A whole person. What does that even mean?
Do you show up as the real you in all roles of your life?
Sometimes I think it is easier for us to compartmentalize our life.
This is the me at work and this is the me at home.
Why do we do that?
Are we afraid if we have fun at work, we will be labelled “not serious about the job”?
If we plan a family vacation, will our family call us anal retentive?
And there are a million other ways we justify being different under different circumstances.
“To be yourself in a world that is constantly trying to make you something else is the greatest accomplishment.”
Facts are easy to find out. Want to know more about me, here’s a link!
What Truly Drives Behavior
There is a general belief that circumstances drive our behavior, but that’s not quite right.
Circumstances drive thoughts and emotions, and it’s thoughts and emotions that drive behaviors.
Where did I learn that having fun in the workplace was unprofessional? Or that planning a vacation “took all the fun out of it”?
The bottom line is: I like to have fun. At work, at home, on vacation. A whole person, that’s what I try to be.
I also like to plan. I plan projects for work, I plan projects at home and I plan vacations.
The degree to which I practice these things may vary, but there is no sense in denying that I am a whole person who likes to have fun and plan.
Those traits are the same whether I’m leading a project at work or whether I am baking chocolate chip cookies at home.
I am a whole person. If all of me isn’t showing up at work, then I’m wasting precious energy on deciding if that is an appropriate part of me to show.
If my many facets aren’t on display at home, how can relationships be genuine? After all, if people don’t know the real me, I have to keep track of which parts of me they do know to maintain the relationship.
I’ve decided that it’s too exhausting to go through all that.
So I leave you with this: your QOW (Question of the Week):
Where do you need to show more of the real you?
