Are We Understandable?

I constantly struggle with understanding myself. I feel like what Brennan Manning calls himself – “a bundle of paradoxes.” One moment I feel delightful, the next I'm loathing my very own undelightfulness. One moment I feel bold & confident, the next I question where I could find a shell to hide & bury into. One moment I feel like nothing in the world could shake my “pie in the sky” attitude, and in the very next moment, when I find the teeniest blemish on my face, I feel as if my world just collapsed (Hiroshima proportions, if you will). I'm dramatic. And I'm sanguine-melancholy. It gets messy being me. Maybe you too?

I desire to understand myself better. I want to know what makes me tick, I want to know more the things that make my heart race, I want to know more fully the things that bring me life, and I want to know more fully the things that bring death to my spirit. I want to know more how I convey myself to others, I want to know how I convey the life of Christ better to the world, and I want to know the things I do that jades the world I encounter to the Christ I love.

I found this post interesting as I walk through the muddy paths of discovering myself more and more. Welcome to the twentysomethings, I guess. We're one big, fat enigma.

Do You Understand You?

OCTOBER 27, 2010

For leaders, one of the hardest things we have to do is self-assessment. We have a much easier time giving feedback and positive criticism and providing helpful advice to those we lead, but being able to honestly assess where WE are as a leader is tough. But, self-assessment is one of the most important things we can do to make sure we continue to grow and get better.

A few thoughts on this:

1. You are never too good at what you do or who you are to need honest feedback from yourself, your peers, your family, and your friends. Seek it out constantly.

2. Your ability to correctly provide a self-assessment is many times a reflection of your humility and appropriate self-confidence as a leader. The more humble you are, typically the more self-aware you are. The more arrogant you are, typically the less self-aware you are.

3. Can you and do you laugh at yourself consistently? Are you taking yourself way too seriously? If so, chill out. You’re not that important and you need to relax. Sometimes the more platform and position we get, the more serious we take ourselves. Don’t.

4. As a follower of Jesus, we MUST rely on the Holy Spirit for correction and discernment on areas of our lives where we need to improve and grow in maturity.

5. At the end of the day, no one really enjoys self-assessment. But you can be CONFIDENT that those around you on your team, your friends, your peers and your family are way more aware of you and your style and the things you can improve on. As a leader, you have to be willing to swallow your pride and look yourself in the mirror and correctly assess who you are. A more self-aware leader becomes a way more Confident and followable leader.

6. No one wants to work FOR or AROUND a leader who doesn’t understand who they really are. Many times these leaders lack a clear sense of reality. A good friend of mine Ken Coleman calls this REALITY DEPRIVATION SYNDROME. Unfortunately, many leaders live in this world, and end up making decisions based on their false intuitions and assumptions because they don’t have a clear sense of who they are and how they are viewed by their peers and what reality really looks like.

7. Know very clearly your areas of strength and areas of weakness. The more personality tests and self-assessment tests you can take, the better. Strengthsfinder, Myers-Briggs, Personality tests, etc. All of these are helpful in giving you a perspective of the type of person you are, and the areas you need to be more aware of that can become problem areas.

8. Once you understand who you are, create a game plan for constant improvement. For example, one of my tendencies is to use cynicism as a source of gaining power and making others feel weak. I am VERY aware of this tendency I have, and have tried to create some barriers in my life that will harness this. Another example for me is that I will end up doing everything myself, instead of naturally delegating or allowing others on our team to take on responsibility. Because of this, I’ve had to be very intentional about making sure I don’t micromanage. It’s still something I find myself doing, but am very self-aware of this and work constantly to improve.