Intentional Opportunities: Say No to Say Yes | Pham Phuong Nguyen | TEDxIUJ
URL: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=FVvLapUG5oU Video ID: FVvLapUG5oU ============================================================ [Applause] Okay. Okay. Hello everyone. Thank you. So what a fastpaced world we are living in today. Faster than instant noodles is how information can be exposed. So are opportunities. 10 years ago, looking for an opportunity to pursue higher education could require a lot of planning, talking with your professors, your friends, your families, your agencies in order to finalize whether an opportunity could be a good fit for you. 10 years later, the meaning of opportunity still holds the same significance. But with ju with with just one quick search onto any search engine, we have hundreds of million results in less than one second. Can you imagine how insanely quick and convenient the world has become? However, today I would like to discuss with you the other side of the coin. opportunity during the time of all information overload and fear of missing out for more. The more opportunities we have, the more we become overloaded and fear that we are going to miss out on good opportunities. And there has been many research showing the impact of information overload and fear of missing out on our mental health. In fact, for more is higher in younger people. I fear that my friends are having fun without me. I fear that other people are having more rewarding experiences than me. These are the real fear for the fear of missing out and these fears will pull us pulls us away from our life. So what to do? Today I would like to introduce to you three key points to tackle this. Firstly, knowing our own intention. Knowing our own intention to clarify what we are truly looking for in our life in a deeper level meaning understanding what kind of factors impacting on our intention. According to the theory of plan behavior by researcher agent there are three main drivers impacting on our intention. our attitudes towards behavior, what we think other expect us to do and our own confidence, our own belief on our own capabilities. For example, have you ever asked yourself why did you choose to pursue a higher educational degree? Is it because you think that an educational degree will help you further your career and be successful in life? Or is it because of your family expectations? Or is it because you think you are confident enough that you can ace every course in the program? Well, for whichever reasons, as long as we understand them, we have come closer to understand ourselves. And the more we understand ourselves, the better we can work to prepare for the upcoming opportunity by uh by studying new skills, by building new network and by having the right attitude and understanding our core values to seize the opportunity when it presents. In addition, it also understanding our own intention also shifts our mindset from having as many opportunities as possible to intentionally selecting the right opportunity for us because opportunities can lift us up or drag us down. This lead me to the second point that I want to discuss saying no. Everyone say with me, no. No. It's easy, you might think. However, it took me five years to be able to say the word no the hard way. During my previous during my previous employment, I came across I took every opportunities that was given to me. The result was overwork, burnout, high function in depression. It was too much to bear until I learned the magic word no. So the second key boy that I want to present here is to be able to say no with strategies. It could not be easy because we are because we are aligning uh because we are because we always want to say yes. In addition with dynamic environment comes uncertainties. There are many rooms for whatifs for the fear of missing out. What if I can never have such a good opportunities like this ever again? What if tomorrow I wake up and I don't want I hate the decision I made today? Well, that is the real possibility that we all have to comprehend. And with this lies the first step in strategy of saying no. Acknowledge the real opportunity. Why? Understand that we don't have any power to predict the future. From there, the second step is to assess whether the opportunity is the right one for you. You have already know your intention and you have a uh you have already know your intention and you have a goal in mind. Also, if you are unsure, seek advice from your friends and from your family and others. And the third step is the most important one actually being able to say no. Uh one practice that we can all use is we will take uh we will mindfully observe ourselves in situation that we want to say no. Take a deep breath. Let it sink in and encourage yourself to say no in that situation or in similar situations in the future. It's totally fine not to be able to say no on the first strike because at sometime because at some point we are all first timers. And finally, what if there seems to be no opportunities for us? Well, if opportunities cannot be discovered, work towards creating your own opportunities. We have learned about our own intentions. We have learned about seizing the right opportunities for you and we have learned to say no for the opportunities which hold no significance in our life. From these valuable insights we can we have come to understand our purposes and our goals in life. From there work towards these goals consistently and persistently. Commit to smaller step to commit to smaller step for yourself improvement to prepare for the upcoming opportunities. Often enough, we tend to overestimate our own abilities and capabilities, especially when we lack the knowledge of seeing our own incompetencies, thus create impossible goals. It's like trying to run a marathon 42.195 kilometers when you never even try a 5 kilometers one. It's like setting yourself up for failure. Instead, instead create small achievable goals in alignment with the bigger goal and don't forget to congratulate yourself on each completion. The important thing is start now because there's no time like the present. I would like to end my speech with one reminder. Each person is our own person. Challenge yourself with opportunities with meaningful opportunities and say no to opportunities that do not hold any significance in your life. The path you chose is the right path. The path you didn't choose is never meant for you. Seek improvement, make progress, and enjoy your life. Thank you. [Applause]