2014_05_09

I would like to take the chance to express my appreciation to the LM Forum and the LM Brothers and sisters, and to Lori for starting Tiny Buddha, it has made such a big difference and impact on so many peoples’ lives, including my own.

A SELF AWARENESS OF MY MAIN ISSUES

1. Communication & Relationship with Parents.
Working on it and showing them the love everyday.

2. Addiction to Worrying, then Chain Smoking & Drinking
Be aware of thoughts, and put them aside.

3. Apparently, Like to be Confused about Being Confused
Be aware of thoughts, and put them aside.

4. & Like to Be Lost about Being Lost
Be aware of thoughts, and put them aside.

5. Being in a Culture of a Traditional Small Family Business

* Not wanting to step in the company to face things.
* Being in my own world for the last 10 years.
* = Past and Current Anxiety Disorder + Panic Attacks + Low Self Esteem

2. Perfectionist***

Thank you for swinging by, this is a pretty long post for most people I think, if it interests you, you could simply jump directly to the part that starts from AREA OF IMPACT

I would like to open up my world to you, to let you know that, if you are in a similar position, you are not unique in the world.

Introduction
I was afraid of speaking up because I was fearful that you, would judge me. I always feel a need to be talking to someone, to find some answer, solution, and I feel embarrassed to talk about it, when I do talk about it, people always say, your perfection in filing and organizing is such a trivial thing in a company, the most important thing is money coming in to the company. I feel like I am going crazy everyday. It is amazing it bothers me all the time and how hard it is for me to think about specific examples when I finally open up and talk to people about it in person. I get stuck 100% of the time.

I am really like a little boy that don’t know how to work. And it’s very embarrassing at my age and been bothering me all my life. I had always thought that these innermost thoughts are meant to be shared by only the closest friends, and I realized that I closed the doors to people all my life, where anyone could be potentially a good friend.

I was diagnosed with a Generalized Anxiety Disorder by my psychiatrist somewhere in 2008. I checked with him and he said it’s not OCD, its my character, weirdly. The anxiety got better, and put aside, till I got back to the family business in February 2014 this year.

I have learnt from the recent LM forum to focus on what I really want to do, not to react to it and let them affect me so much. It had practically reduced my Anxiety from a scale of 9.5 (1-10, 10 being highest), to less than 0.5 or nothing. Let go, and focus, let go, and focus. Let go, and focus on what I want to do to reach the possibilities I have invented for myself. I learnt that if I kept thinking there’s something wrong with me, than I will keep finding evidence to support the facts that I think there is something wrong with me.

At the moment, I’m still back in the same circle everyday…

I am embarrassed because it is such a small matter, example where people are struggling to feed their families and how hard their lives are when you get to hear about it.

This is the part I keep re-reading the words without really sinking in. Being a perfectionist and a need to organize everything is a huge area where I find myself often stuck. From paper work to electronic documents, of Main Folders, sub folders, and sub sub folders if needed… Templates of company files, and personal electronic notebooks of ‘Master Titles’ to be keyed in whenever thoughts come, example like.. Anxious Moments and thoughts… where I journal anxious thoughts every time they come up.. ironically that makes me feel more anxious… Even this journal entry titled The Silly Perfectionist, which is like the 5th or 6th version of the ‘Master Template’ of Main Issues, so I can resolve it once and for all. Always supposed to start out as a very simple point by point note, but again, I ended up thinking, writing, organizing, re-reading from top to bottom again and again and again and again, typically me. Sometimes I laugh at myself. The funny thing is, I think of being productive all the time, and I actually spend a couple of hours writing and checking and organizing this entry, to settle this issue before I can move on to other things. By the time I am done, it is time to end work. This is the part where I feel really stupid again. Cause I didn’t even get to start on what I set out to do for the day, only to postpone it to the next day.

Dumb Questions I Ask Myself -> Effectively, how to be Efficient and Organised.

– I am afraid I don’t have the information when I need it.
– Where do I organise the hand written notes from meetings? Should I key into the computer to consolidate? (Time-consuming) Or just throw them all in a file? (very random and no access to them unless in the office)
– For longer term…? For short term..?
– On pieces of paper, notebooks or electronically?
– That I can refer to them when I need to?
– A need to keep things together, be it paperwork, or on the computer… in the same folder, organized by sub folders
– Dedicated handwritten notebooks to dedicated topics.. Example for different meetings, with the ERP vendor, with the Architect.
– Reality is they are at times on pieces of paper, or on different notebooks with everything jumbled inside it.
– Yes, I want the same size and same design of notebook in different colors on one shelf from left to right…
– I want the same color coded folders with company printed logos and subject of file.

And no one I know is bothered by it…..

And the joke is, I hardly refer to any notes from anywhere. As I speak I hear of my own story. And feeling silly and trying to put those thoughts aside and just start doing something and planning. Then coming back to complete and organize this entry.

And I want to stay back in the office, all alone, to try to sort out my thoughts. By now, I am already so tired from all this silly unnecessary thinking.

AREA OF IMPACT (Shortcut Here)

So what’s the issue? Just organize stuff, right???!! This is the part where I get stuck a long time and feel damn stupid. Cause I want to look good and avoid looking bad.

The area of concern actually isn’t in organizing my paperwork, emails and documents on the computer, which began to dawn on me again and I was reminded:

It was a need to be perfect.

Initially, for many years I had been in self-pity mode. My first reaction most of my life was to blame my mother for being such a messy person, I had always blamed the company culture. Then I thought it’s the anxiety. And I learnt it’s me all along, all these time and years wasted for nothing.

For years I had always thought it was the norm, the right thing to do. At home, everything is seamless and I have my own space to do things. Comes to the office… The reason I realized is I am always lumping everything together, trying to implement what I think the right benchmark is for the entire company based on my standards and worry about why it is not that way and how I could get it to be that way. I think of why? why? why? Why is our paper work all over the place and so messy? How? How? How? How can we not only improve the filing system, sustain it and implement a culture where we are coordinated. Why are things all over the office? I want to start clearing and organizing them and I don’t know where to start… and feel powerless and helpless all over again. We have too many things, limited space, shelvings, cupboards… and manpower.

And along the way at the same time limit myself with negative thoughts like we can barely communicate as a family.. When we do talk, there’s so many interruptions all the time, things always get half-done. When we get the chance to sit down and talk we are always jumping from topic to topic with no Agenda I’m trying desperately to come out with along the conversation and losing track of what’s being said. As I have the assumption, and the assumption usually ends up right, talking about our flaws, talking about personal things, the unhappiness from the past, and it feels draining that we had nothing concrete and no action plan to take.

So one thought leads to another, what are other companies doing, how do people do it.. why is it so difficult for us… and I get stuck. I try to start what I am doing again, and I end up checking back on reading what I had written in some of my notes, and thinking of how to organize them, and one thought leads to another and I get stuck again.

I start to see myself again and again, trying to change things I cannot change, putting stumbling blocks on my own life and really limiting myself to having a fruitful and productive day and feeling alive. My fiancée had been patiently listening to my same problems put across in different ways most of the nights we spend chatting for 14 years. She is still as attentive but gives me much more room to be alone now to focus on her own things. And she is usually very gentle and patient with me, and she is always kind with her words. Till lately, she simply put it to me (again, as I tend to fall back to the same cycle of eventually not turning up for work and forgetting things conveniently), I am like a young spoilt kid who cannot work because he didn’t get his way of what he wants. If I am the talented person I think I am, I can work anywhere regardless how messy the office is, or how lousy any system is. I have never seen the world. I have never appreciated what we have. I am not really accountable to anyone in a family business, she says that I have way too much time to sit down and smoke and be stressed by these small things when people don’t have a chance because they are so busy most of the time. I am often told by friends we are a a small company and I am trying to adopt the methods of the giant corporations backed by financial muscle.

Father being so traditional who doesn’t know how to communicate with his children, simply tells me one step at a time, one step at a time and I was always irritated and assumed he never understood the need for a new company culture that takes place Now. We are taught to respect our elders and not interrupt them when they talk. I had the assumption I am taught not to disgrace the family. I am proud of the establishment for a company of many, many years in Singapore, though I am embarrassed at the ways we run things. Though very soon, the Enterprise Resource Planning System will kick in and things will be a lot better. Than I worry about ERP again and how we will adapt as an entire company and be streamlined in our backend work to support a future sales team.

I used to be the type to take action instead of complaining, to tidy things and come up with my own filing system, for example. For now, I feel so lost every time I step in the company for the last 2 months because I just came back, after being in my own world of 10 years. I feel so helpless with no area of expertise. I feel so powerless to make any changes because of the changes already made and the fact that we are moving office in 2 years. So, things have to be the way they are for 2 years? and because I had not been back in almost 10 years, the 2nd level is now full of his stocks and goods; my old room has become a semi warehouse, my brother has his paper and goods all over the place and it doesn’t bother him a single bit.

Ok, all these may be my story.

So if it’s a story again, one thing is certain: A lack of space is a real constraint. We have no more space. And on one has the time or wants to do housekeeping. There is no more space for additional cupboards for files or shelving for goods. We are going to move in 2 years, so there won’t be any minor renovations. We could plan alternatives actually, which I always get shot down before I could really finish what I want to say. And I get anxious of starting a new culture right now to test the physical layout, allocation of our limited manpower, and what we want to do with the company.

THE NEW POSSIBILITY I HAVE INVENTED FOR MYSELF IS…

Well… it comes back to the same circle… An efficient office where we have our culture and systems in place to attract and retain people of talent. Although these may be trivial, I strongly believe it reflects how organized and systematic a company is.. And if according to the view that the most important thing is money coming in, I am not confident that we are positioned to be able to handle the corporate client’s needs, their needs are changing every day, I am not confident in being able to even give them a same day response which is coordinated and checked off from the list of things to do as an overall and coordinated perspective from a company. In turn leading to customer’s confidence in us. In turn leading to sales and more sales from referrals because we have integrity in our products and word.

So, I am back in square one, from day one.

And that’s even before we can start taking the company to greater heights of a household name that people think of when they think of our products. And I am placed in a position where I have to be knowledgeable at a certain level to be able to talk to vendors as a client, that I do know my stuff, what I’m talking about. I’m just so fearful people are just out there to take advantage of our situation.

I had always been confused with… Is this perfection something that I can let go and put aside? Or something that is so part of me? Am I blaming my parents for their upbringing?

and the need comes again to organize those thoughts.. and thoughts start rushing in from all over with a checklist of things to do for the day, week, month, all at the same time… Just when I think I got it.. Typically once I step inside the company again, start getting confused again… I see paper work all over the place.. And everywhere I go I find things from all over the place with no home, some hardware here and there, some personal belongings, some goods from don’t no idea where and how many years ago it’s been lying around… And I feel a need to sort out my thoughts again…

Then start feeling guilty I am not doing anything productive. and feel sleepy all over again.

Here I hear of myself running my own cycle again, of what should be or shouldn’t be, and I get confused again. of letting go of the story, which I can’t seem to do because it is my nature? Or a possibility? That seems a need for a professional, solid and authentic Consultant to come in and help us… that involves a huge fee where typically, small business owners are not comfortable with outsiders telling us what to do?

Whew.. The End. Time Check: Approximately… 5.5 hours to do this.. and I’m done checking and checking… and I still do a final check anyway.

Thank you for allowing me to share my story.

• This topic was modified 10 years, 6 months ago by different_chapter.
• This topic was modified 10 years, 6 months ago by different_chapter.