Consistently Inconsistent

Admittedly, I can be fairly impulsive person, acting on my random whims as they occur. Although this can be a recipe for excitement, it can be a quick route to frustration (especially for others). Suffice it to say, if there’s one thing in my personal life (luckily, I’m much more disciplined in my professional life) with which I consistently struggle, it’s … er… consistency (oh, the irony!) — especially when it comes to finishing projects.

Instead of seeing a specific project to 100% completion and then moving on, I tend to bounce from one thing to the next, doing a LOTS of work with little to show for it in terms of “finished” products.

inertia strikes again.

So… why the public confession?

Two Reasons.

One, I like the idea of public accountability and two, my past approach to this blog is an excellent example of the inconsistency I’m trying to subdue.

Lessons (not) Learned – and you can too!!

I recently attended a workshop given by author and PMP guru Joseph Phillips on applying project management principals to personal goals (if this type of things interests you then I suggest you check out his book The Lifelong Project, but that’s really not what this blog is about). And at one point during the four hour session, Mr. Phillips used an uncomfortable moment of silence to capture the group’s full attention before reciting this beautifully simplistic truth that is currently chewing  its way through my insides:

Lessons will be repeated until learned…

Lessons will be repeated until learned…

Lessons will be repeated until learned…

For any of you that have followed my blogging habits from my early days on Xanga to my brief fling with MySpace to this current incarnation, you know that I do a lot of teaching (or at least try to) in my posts. That being said, what you may not realize, especially if you haven’t followed me here from older venues, is that the real story is in the subtext.

Today, in a moment of total defeat I was made painfully aware that the “words of wisdom” I try to impart are sometimes nothing more than veiled attempts at self-assurance when the truth is more along the lines of self-deception — and if you peel back enough layers you’ll find that I’m usually the one most in need of my own advice.

For the better part of the day I’ve been trying to wrap my head around why I constantly (and consciously) repeat the same mistakes — especially those I have already chalked-up as lessons learned. I’m like the guy in Memento;  unable to form new memories I go about making the same foolish decisions like I’ve completely forgotten the pain I’ve already caused. But unlike Leonard Shelby I don’t have a legitamate medical excuse for my behavior. 

I’ve been grasping for all kinds of answers. But I keep coming back to the same three words.

Actions

Habits

Character

What’s really got me tied up in knots right now is my fear that I have perpetuated this type of behavior for so long that I’ve cruised right past the habitual state and have successfully  ingrained a self-destructive flaw into my character. Talk about a humbling self-assessment.

Its at this point in my blogs where I usually tie all the loose ends together and tell you in my best Tony Robbins voice that if you just follow these three steps or consider an alternate perspective, you too can master your mistakes!

But, I don’t have any advice this time. I’m not yet qualified.

WeakFinder 2.Me

During the fall of 2009, my wife Jennifer (my fiancée at the time) and I participated in a church small group focused around the biblical views of social justice — take that, Glenn Beck!– and as part of this group, one of our first “homework” assignments was to purchase the popular self-help book Strengths Finder 2.0 and complete the online assessment to determine our greatest personality themes/strengths, so that we could then report our findings to the group during our next meeting.

After completing the online assessment I received a personalized report  of my top five strength “themes”. Secretly hoping for some really cool (i.e. manly) strengths, I was instead presented with what to me sounded like the wussy-est “strengths” list ever created (with my initial interpretation included):

insert laughter at my expense here…

So… as encouraging as I found the above results ::pause for effect:: I began to seriously dread the moment when I would be sharing this amongst a mixed group of males and females and began to strategize a way to skip out on that next meeting. Unfortunately, my search for a legit absence produced zilch and I cursed my failed “strategery” as I sat in the circle of twenty-somethings in our friends’ living room with the above list on my lap.

As other members of the group began to read through their list of strengths, I started noticing an unfortunate trend. The guys’ lists seemed to be populated by words like “activator” (which sounds like a testosterone-laden combination of  “action” and “aviator”–picture Tom Cruise in Top Gun) and “command” (as in “I command attention because I am so awesome”) while the girls’ lists began to sound uncomfortably similar to my own — except for my wife’s which…well, let’s put it this way: if my list and my wife’s list had been schoolmates, her list would’ve been giving my list swirlees and taking its lunch money on a daily basis.  Suffice it to say, that meeting was quite the humbling experience.

Discouraged by my apparent lack of manliness, I decided it would be a good idea to seek encouragement (translation: I was hoping to find something  that would tell me my list of strengths was more than a mere consolation prize offered by a sympathetic computer program). The internet seemed like an easy place to start, but as quickly as I googled the phrase “being a man” I was blasted with definitions like does not take ‘no’ for an answer, power-hungry, and self-confident (this last one stung a bit as the lack of confidence in myself was what had led me to those sites in the first place). 

Finally, I came to the conclusion that I should just accept defeat, relinquish my “man-card” to the proper authorities, and curse God for making me such a crappy example of manhood.

Then I realized that I had been looking for my answers in all the wrong places.

Belief in God is one thing. Believing what the bible says about God can be much more difficult. If God is perfect and He makes no mistakes then that must mean He has created us each for a specific purpose… on purpose.

God hasn’t made us all such unique individuals just so he can  laugh as we compare and contrast ourselves with the archetypes of the world.  The world is screwed up and its archetypes are screwed up and no matter how much we berate ourselves (or each other) for not fitting its molds we will continue to strive for self-confidence and we will never be satisfied.

But, if we begin to change our point of reference and refuse to let the world define us, we can then begin to see our unique skills for what they really are: tools given to us by a perfect God so that we may fulfill our specific role in the building of His Kingdom. And being able to rest confidently in that is the key to true satisfaction.