What Do You Stand For?

I spent the whole day in a time management training seminar. Actually, it's a pilot program we started at work, with me being a member of the team selected to determine whether this thing called "time management" actually works and should be implemented department wide.

I've been doing this training now for 4 weeks. It started with an all day seminar a month ago, followed up by weekly conference calls with our coach. For me, i took this program seriously because i seriously want to get on top of my work. I have a huge pile of work that's overdue or behind which i inherited from the previous holder of my position.

Be that as it may, i still think i should be on top of my pile. Queen of my mountain. That's the goal anyway. But i've been struggling these past weeks. For every letter i write, i find two new overdue ones. I feel like Lucy on the assembly line of chocolates. Hmmm, i wonder if eating them would work. Mmmmm, chocolate.

Anyway, a few weeks ago I decided to call the coach and tell him I’m having trouble with the program. One of our assignments was “to accomplish something that we wouldn’t normally do, but would be a great benefit and relief if we did.” So I told him, I know exactly what I want to do (get this pile of paperwork off my desk) but I haven’t been able to do it in weeks and I don’t know how to get myself to do it despite promises I made to myself and teammates. I just cant do it. I just stare it.

He asked whether there was something I resented about the work. I said no. I really like my job. I don’t have any gripes with my employer, boss, or coworkers. Then he clarified that he didn’t mean anger or anything, just unresolved upsets.

Wellllll, if you must know, it was incredibly unfair to be saddled with someone else’s backlog of overdue work. AND I was told that I would only have to do half of it. Instead, I got the whole caseload. Why? Oooops, sorry, things happen.

Hehe. I guess I had little resentment ;)

But despite that, I was determined to conquer my mountain. I knew that I was getting more work than what was promised, but I decided that “I could do it.”

But then the coach asked “are you willing to let go of your resentment?” I said yes, because I really want to be successful in my job, irrespective of the circumstances within which I inherited it. Then the coach said that so long as I don’t work on the mountain, I am not really letting go of my resentment and I’m not really committed to my success in conquering it.

Okay, so I sat on that for a while. That week, I still didn’t get ahead of the game. But the next week, I just decided that it’s not that I “should” do this pile of work, it’s that I “want” to. I really want success. That’s so much more positive than thinking in terms of “I shouldn’t be so behind.”

Anyway, I got twice as much work done. Amazing. And it was an amazing realization.

So then, today we had another all day conference with the coach. He comes in and divides us into two teams. Each team has to come up with an aircraft that has speed, distance, and stability in 15 minutes. Oh, well, my mind totally blanked out because I never made a paper airplane before and I had to rely on the experience of others to design this. I don’t know why I did that. There were others on the team who didn’t know how to make a paper plane either. But I just, basically, mentally ejected myself from the team because of what I thought of myself.

All we had to use for building of the plane was one gigantic piece of paper and a huge long piece of tape.

But anyway, we came up with something. The good old basic paper airplane. No frills or anything. We flew it across the conference room and it went pretty far before landing. The other teams did pretty much the same as us but different design. They had launching issues, and I don’t think theirs went as far as ours ;)

But that’s not the point. At the end of this competition, coach sent his own aircraft across the room, that was faster and went further. But his was in the shape of a ball. It was a wad of paper taped down into a ball.

The point was that he said “aircraft” not “airplane.” We all assumed airplane, based on our perceptions and preconceived ideas of how to make an aircraft out of paper. Actually, it’s based on what we learned as kids. That’s what we all reverted to. And in my case, I regressed even further than that and into I cant possibly have anything of value to contribute especially given that I know nothing (but that’s a discussion for another day ;)

After that, coach had us list all the things we cant stand about our work. We listed everything under sun, including missing the train, windowless offices, and temperature control. For me, the biggest thing I cant stand about work is being behind. I just cant stand that.

Why? I suddenly realized that I cant stand being left behind because I was left behind a few too many times as a kid. And I just cant stand that. And then I saw that that had nothing to do with the pile of work on my desk. It’s just a pile of work. And truth be told, everyone in my department is just as behind as I am, and that’s of their own doing (they didn’t inherit a backlog). But, I’ve attached this negative emotion to my work that’s been blocking me from achieving it. Why, you ask? Because I’m not “over” the first time I was left behind. And when I see signs of it crop up in my present day, my knee jerk reaction is frustration, avoidance, denial.

But, you might say, I would be “getting over it” if I just attacked the pile. Yes, but not if I’m stuck in the emotion of the injustice of it. If you feel that the mess you’re in is someone else’s responsibility, it’s natural to think that someone else should clean it up (or apologize at least!). So you wait. And wait, and wait, and wait for someone to notice you’ve been left behind and that you’ve been waiting and that you’d like an apology or some reparation for the injustice of it all before you can put it past you in your heart.

But most of the time, we’re not given that luxury. Wouldn’t it be nice if everyone apologized for their assineness?

Ok, so I cant stand being behind because of a childhood trauma. And what have I done about it? I’ve stood around and thought, this shouldn’t be this way. This is wrong! This is an outrage! I should be ahead or I should be on top of my work. But that’s a complaint. And no one is motivated by complaints. They’re disempowering. And I’ve been disempowering myself all this time.

So after we listed all the things we couldn’t stand, we listed all the things we stand for. I stand for doing well. I stand for success. Really? Is that then what you’ve been doing? Do you really stand for that? You cant want success AND keep complaining about the process. Bingo.

If you really want to do well, the only way to show commitment to it is to give up your complaint. But you have to be ready to give it up because sometimes we can get addicted to the emotional drama of feeling victimized all over again. You have to be willing to give that up. If you’re not, that’s ok. Deal with the hurt, work your way through it until you can give it up. That’s, I think, what forgiveness is about (but don’t ask me, I know nothing on the matter, except that Oprah said recently that forgiveness is giving up the hope that the past would be different.)

Anyway, I didn’t mean to go on and on about this, but I just had to write it down because I didn’t want to forget the lessons I learned today. Coach said that once you begin to commit to what you stand for, you start to empower yourself.

I want to be successful, and I want that to be because of a job well done. And I want that more than I want an apology for past wrongs.

Jude