Welcome to the new manager podcast. I'm your host, Kim nickel. Hello, and welcome. I want to start today's episode by sending a virtual wave. So this is me waving to my listener, Avis Avis, if you're listening, hello, I'm waving to you and Avis messaged me a few months ago with this note that said, I've listened to your podcast and it's helped me as Manager. Amidst this pandemic. Thank you. And that just makes my heart feel so good.
I know it is not easy. Being a manager in the midst of all of the things that 2020 offered and I am so glad if I can help in a small way to just provide a little support, a little encouragement, some fresh ideas to that. You can show up as a manager for your team in your environment. Mint and Bo greatest service to them. So you are so welcome and thank you for listening and for caring about your work and the people that you work. With, in today's episode I want to explore this question.
What are you avoiding? And I wanted to sort of open the year with this question. What are you avoiding? Because it's such an interesting question. Depending on what comes up. This is something that I include when I'm teaching about feedback. Like what is the feedback you are avoiding giving to someone or what is the feedback you are avoiding asking for?
So I wanted to give this its own episode to expand on this topic for you because I think it's really Really helpful, especially at the beginning of the year. So what are you avoiding? And it might be around feedback. Like I was just talking about, there might be someone you work with and you have been holding back.
You have not been giving them feedback because you are uncomfortable or you're worried about how they'll react or you might be worried that you won't do it right or there's you know some reason why you have not given this feedback. You might be avoiding a decision. Maybe there's a decision that you need to make and you keep putting it off. It might be a conversation. Is there a conversation that you really need to have? And this might be in your work life or your personal life you
know. This podcast is about the workspace but who we are as people in our life outside of work one, 100% influences the way that we show up at work. So maybe there is a conversation that you have been avoiding that you need to have outside of work but because you're think about it a lot or it's causing stress or a sense of anxiety for you. You're showing up at work and you're bringing that stress and excited with you, there might be a goal.
Is there a goal that you have that you are avoiding? That's an Interesting one, especially the time at this time of year as we think about what are our goals or intentions both in terms of the business but also in terms of you as a leader you in your career, what are the goals that you have for yourself? And is there something that you are avoiding is? There may be some kind of learning that you are avoiding. Oh, I know I need to learn how to do this, but I'll get to it later.
I don't have time I don't know how to get started. Added. So take a moment if you will. And when presented with this question, what are you avoiding notice what comes up And if there is more than one thing, I mean make a little list. Oh my gosh, if you have like a little, you know, a little ache in your body and you've been avoiding going to the doctor and having it checked out. That's a big one. If there's a letter And you haven't opened it yet because you're just worried about what
that piece of mail. What that letter will say. So, take a moment right down? You know, what are you avoiding? And then make a list of what some of those things are, notice what that is for you. And one of the reasons it's important to get curious about this is it takes a lot of energy
to be in avoidance. We are avoiding Eating a conversation, a decision, a person, and action, all of these different things that we are avoiding, it really takes a lot of energy and it ends up taking up space in our mind. And that over time is just not helpful. It becomes draining it creates even more resistance and it takes up even more energy. So it's really important that we
have the awareness of what is it that I am avoiding. once you have a sense of what you are, avoiding, My next question for you, is what is your rationalization for that? What are your reasons? And this is also a really fun question, because if your brain is like, mine it go, it's going to come up with lots of really smart reasons to justify why you are avoiding a thing. Maybe the reason you're avoiding is you because I'm just I'm too busy.
I don't have the time I'm overwhelmed or maybe it's from a perceived lack of information. I don't have all the information yet. I can't make a choice. I can't decide or I don't know how I would do that. So I'm avoiding it altogether. Maybe it's from a fear of
perfection. Like I have to have everything be perfect before I'm able to Move forward on it or maybe it's around of fear, like a fear of discomfort, oh, I'm so afraid that this conversation will be so uncomfortable, so afraid that this person won't take feedback in the right way. I'm so afraid. If I ask my manager or ask my boss for something that I want this year, and my growth, I'm worried that they'll say no or that, I will feel bad.
Notice what is your internal rationale for why you are avoiding it because you probably have a really good reason. You know, a really good reason. It can be a simple as oh my gosh when we are when we bring this more to home so when there's something and I know I need to do but I feel uncomfortable about it or I just feel like it's going to take so much time or energy. I'll find something else to do. That seems really urgent. Oh, you know what?
I really need to clean the kitchen right now. Oh, I really should know. Do some laundry. Oh, you know what? I really am. You love little hungry. I'm gonna go get a snack. It is amazing. How creative the mind is. When it wants to avoid something like you will find other things to do and talk yourself into why being an avoidance is actually
fine. It's a way of delaying blue, and another one that I want to share with you is especially around learning because this Is one that I go through when I'm learning new things and also I see my students and my clients go through it. But when we're learning something new, there's that period of discomfort where you feel like you're not totally in control because you can't do it just right. And so you put this pressure on yourself and it also feels uncomfortable to feel not good
at things. Like this is true for a lot of us especially If we work in a field where there's very high scrutiny about being correct about doing things correctly, doing things, right, it tends to reduce our willingness to learn when we will have to appear or when we will feel incompetent at something. That's one that can be really tricky and that's important to notice because if you get stuck feeling, like you always have to be the, the one who knows.
And the one who has all of Of the answers and does everything correctly. It's really hard to grow and you end up with holding from yourself. A possibility of becoming better and of growing Beyond where you're at right now. And I think one thing that the last year has really shown us is that there will be times when you will feel totally incompetent and you won't be prepared and you won't know how to deal with something and you're still called to respond in the best way that you can and
it's unavoidable. We've learned a lot about that in the last year. So notice for yourself. What is your minds rationalization for why you are avoiding a thing? Once you've done that, the next step is to ask yourself, okay? So what is the result of that? What is the result when I avoid when I rationalize? Why, what is the result? And this can become really
interesting. I've noticed in my own life when this shows up for me and it what's interesting is I have seen this come up with a lot of my students and a lot of my clients also. So some of the things that come up as a result of that avoidance and the rationalization resentment, Shows up, you either feel resentment towards another person. Like you blame them for putting you. In this uncomfortable situation,
it might sound in your head. Like, I wish this colleague of mine would just pull it together because they're going to make me have to tell them that I've noticed, they're not doing a good job and then we're going to have a big confrontation and, you know if only they could just do their work correctly, we wouldn't have to do this so you can get into a place of Feeling resentment for another person, but you can also feel resentful for yourself. Like, if you're a person and you
notice, I am avoiding something. I have been delaying, I have been, do you know Finding other things to do? Because it lets me not be in the discomfort of doing the thing.
You can direct that resentment to yourself. it also is exhausting the result that arrives when we avoid and we rationalize all of that takes a lot of energy and Meanwhile we're not moving forward and so that starts to feel exhausting other feelings that can come up as a result, we can start to feel bitter or stuck or we compensate in other ways.
So if you're working with someone and you have avoided, giving them feedback because you are uncomfortable about how that conversation will go, you will compensate by either working around them or trying to find a way to make what you know what Where is the problem with their? With their work? Like you'll find a way to kind of make things work and still be
good enough. Like it's amazing how we can invest the energy and the creativity into the process of avoiding because we are so uncomfortable with, like, whatever that thing is. And once you can start to see this, right? Like, what am I avoiding, what is my rationalization for that? What is the result? That comes up when I avoid and rationalize it, then I want you to ask what alternatives do I have? And also what do I need to move forward?
And this is where. You start to take back some of the energy and some of your creativity and you start to use it to find a path forward. And I just want to let you like let that sink in for a moment. Because it's really easy to miss like the power of these two questions. What are your Alternatives? What else might you do? What do you need to move forward? And call upon your creativity and your energy to help you answer those questions. All of it begins with asking.
What is it that you're avoiding? And at the root of it, it always comes down to some form of discomfort. There's something that you perceive, or, there's something that you are imagining, is going to be uncomfortable.
And the truth is, it might be the thing you need to do might feel risky, it might feel uncomfortable, but the more you avoid it, the more you resist it, the more, it just stays there and you then become even more stuck and you keep investing all of this energy to work around it or to avoid it or to resent it. And things begin to change. When you can take a deep breath, kind of look at the situation plainly and say, okay? This is going to be uncomfortable. I'm okay with that because that
is how I move forward. I'm going to say this one more time, but in a different way. So the question around, what do you need to move forward? The answer might be. I need to be okay with the discomfort. Of this thing. I need to be okay with the discomfort of this conversation. I need to be okay with the uncertainty of making a decision without all the information. I need to be okay with the discomfort of having a direct
conversation with somebody. I need to be okay with the discomfort of not, knowing exactly how it's going to go. I To be able to let go of needing to control all of the outcomes. And to trust that I will find a way that will work and that we will be better off as a result of me. Moving forward. So now I want to share two stories to illustrate how all of this can work in your actual life. And the first story is from my personal life and it's about how
I am learning a new language. I set a goal for myself, of learning a new language and I've been using an app and I use it a little bit every day and I'm starting to learn some things. And I'll, I saw That there were in addition to the app. There were events hosted by different people in the community and you could join. It was free, it was on zoom and they were these conversation groups. And I thought, oh well, that will really help me to improve
my skill with this language. If I join one of these online meetups. So I signed up for it, I had it in my calendar and I noticed that as the time of the event, got closer. I started to feel anxious. I thought, oh, what if, what if everyone is better than me, what if I am the worst speaker in the group?
What if people are mean, what if I don't, what if everything is over my head and I can't keep up and I started to get a little anxious and I thought maybe this isn't the best time maybe Should work on something else. Maybe, you know, I'll do one like later. You know, I really do have a lot happening today, like I maybe I don't need to do this, so that was me. Being both in avoidance, and then starting to find that rationalization, right? And as a result, I started to feel very anxious.
So in my body, my heart started pounding, I started to feel a little tightness. In my throat, all of the physiological signs of Stress and Anxiety. Those were happening for sure, in my physical self and I was really on the brink of canceling when I thought to myself. You know what? Kim, just get over yourself. What if it's fine? What if it's great like, give this a go just show up. And so I went ahead, I joined the event. It turns out people were really
nice, the instructor was great. A lot of people didn't know more than me, we're much more fluent, but that was okay. Because what I wanted to do is I wanted to learn to speak more and I actually started to do that. It's one thing to learn in the quiet privacy and control of the
app on your phone. It's Another thing entirely to get into a virtual conversation with people to get onto a zoom call and to actually be in dialogue and trying to find the words and find the vocabulary in the moment that I needed it. So small example, but very real and believe me in the moment. It felt very, very true and very, very serious. Now I have one more story for you. This actually really is more about the workplace and it is
from several years ago. I was managing a team of 18 people, and there was a lot of unrest morale was not very good. People were feeling concerned about the company and there were some rumors about potential layoffs, coming up, and also about some potential reorg. That might change how the organization was structured. So there was a lot of unrest and a lot of uncertainty about that. People would ask me what I knew
and I was not allowed to say. And so I as their manager was in this interesting position of feeling like I have to avoid this topic because I'm not allowed to talk about what. I know it will be communicated in the time and in the way that the leadership team had decided But I was also in the place of avoiding what people were going through and all of the discomfort and the unrest and my rationalization was so it's not
my place to talk about this. You know, my rationalization was well, you know, I can't give them an answer so I just won't say anything at all. The result of that was that resentment continued to grow this low-level grumbling and it wasn't even necessarily resentment directed towards me personally, but it was towards leadership and management and feeling not appreciated and there was a lot of distraction.
There are lots of rumors. There was a lot of you know just the energy of things are not happening. Smoothly here, people were not in a in a good space. And what I ended up choosing what I saw as my alternative was I thought, well, you know what I can't do is I can't give them the answer. I can't give them confidential information. I still have a duty to keep that information confidential. But what I can do to move forward is I can acknowledge how difficult things are.
I can acknowledge that people are frustrated and validate that even just acknowledging that people were frustrated that things were difficult that they were being asked to do a lot, even when circumstances were uncertain and people were really uncomfortable and I think that we sometimes Overlook how valuable that is, not just at work, but really like in all of our relationships when we want trust, part of what kind of like, part of what creates trust is feeling like we are
understood that our discomfort that our frustration is understood. so, In that situation, with me with my team that starting place of moving forward of stopping the avoidance. Of seeing through the rationalization of finding a way to move forward, that helped to let my team feel seen and appreciated. That helped me to also step into like the role of manager that was going to be able to be a greater service to them. That's also how this process worked.
So my hope for you is that as you finish this Into this episode, take some time for yourself and think through what am I avoiding. What is my rationalization? And I'm sure you'll have very good reasons. What is the result of all of that? And then, what alternatives do you have? And finally, what do you need to move forward? And sometimes the answer is as simple as I need to trust myself. I need to trust this person. I need to trust my team, I need some patience.
I need some compassion. I need a little bit of Grace for all of us because you know, working with humans. It's not always easy. So thank you so much for listening. I hope your Year is off to a wonderful start and I will see you in our next episode. Bye. Do you want personal confidential help with your situation at work? I offer one-on-one coaching and can help you overcome challenges reach your goals and become a more effective leader to
schedule a consult. Go to my website, Kim nickel.com coaching and we'll schedule time to talk about what's going on with you and how I can help talk to you soon.