Day 15: Stalling

“There is nothing with which every man is so afraid as getting to know how enormously much he is capable of doing and becoming.” ~Soren Kierkegaard 

This week was hard for me in so many ways.  Missing the lunches that are my opportunity to work on my project - trying to make up the time when I drive home from work.  I have been emotionally exhausted from the work this week, so it is doubly difficult to think about "Becoming".

What I realized this week was that it was easy for me to drift out of the thought about what I am doing and the qualities I am aspiring to.  Almost as if the question I asked isn't enough.  I KNOW that isn't true - is it my resistance to doing it?  It made me think of the Marianne Williamson tapes I have listened to off and on through the years.  The Course in Miracles is the path she uses to discuss spiritual matters.  I don't know what I subscribe to, exactly, but a lot of things she lectured on made sense to me.  

One of the things she used to talk about was resistance to doing the work. The other topic that seems to resonate with me is not what I need to put on, but what I need to take off myself to become the person I want to be.

This week in taking off some characteristics (or at least thinking about it), I had a great opportunity.  I did performance reviews at work this week. Something like 23 in 4 days. Performance reviews are not easy and this week was no exception.  There are the people you admire greatly and my tendency is to chatter like a monkey.  This week, I tried to stick to my game plan and not allow myself to deviate.  There are the folks who you know are going to be disappointed in their scores, no matter what good things you say.  In that circumstance, I tend to make excuses or overexplain the good stuff instead of letting it just BE.

What I discovered this week was that it was a pleasure to sit with each person and look them in the eye and tell them they were doing good work. Everyone contributes to the success of a place in some small way, in some big ways.  That connection this week was really good and gave me some things to work on.

1.  If someone isn't meeting my expectations, tell them what would meet my expectations.

2. Communication is a two way street - if some part of a communication relationship isn't working, tell the person what you need and what you will do to try to help fix it.

3.  Just listen.  (I want to take a class on Active Listening...I try to do it, but I'm not sure I'm great at that.  My instinct is to FIX IT!!)

So even though I felt a little stalled out the last couple of days when sitting down and thinking about who I want to become, I think it was because there was a lot of that reflection going on as I went along.