Dani Tan: Hi, I'm Dani Tan, and if you are here, you are in the right place. Welcome to the Pivot and Promotion podcast where we say, forget the rules because they weren't written for us. I'm Dani Tan. I'm your host as well as career and leadership coach and a proud advocate for redefining what success and leadership looks like. And here's what I know. You can lead at any level. You can pivot at any age, any. And you can make moves that feel right for you. Whether you're climbing the corporate ladder, starting something completely new, or just figuring out your next step. I've got you covered with strategies, stories, and straight up inspiration. So let's make some moves. Welcome to today's episode.

We're going to talk about, you know, what to do, you just aren't doing it. So at times we may say, oh, you know, I'm not sure, I'm not clear. I, um, I don't know what's the next right step. But in reality, you do know what to do, you just aren't doing it. And I'm definitely going to talk about it in the lens today of being a founder or an entrepreneur and say, you know, there are a couple of things that have been coming up. So the first thing I would say is you are clear on your strategy, but you're just not executing on it. And so what is the reason why? So you have mapped out the vision, you know your priorities, you even blocked out time on your calendar, but the action just keeps stalling, especially on the projects that may require things that are uncomfortable, like visibility, risk, or some big leadership decision.

And so this isn't a gap in strategy. You're not missing more strategy. It's actually a resistance pattern. So I want to like highlight that it's not a gap in your strategy, it's a resistance pattern. That's why we say, you know what you need to do, you know what you want to do, you just aren't doing it. And so here's an example. I have a co founder. She knew that her next step was to delegate ops to a new team member, either to hire somebody or to figure out who else on her team could do the ops and systems piece within her business. So she could really look at the high level strategy that needed to be done for her business to move forward and continue to grow. She just had a hard time letting it go.

She kept jumping into the day to day tasks that needed to essentially be handed off to a team or even a new hire. And so I Kept saying to her, like, hey, you know what you want to focus on? You've been coming in like week after week talking about how you want to be focusing on new partnerships, new collaborations, developing the product line. But you keep going back into these day to day tasks of like operations and systems. And is this working? Is that working? Is that really going to help drive you forward also? Is that like where your zone of genius is? And so when we had that conversation, we kind of had to say like, okay, if you know what needs to be done and you keep doing the same thing, let's kind of talk about what.

How would you explain our name, why you don't want to let it go or let somebody else take it on? And the biggest thing that came up was it was just a discomfort of letting go, right? And also the fear of not being needed in this, in this capacity of being the person who is the go to, the problem solver is needed to solve these things. And so we had to kind of like name that and say like, yeah, it's uncomfortable and scary to let something go and to give it to somebody else and feel like, okay, like I actually have a little bit of different kind of pressure on me of being able to focus on the strategy and growth of the overall organization versus being in the day to day, which, yes, the day to day is great.

It helps like our dopamine. It's like checking the list, you know, crossing the things off our list, checking the boxes. But when realizing what it is that you really need to do, it's like, okay, so you know, how do we kind of focus on that? And so the biggest thing, you know, we were saying was how to build a leadership team that is going to be able to handle those day to day tasks, handle the ops and the systems. And for her to really focus on the strategy and vision and being able to trust that they're able to take care of it and to trust that now her new step was really going to be to focus on overall growth. And so by doing that, we were saying, okay, how do we create structure for you to focus on what the mission is, what your goals are by quarter, and how you're working towards them to help grow the business overall as well as having reviews with your leadership team.

So you're feeling a little bit good that you're not out of it completely, but you have some updates on how things are going in the day to day. So that was the biggest thing that we had to make a shift for her there was that the vision has A map. She knows what her priorities are, but she just kept stalling on acting on that because she was staying too much in the weeds. And a lot of that comes up, typically because we know it's going to take us to do something a little bit different, whether that's like increased visibility in your marketing or becoming or being a public speaker or there's some kind of risk because you're trying to, you know, create a different product line, open up and expand the market that you currently speak to, or you're making some tough leadership decisions.

Like, for example, do you hire somebody, do you train someone new, do you have a conversation? And so my question for you is, where are you defaulting to comfort work instead of doing the work that actually moves your vision or your business forward? So it may be time just to shift from doing to actually leading in something. So super curious for you, where are you defaulting to comfort work in general instead of doing the work that's going to actually move your vision forward? Because it's so easy for us when we feel like there's resistance to something new, to stay in the patterns that keep us comfortable. And we're like, oh, this is still helping, but is it helping your overall bigger mission in general?

And I'll, I'll say this for me, even for me personally and in my business, I've had lots of moments of like, resistance, even though I knew that I wanted to grow or support or evolve certain things. But it's scary. It's scary to make ourselves more vulnerable. It's scary to have more levels of visibility, scary to know those things are coming. And so it can be easier to stay in the day to day tasks that we know that help us feel safe. That shows, oh yeah, I'm working towards something, but does it overall serve what it is that you really need? So the next thing that I would say is knowing is not the same thing as leading, especially when it comes to resistance. So you may know the path, but you are caught between logic and fear.

So again, it's, it's this thought of like, I know what needs to be done, but you're actually not taking action because of the fear. And this could be a fear of messing up, it could be a fear of being too much, it could be a fear of disappointing others. And if you are a leader, a co founder, a CEO, you do not have to be fearless to be a leader, but you do need tools to move through the fear, right? Because if you were worried about, oh, if I make this big decision, it messes everything up or if I make this big decision and I disappoint people or I make this big decision and it ends up being like too much, then we don't actually take action. We just sit there logically knowing that something has to be done, but the fear will then create resistance from us to take action.

And so again, it's coming back to this thing. Like you know what you need to do, you just aren't doing it. And so for example, I have a client who she was having a really, really tough time with a team member that was underperforming. And she is a startup, she's a, she's a small, small but mighty company. And so for her like every single team member matters because they make a big impact on the company overall. And so she had a team member that was underperforming and she was just like, I don't know how to have this off conversation with them, but she knew that it had to happen. But she had this fear of like causing conflict. Like I don't want to cause conflict, I don't wanna ruffle any feathers.

Maybe I need to give them more time. Maybe you'd be more patient, maybe I need to tr. But at the end of the day, like you have to understand what is needed and required for your company at that time and at that size. So if you are a smaller stage company versus you know, maybe you're a little bit more experienced, there's different times where maybe you have space for that. But in this phase she needed people who are truly going to be experts and get going at every single level because of how tight knit and small her company is. And so the biggest thing about this fear of having like this conversation of conflict, she knew logically what needed to be done. But this fear of letting them down, this fear of, you know, conflict in general was kind of holding her back.

So a big thing we had to do was prep for that conversation and practice like what was it meaning, right? So this the one someone who is underperforming to want to have a conversation with them and be direct of like why, why is, what is, how do we define underperforming? What is happening there? Being able to have a conversation of what the expectations are and where they're currently at and what's they may need in order to make it happen as long as well as timelines and deliverables to make sure that it's happening. So we practiced that conversation and that delivery and when she finally did it, it was like instant relief, like this weight was off her shoulders because she had the conversation so many times.

We are sitting in our heads playing through the conversation over and over again, but we actually just need to take action and go ahead and execute. And so the biggest thing was that the team respected her for, of course, talking to them about it and having the conversation versus just avoiding it and not dealing with it head on. And the second thing is it gave them a chance to show what they could do and essentially like upskill themselves or they gotta go. And this is the biggest thing. As a business owner, you can care about your people and still care about your business too. So, for example, you're caring about the person by being honest with them, direct with them, and seeing what support they may need.

But also as a business owner, you're being honest to yourself and saying, like, hey, the longer I let this kind of like hang out of this underperforming team, it affects myself, my mental health, my part of the business, my worrying concerns the finances of the business as well as the other team members of this person works with. So it's just really important to kind of understand that you may know the path, but you are caught between what is logical and what you're having a fear of potentially facing. And so when we have those fears, what tools do you have to move with that fear? What versus letting that fear stop you? And so again, you don't have to be fearless, but you have to have some tools, some strategies in place to help you move forward versus keeping you frozen.

And so my prompt for you is this. What conversation, decision, or move are you avoiding, even though you know it's necessary? So what is a conversation, a decision, or a move you have been avoiding, even though you know it's necessary and you know you need to do it? Because the discomfort is definitely real. Real, like discomfort is real. But your capacity to lead through it, you have that and it's able to be expanded for sure. So the next part that will come up is this, this pressure that we need to do more. And you do not need to do more. You don't have to always be doing more, more, more. You need some kind of container, some kind of structure. That's usually what needs to happen. So high achievers think that it's.

If there's more pressure, it equals more progress or the pressure. But the pressure can typically lead to spiraling or shutting down. What actually stops you from the progress? And so what works? Creating a structure, creating some gentle accountability and some external support and some kind of accountability. So for example, if you're somebody who's like, oh my gosh, I just, I just need to have more pressure, more deadlines. I need to be push, push, pushing this will get me to do what I need to do that I have not been doing. I mean, has that been working for you, has given yourself amounts of too much work or lots of pressure? Has that been helping you get through the thing? If it hasn't, then it's time to make a shift.

Right? Because even as high achievers, like when we have too much pressure, too much on our, on our list, we eventually burn out and it's not sustainable. So you know what does work is having some kind of structure, some kind of accountability and support that is manageable. So for example, I had a founder who wanted to launch another revenue stream. She was like, okay, I really want to launch this other line and I want it to be able to be additional revenue. And she just kept postponing it rolling out. She was like, oh, you know, I got to put it off, I don't have time for it, I'm too busy, blah, blah. And she wasn't procrastinating, she was just navigating this like decision fatigue because she just had too many things that were going on.

Like she had her main business, she had her team that she was developing, she had some roles that she was hiring for. And on top of it, she wanted to develop another revenue streams. That's a lot of decisions to be making. Plus she's a human being. Like she has a life outside of her business. And so there's so many different things that are going on. And so the biggest thing that I was saying to her was that, okay, you are exhausted from making the decisions and so you keep putting off these new big ideas that you want to focus on to the bottom of your to do list because you're just in like the survival of the day to day from all the pressures that you put on. So let's create a timeline that makes sense for, for the new project, right?

So what is the timeline that you want to launch that project? And if we were to roll it backwards, you know, and reverse engineer, what are the three key checkpoints that you need to hit before you hit that overall deadline for yourself and what needs support or to make that happen. So essentially we created structure versus pressure. We created structure that allowed her to have clear deadlines, allowed her to have stop with the decision fatigue of what is the next thing to focus on. Because we had prioritized and gave things checkpoints and she was able to through it faster versus continually putting it to the bottom of the to do list. And so that's the thing that's really important to work on together is that we think we have to like sit here, go alone, always hire more people, wait till we make more money, wait till we have more time.

But a lot of the times it comes down to like, what are the emotions that are coming up? Is it fear, you know, is it nervousness? Is it having a direct conversation? Also, is there structure? Are there timelines, are there goals? And then when we have those things in place, we actually can move through things. It doesn' always have to be more, more, more or not enough. Sometimes we have all the things we need. We're just not sure what is the right piece to pull out. And that's a big thing that we work on together. And that comes up especially when you are like an entrepreneur, a CEO, you know, president, vice president, co founder. You are so much in this position of leading and developing and growth.

It always feels like it's more, more, more. And you can still have more, but you can also be able to learn how to use the tools and resources that you have already. But just do it a little bit way that will work with your energy, work with the resources that you have. And that's the part that's really important, especially for those who are like, maybe, you know, in their first few years of doing it, or they're in a at a pivotal moment where they're starting to, you know, grow in a higher level. So those are things that I always like to like, highlight there. So what kind of support or structure would make your execution feel a little bit lighter, like, not heavier? So that's the question I have for you.

What's something that you really want to execute and that if you had support or some kind of structure with it, would make it feel like, okay, this isn't like the end all, be all, terrible, heavy tasks that I thought it was. I just needed some structure and support. So I'm curious about that. You don't always have to push harder. Sometimes you truly just need to work a little bit more strategically and smarter with the resources that you have. And it helps to have the support with it. All right, so just to recap here, when it comes to, you know, what to do, you just aren't doing it. The first piece is you are clear on your strategy, but you are not executing. And a big reason why is because there is a resistance pattern that is coming up.

And so we want to stay comfortable in the tasks that we know how to do versus either delegating out the tasks that we no longer need to focus on so we can have more time and capacity for the bigger vision and strategy that needs to happen. Right? And then the next piece is knowing that you need to do something is not the same thing as leading through it. So just because you know it doesn't mean that that's enough. You have to be able to identify what is stopping you from doing what you know needs to be done. Is it fear? Is it disappointment? What is coming up for you and how do you tackle? Is it a conversation? Is it a decision? Why are you avoiding it and what support do you need in order to lead through it?

Discomfort will always come, will always come in these situations. That's why we're avoiding doing it. And so what does that discomfort saying for you and that you do not need more pressure on yourself. Okay. You just need the structure in order to take the steps and to make it happen so you don't feel like add more pressure, add more things. Your to do list like just create the structure, the timeline and support to make it happen. Awesome. All right. Hopefully you found this helpful and you can catch me again here next week with more on things when it comes to career and leadership development. com I talk about all things coaching and leadership development and I will see you next time. Have a good one.