New Skills

I like to work hard. It is very rewarding to see what I have been able to create or where I have gotten with hard work. I appreciate other people who work hard. Hard work can take me far in life. I think in some regards, a healthy work ethic can really take anyone far in life.

The issue comes when what I have done to get to where I am at is not going to take me to where I want to go. To get to where I am at has taken hard work and diligence. X tasks and focusing on Y actions. However, Z tasks and N actions are required to succeed where I am at now and move to where I want to go. It is a little mundane to think about how I got to where I am. And process and reprocess the fundamentals of getting to where I am headed. The guiding principles that got me here seem to be the same, but the way they play out from here are most definitely different.

I have heard about the symptoms I need to change, but I have not figured out the core of what needs to change. I do know I can try different things until I find the right thing. Continuing to try new things will help me figure out how to succeed. Feedback from other will help me succeed. Trying to act the same way over and over again and expecting different results will lead to lunacy. Troubleshooting, hard work, and community seem to be the best tools I have at the moment in figuring out how to do get better at what I do.

Where in your life are you trying to figure out something new? Who do you have around you to help you figure out how to do it better? How can you try to succeed in a different way?

Trying,

–JT

All Things to All People

Last post I talked about my natural skill of analyzation and how I am working to not substitute my ability to analyze for being faithful. However, it is so dang hard not to try and help everyone through analyzing. I want to analyze everything. Collect all the information, make decisions, help others make decisions, and be right about all of it. It is so hard to stop myself. I just get so much joy from it all. 

It makes sense to do something I get energy and joy from. I have a hard time keeping it to a tame level. Staying out of business I don’t belong in. Though, I have to remember how I got to where I was. I did not land there by actively making decisions from an unhealthy motive. I was making unhealthy decisions about myself and others because of a long series of unhealthy decisions I made.

The irony, I landed in an unhealthy place because I made too many unhealthy decisions originally based on healthy motives.

I made the decision, the minute assumption, my ability to analyze was necessary for all people to use. Not only my ability to analyze; but, me analyzing. I with a capital E-Y-E, — I — decided, — I — had to analyze for everyone else and fill in all the gaps. For the good of everyone else — I — took on more than I should have and buried myself in tasks and details which were unhealthy for me to be buried in.

Now I am in a place where I see my mistake, misaligned assumption. I see the lie I bought into. I am making moves to not be buried in those details and bonded to this lie. 

What small lie are you buying into?

In Truth,

–JT

Decentralization

When I am in a situation where I need to make a decision I use my ability to analyze to substitute where my faith should be and I do this based on fear. I am afraid of the outcome; therefore, I restructure my process so that I am at the center gathering information and analyzing everything going on around me until I have a solid grasp on what my next step should be. 

This process is moderately logical as I everything together, assemble all of the information and move forward. However, it starts to break down when I reach the pressure point where I am not the center of the universe. I might like to think I am; however, I am not. I am only a small part of the much larger picture I get to be a part of. Re-centering my life so that I am truly relying on the conversation of trust and freedom written into the scriptures I live by. This means I have to stop collecting and analyzing everything. I will run out of memory and explode. I must start taking my time and remembering what is important to remember and analyze. Then I will not be frustrated with all of the things that are out of place. There are many things in life out of place. It is not my job to fix them all. 

This is freedom. 

Where in your life are you trying to put yourself at the center of the universe?

Outside the center,

–JT

PS: As I reread this post in preparation to post it today. I realized how far I have to go before this will truly be something I am good at. I have swung back into the middle of overanalyzing, not trusting.