're actually not taking action because of the
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  fear. And this could be a fear of
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  messing up. It could be a fear of being too
• 6:21
  much. It could be a fear of
• 6:23
  disappointing others and if you were a leader of a Co founder
• 6:27
  aceo, you do not have to be fearless to be a leader, but you
• 6:32
  do need tools to move through the fear right because if you
• 6:37
  were worried about O five, if I make this big decision and it
• 6:40
  messes everything up or if I make this big decision and I
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  disappoint disappoint people or I make this big decision and it
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  ends up being like too much, then we don't actually take
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  action. We just sit there logically,
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  knowing that something has to be done, but the fear will then
• 6:54
  create resistance from us to take action.
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  And so again, it's coming back to this thing like, you know
• 6:59
  what you need to do, you just aren't doing it.
• 7:01
  And so, for example, I have a client who she was having a
• 7:05
  really, really tough time with a team member that was
• 7:07
  underperforming. And she's a startup.
• 7:09
  She's a, she's a small, small, but mighty company.
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  And so for her, like every single team member matters
• 7:15
  because they make a big impact on the company overall.
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  So she had ATM that was underperforming and she was just
• 7:21
  like, I don't know how to have a soft conversation with them, but
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  she knew that it had to happen. But she had this fear of like
• 7:27
  causing conflict. Like I don't want to cause
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  conflict. I don't want to real funny
• 7:31
  feathers. Maybe I need to give them more
• 7:32
  time. Maybe you'd be more patient.
• 7:34
  Maybe I need to train them more. But at the end of the day, like
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  you have to understand what is needed and required for your
• 7:39
  company at that time and at that time.
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  So if you are a smaller stage company versus, you know, maybe
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  you're a little bit more experienced, there's different
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  times or maybe you have space for that.
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  But in this phase, she needed people who are truly going to be
• 7:52
  experts and get going at every single level because of how
• 7:56
  tight knit and small her company is.
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  And so the biggest thing about this fear of having like this
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  conversation of conflict, she knew logically what needed to be
• 8:04
  done, but this fear of letting them down, this fear of, you
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  know, conflict in general was kind of holding her back.
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  So a big thing we had to do was prep for that conversation and
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  practice like what was it meaning, right.
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  So this the one someone who is underperforming to it, Why don't
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  we have a conversation with them and be directive like, why are
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  why is what is how do we define underperforming?
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  What is happening there? Being able to have a
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  conversation of what the expectations are and where
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  they're currently at and what support they may need in order
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  to make it happen as long as well as timelines and
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  deliverables to make sure that it's happening.
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  So we practice that conversation and that delivery.
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  And when she finally did it, it was like instant relief.
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  Like this weight was off her shoulders because she had the
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  conversation. So many times we are sitting in
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  our heads playing through the conversation over and over
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  again, but we actually just need to take action and go ahead and
• 8:56
  execute. And so the biggest thing was
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  that the team member respected her for, of course, talking to
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  them about it and having the conversation versus just
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  avoiding it and not dealing with it head on.
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  And the second thing is it gave them a chance to show what they
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  could do and essentially like upskill themselves or they got
• 9:14
  to go. And this is the biggest thing.
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  As a business owner, you can care about your people and still
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  care about your business too. So for example, you're caring
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  about the person by being honest with them, direct with them and
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  seeing what support they may need.
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  But also as a business owner, you're being honest to yourself
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  and saying like, hey, the longer I let this kind of like hang out
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  of this underperforming team where it affects myself, my
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  mental health, my part of the business, my worrying concerns,
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  the finances of the business as well as the other team members
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  of this person works with. So it's just really important to
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  kind of understand that you may know the path, but you are
• 9:48
  caught between what is logical and what you're having a fear of
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  potentially facing. And so when we have those fears,
• 9:55
  what tools do you have to move with that fear versus letting
• 9:59
  that fear stop you? And so again, you do not have to
• 10:02
  be fearless, but you have to have some tools, some strategies
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  in place to help you move forward versus keeping you
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  frozen. And so my prompt for you is
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  this, what conversation, decision or move are you
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  avoiding even though you know it's necessary?
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  So what is a conversation, a decision or a move you have been
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  avoiding even though you know it's necessary and you know you
• 10:27
  need to do it because the discomfort is definitely real,
• 10:30
  real, like discomfort is real, but your capacity to lead
• 10:32
  through it, you have that and it's able to be expanded for
• 10:36
  sure. So the next part that will come
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  up is this, this pressure that we need to do more.
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  And you do not need to do more. You don't have to always be
• 10:45
  doing more and more and more. You need some kind of container,
• 10:48
  some kind of structure. That's usually what needs to
• 10:51
  happen. So high achievers think that if
• 10:53
  there's more pressure, it equals more progress or the pressure,
• 10:57
  but the pressure can typically lead to spiraling or shutting
• 11:00
  down. What actually stops you from the
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  progress? And So what works?
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  Creating a structure, creating some gentle accountability and
• 11:08
  some external support and some kind of accountability.
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  So for example, if you're somebody who's like, Oh my gosh,
• 11:14
  I just, I just need to have more pressure, more deadlines.
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  I need to be push, push pushing. This will get me to do what I
• 11:19
  need to do that I have not been doing.
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  I mean, has that been working for you?
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  Has given yourself amounts of too much work or lots of
• 11:27
  pressure? Has that been helping you get
• 11:29
  through the thing? If it hasn't, then it's time to
• 11:31
  make a shift, right? Because even as high achievers,
• 11:35
  like when we have too much pressure, too much honor on our
• 11:38
  list, we eventually burn out and it's sustainable.
• 11:40
  So, you know, what does work is having some kind of structure,
• 11:43
  some kind of accountability and support that isn't manageable.
• 11:46
  So for example, I had a founder who wanted to launch another
• 11:48
  revenue stream. She was like, OK, I really want
• 11:51
  to launch this other line and I wanted to be able to be
• 11:55
  additional revenue. And she just kept postponing
• 11:57
  rolling out. She was like, oh, you know, I
• 11:59
  got to put it off, but I don't have time for it.
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  I'm too busy, blah, blah. And she wasn't procrastinating.
• 12:04
  She was just navigating this like decision fatigue because
• 12:09
  she just had too many things that were going on.
• 12:10
  Like she had her main business, she had her team that she was
• 12:13
  developing, she had some roles that she was hiring for.
• 12:15
  And then on top of it, she wanted to develop another
• 12:17
  revenue stream. So a lot of decisions to be
• 12:19
  making. Plus she's a human being, like
• 12:21
  she's a life outside of her business.
• 12:22
  And so there's so many different things that are going on.
• 12:24
  And so the biggest thing that I was saying to her was that, OK,
• 12:27
  you are exhausted for making the decisions.
• 12:30
  And so you keep putting off these new big ideas that you
• 12:33
  want to focus on to the bottom of your To Do List because
• 12:36
  you're just in like the survival of the day-to-day from all the
• 12:39
  pressures that you've put on. So let's create a timeline that
• 12:42
  makes sense for the new project, right?
• 12:45
  So what is the timeline that you want to launch that project in?
• 12:48
  And if we were to roll it backwards, you know, and reverse
• 12:51
  engineer it, what are the three key checkpoints that you need to
• 12:54
  hit before you hit that overall for yourself and what needs
• 12:58
  support in order to make that happen?
• 12:59
  So essentially, we created structure versus pressure.
• 13:03
  We created structure that allowed her to have clear
• 13:06
  deadlines, allowed her to have stop with the decision fatigue
• 13:09
  of what is the next thing to focus on because we had
• 13:11
  prioritized and gave things checkpoints and she was able to
• 13:15
  move through it faster versus continually putting it to the
• 13:17
  bottom of the To Do List. And so that's the thing that's
• 13:20
  really important to work on together is that we think we
• 13:23
  have to like sit here, go alone, always hire more people, wait
• 13:27
  till we make more money, wait till we have more time.
• 13:30
  But a lot of the times it comes down to like, what are the
• 13:33
  emotions that are coming up? Is it fear, you know, is it
• 13:36
  nervousness? Is it having a direct
• 13:38
  conversation? Also, is there structure?
• 13:40
  Are there timelines, are there goals?
• 13:43
  And then when we have those things in place, we actually can
• 13:45
  move through things. It doesn't always have to be
• 13:48
  more, more, more or not enough. Sometimes we have all the things
• 13:51
  we need. We're just not sure what is
• 13:53
  piece to pull out. That's the big thing that we
• 13:54
  work on together. And that comes up especially
• 13:56
  when you are like an entrepreneur, Aceo, you know,
• 13:59
  president, vice president, Co founder, you are so much in this
• 14:03
  position of leading and developing and growth.
• 14:06
  It's always feels like it's more, more, more and you can
• 14:08
  still have more, but you can also be able to learn how to use
• 14:12
  the tools and resources that you have already, but just do it a
• 14:15
  little bit way that will work with your energy, work with the
• 14:18
  resources that you have. And that's the part that's
• 14:20
  really important, especially for those who are like, maybe, you
• 14:23
  know, in their first few years of doing it or they're in a in a
• 14:25
  pivotal moment where they're starting to, you know, grow in a
• 14:28
  higher level. So that was the thing that I
• 14:29
  always like to like highlight there.
• 14:31
  So what kind of support or structure would make your
• 14:34
  execution feel a little bit lighter, like not heavier.
• 14:37
  So that's the question I have for you.
• 14:39
  What's something that you really want to execute and that if you
• 14:42
  had support or some kind of structure with it would make it
• 14:45
  feel like, OK, this isn't like the end all be all terrible
• 14:48
  heavy task that I thought it was.
• 14:49
  I just see it's some structure and support.
• 14:51
  So I'm curious about that. You don't always have to push
• 14:53
  harder. Sometimes you truly just need to
• 14:55
  work a little bit more strategically and smarter with
• 14:57
  the resources that you have and it helps to have the support
• 15:01
  with it. All right, So just to recap
• 15:04
  here, when it comes to you know what to do, you just aren't
• 15:07
  doing it. The first piece is you are
• 15:09
  clearing your strategy, but you are not executing.
• 15:11
  And a big reason why is because there is a resistance pattern
• 15:15
  that is coming up. And so we want to stay
• 15:17
  comfortable in the task that we know how to do versus either
• 15:21
  delegating out the task that we no longer need to focus on so we
• 15:25
  can have more time and capacity for the bigger vision and
• 15:27
  strategy that needs to happen. Right?
• 15:29
  And then the next piece is knowing that you need to do
• 15:32
  something is not the same thing as leading through it.
• 15:34
  So just because you know it doesn't mean that that's enough.
• 15:36
  You have to be able to identify what is stopping you from doing
• 15:39
  what you know needs to be done. Is it fear?
• 15:41
  Is it disappointment? What is coming up for you and
• 15:44
  how do you tackle that? Is it a conversation?
• 15:46
  Is it a decision? Why are you avoiding it?
• 15:49
  And what support do you need or to lead through it?
• 15:51
  Discomfort will always come, will always come in these
• 15:53
  situations. That's why we're avoiding doing
• 15:55
  it. And So what is that discomfort
• 15:57
  saying for you and that you do not need more pressure on
• 16:01
  yourself, OK? You just need the structure in
• 16:03
  order to take the steps and to make it happen.
• 16:06
  So you don't think like add more pressure, add more things your
• 16:08
  To Do List like just create the structure, the timeline and
• 16:11
  support to make it happen. All right, Hopefully you found
• 16:14
  this helpful and you can catch me again here next week with
• 16:18
  more on things when it comes to career and leadership
• 16:20
  development. If you're looking and curious on
• 16:22
  how to work together, you can go to mywebsite@dannytan.com.
• 16:24
  That's DANIT am.com. I talk about all things coaching
• 16:28
  and leadership development and I will see you next time.
• 16:31
  Have a good one.