I hate booking flights. There, I’ve said it. I admit one of my biggest weakness is booking a flight. Somehow I can manage a team of 50 staff, pull off an annual office party of 3000 folks but I can’t book a flight without going crazy.
I know there are a million and one reasons I can tell myself not to panic when booking a flight. After all, worst that can come to me is that I have to fork out more money and if a problem that can be solved by money, it’s never going to be a problem (quoted my mentor…but then again, he is filthy rich). Does that affect my work? Yes, it does because I do need to go on business trips sometimes and I always hovering around booking my flight, sometimes dragging until the very last moment. The conversation will go like this:
Boss: Aren’t you going to Thailand tomorrow?
Me: Yup. I’ve got all my keynotes prepared and I have also made sure that I got the address of our branch office there. My schedule is packed back to back for the three days that I am going to be there.
Boss: Great! You are very organized.
Me: Thanks! I even source for the cheapest hotel around the office vicinity so I don’t have to spend too much time traveling to and fro. My luggage is all packed and ready to go!
Boss: Smart move. So what time is your flight?
Me: ……………
Boss: Don’t tell me you haven’t book your flight?
Me: I’m just going to wait until after lunch to buy my ticket. (Grin sheepishly)
At this point, one of my best pals in the office will pop up suddenly and drag me to the nearest laptop and watch as I book my ticket. See! It always helps to have great pals in your workplace, they always make sure your back is covered or in my case, force me to book my ticket.
Then I moved into a much bigger company where they have specific team just to help with your flight, hotel and taxi bookings even when it is a personal trip. Absolutely love their service! No more worries that I’ll book the wrong flight, or wrong connecting flights, or get the wrong airport, or get the dates and times wrong, or muddled up with the different currency rates. No more booking of flights and realized that you just booked a flight that has 12 hours stopover in a tiny airport that has no duty-free or free wi-fi signal. What they will do is to ask you to fill out all your criteria and they will do the search and planning for you, providing you with 3 options. Ahh.. Bliss!
You may be curious to wonder if I have such a problem booking something else. I never need to book a long distance train before. For long distance coaches, I have no problem booking them. And no, booking of movie tickets or concert tickets are a breeze for me. So it is only subjected to flights. I have no problem flying, in fact, I relish in-flight food so much that I wish I could fly more often.
The point is to all this, I learnt to accept that I will always be jittery when comes to booking of flights and to counter that, I make sure that someone will sit down with me to complete the booking and that someone have the right to ‘whack’ me in the head should I panic over nothing. I think over the years, the slight improvements I have made that I could now book a direct flight on my own without unnecessary drama. Now is to conquer the multi-cities flights (groan)!
Learn to identify what are your strengths and weaknesses and work on your weaknesses. If you can’t improve much on your weakness, find a walk-around solution to your weakness. Everyone including yourself that you have flaws, imperfections and learn to acknowledge and accept that as being a part of who you are.
Have you conquer one of the things you hate or fear lately? And how did you do that? You’re welcome to share it with us under Comments!
MiddleMe 
Its true that everyone should work on weaknesses and try to eliminate it from their lives ……But its a difficult task………………….u have to work hard and sincerely to do this…..Good article Kally….
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It’s a daunting uphill climb, my friend… Glad you enjoy my post.
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Oh boy can I relate to this!…Not so much with booking flights…but with my student loan…for the longest time I was paralyzed with fear…dealing with the government over the phone….ugh…I kept putting it off…I would avoid the phone…anything to not have to face the fact I was failing to make my payments…then, 5 years ago, I met my fiance…turns out…he is phenomenal at managing money and getting things done…he’s helped me so much…face my fear of dealing with my student loan….now I make regular payments and if he sees me falling back into old habits he doesn’t let me run away lol…annoying as hell but I couldn’t love him anymore than I already do for helping me face my fears. Thanks for sharing your story! Oh! and congrats on the Liebester Award! You deserve it! 🙂
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Thank you so much, dear girl! Your fiancé sounds like a fantastic guy! Nice. Any hint to when is the ultimate date to tie him down for good? Lol!
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Lol we’re still working on that lol we have put things off twice now…not because we’re scared lol we would get married yesterday but things came up…family is far away right now and we were hoping for a traditional wedding…I think my mother would be crushed if her only daughter eloped lol…and then other lovely life events tapped into our wedding savings….*sigh* but it’s gonna happen I can promise you that much! lol xo
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Oh definitely work on it. Nothing is better than settling into a good old marriage, knowing he’s yours forever. Like you own him. Lol!
Don’t let family, distance and time to put you off. Work out the logistics, if need be always ask family to chip in to help, you never know most family members will love to jump in to help! You can always do two small cozy weddings instead of a huge one to save expenses and transporting everyone to the same location. I had a friend who did that in both Germany and Malaysia, and the wedding was beautiful, yep I went to both.
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Great idea! Because honestly we have waiter long enough for this…we had considered doing a destination wedding just the two of us…and then honeymoon at the same time…then we can finally have our official title and have a renewal of vows so to speak when we get back….more relaxed and I think we could save money this way as well. I’m not looking for anything fancy I just want to keep things small and simple…lol I think I’m going to have to talk to my mother….
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Tell your mother that you rather have a memorable wedding filled with love than a huge wedding dragged with debts for years to come. Can you imagine one of my ex-colleague is still paying for her wedding debts after having two kids?? Wedding costs are ridiculous!
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Nooooo thank you lol the last thing I need is debt to start off my married life…
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Hey Kally, your posts are so amazing!!! I really love them…. Sorry can’t read them immediately coz I am having a tight schedule. So I get only few minutes to be on WordPress…. Keep on writing good stuffs
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Don’t worry you will get to cover all my topics one day. Haha! Just keep coming back to drop in a “Hi” to keep me smiling. 🙂
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Phobia of getting details correctly…… and when gather all details then I always lost into it……..
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I know right! It’s so intense when I finally decide all the details must be correct and I need to hit the submit button NOW!
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Heart beat goes faster and faster lol
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Palms get wetter and wetter lol
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Cool we can both make good rhymes together 😝
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I have no problem with booking flights, it means that I can travel and I love that. But I hate a special form I have to fill in at work and I always leave it to the last day if I can and then do it. Unfortunately I have no on to help me and I have to get my act together on the 10 day when it is due. The stupid thing is I can do it but I really don’t like it. Thanks for sharing your story. Makes me feel better!
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Can’t you trade this form with someone else’s task? I always try to wiggle my way out by trading in “I come up with the travel itinerary if you help me book my flights.” Haha. Always a business woman at heart.
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Good idea, but I can’t, I am on my own on this. When I tried last time with something else I got the answer.. it is not in my job description. Well we don’t have much team work going on here… unfortunately.
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Dang! If you still want to drop me that email, you can.. I’ll love to see what I can do to help you 🙂
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You are sweet… I am going on a job show tomorrow, see what’s out there…might need a change….
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Wonderful.. Keep me posted. It’s good to have a change just don’t jump from a burning pot into a bigger burning pot. 🙂
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I am not under pressure….and yes I don’t want that to happen either. Thanks.
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You’re most welcome. Have a great day ahead!
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TRAVEL GRANT FORMS are the worst! i agree with you utesmile!
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Hey Kally you can remove this fobia by just doing it yourself again and again (Confront it)and just by saying it to yourself ” yes i can do it”. Book your flight tickets so often that you just get yourself off from the fobia.
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Thank you for your advice. I will keep chanting this mantra over and over again. 🙂
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Kally, you’re not alone in this. I’m so, like you, annoyed by this type of negative red tape. This is normal for those whose main goal, success, achieve growth objectives. Yes, Kally, it becomes sometimes depressing …
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Don’t be depressed, let us all try to overcome negativity.
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This will make a week I claimed reimbursement of a parking ticket 18 EUR. It still lacks a signature. We pay people whose only goal 18 EUR is not repay, then yesterday I signed a printed, the Mayor signed, everything is in order, still missing a signature … the positive side, I discovered a malfunction, certainly a position to remove …
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I love flying and booking tickets. You should try Expedia or any of the popular websites or apps.
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Being the person who likes to tighten the purse strings as much as I can, I’ll opened tons of websites to compare prices until my eyes go giddy.. Lol! Usually the first website I go is Skyscanner.com.
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Oh, so it’s the comparison process.. Those sites should help. I usually pick the cheapest airline that I’m comfortable with. And a layover time of 2 hours gives me enough time to explore another airport.
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It’s actually the whole process that is daunting.. Sigh!
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I should let you book all my tickets. Haha!
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Hey, Kally! I’m a seasoned learning and development professional, and I’ve become enamored with Strengthsfinder 2.0. It’s a test you take that pinpoints your strengths. The theory is that we waste a lot of time trying to improve our weaknesses when we will never be really good at them. If we work on things that are in our sweet spot, we can fly! That being said, there are tasks we have to do that will ever be in our strengths. I do what you did- outsource them if possible. If not, I do them first thing in the morning to get it over with. You probably have a similar personality type to mine. I will never be good or comfortable with tedious, complicated tasks.
I was shocked when you said you were a new blogger! I thought you had been doing this a long time. You are great. And it’s YOU.
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Hey Sharon, yup I’m the new kid on the blog.. Lol. I am pretty sure you sound like me too. I’m going use your method the next time and do it first thing in the morning and rip it off like a band aid! Charge on tiger! Thanks for your advice, let’s see if I make it the next time.
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My dad is reading strength finder 2.0 …
say, what if I’m above average in Literature and below average in Pure mathematics,
studying Literature means I have no chance of getting employed in my own country which only likes doctors, engineers and lawyers, while studying Pure math which I don’t have a knack for leaves me at below average and disadvantaged.
In this case shouldn’t I look for a third option?
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Well those are not the types of strengths that Strengthsfinder measures. It measures things like communication, analysis, responsibility, etc. I would suggest a chat with a career counselor. They’ve helped me immensely.
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I don’t believe my school has one? We do have university placement services but not quite a bona fide career counselor.
My dad works in HR so I think I’ll have a chat with him instead.
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Who here likes booking flights? I DONT. I got so much in travel scholarships, I did not have to spend. Still I agree with you, its nerve racking. TY for this post!
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Thank you for reading it! You’ve super supportive!
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💚
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Awwwww… Thanks!
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Hi Kally, what a great article and I just get a great vibe from your blog! So glad you enjoy my writing.
-J
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Thank you!! I always put my best food forward. 🙂
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* I mean foot.. Lol
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Hi Kally…. I really like the way u write ur articles… Everyone has some likes n dislikes….thnks for sharing ur article..
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You’re most welcome!! 🙂 thanks for dropping by.
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Please come check out my blog!! Hope you enjoy it!!
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Sure, I will. 🙂
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Lack of inspiration? You will find many an article to be produced. What you produce is always interesting, thought-provoking. Sometimes even meditation.
Thank you for your support, your visits. Happy sunday time…
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Thank you! Glad you enjoy reading. Have a wonderful Sunday too, Bernard.
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Working in customer service requires me to do some things I hate. For instance, as a manager it is left up to me to call angry customers and apologize or see how I can make them happy. I HATE this! I will pace around the office and agonize over what I will say and what they might say back. Finally, I just decide to get it over with so the rest of my day isn’t spent in silent agony. Most of the time these calls go well and sometimes the angry customer has calmed down by the time I get them and everything is pleasantly resolved! But there is always that initial dread and anxiety.
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Oh I so understand your situation! When I was a customer service manager, I dread the complain calls that demands for manager’s attention. Ultimately, customers don’t understand we don’t have much empowerment too. But I won’t let my staff be abuse, never. I have seen how some customers start swearing and cussing at my staff, and I will immediately take over and demand respect from the caller or I’ll hang up on him/her if he continues his language. It’s gets me hot and bothered when my customer service agents get harassed by rude customers and I won’t stand for it. If I don’t protect them as a manager, I fail in my role. Period.
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Reblogged this on Olamatts007's Blog.
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Things I fear: Showing false bravado. It’s better to be afraid than reckless.
Things I hate: Being angry. It makes me angry when I realize that I’ve let my emotions get the better of me. Ironic in a way *smiles*
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Awwww… We all get emotions sometimes and we do lose our temper sometimes too.
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Perhaps it has become a habit, a part of life 😀
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Perhaps but it’s very sad if you let it become a habit you can’t break.
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Yes, indeed. Kick it 😁😁
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This is the right blog for anyone who wants to find out about this topic. You realize so much its almost hard to argue with you (not that I actually would want…HaHa). You definitely put a new spin on a topic thats been written about for years. Great stuff, just great!
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