strengths finder 3.0

I can't remember the last time I heard anybody say "There are some things you are not allowed to do" besides when I wear white jeans in February.  I've never actually worn white jeans.  I wonder if I've ever told myself it was just something I wasn't allowed to do, apparently I have.

I hate hearing what I have to do.

Kelsey thinks it's being a middle child.  She hates it to.

I understand I can't do some things, like wear white jeans,  but when I have to do something it is so much worse.

I've been lifting and trying to put on a little muscle.  The voice in my head goes nuts when I tell myself I have to eat more protein.  Nobody can tell me what to do, not even myself.  So I'm typing this with tiny arms and tired hands.

I've always thought I had a difficult time with follow through or habits or whatever words self help gurus fancy.  What I truly struggle with is waking up and knowing I have to do something.

Seth Godin once wrote about people who wished they could redo yesterday.  He then poignantly states that most of us know exactly what tomorrow is going to look like.  He then asks the question, if you could do tomorrow all over again what would you do?

So I know that most of my life is already predetermined actions, and yet I fight with the have to.

I had an old boss call me lazy.  I had started with a team of ten and was the seventh person to quit, right after I quite another guy left.  Even on a curve 20% is a failing grade.  So did he call me lazy because he needed to reassure himself that the enterprise he was a part of was not broken but rather 80% of the people he chose were broken?

Maybe.

But more likely he told me I was lazy because I would do anything I had to do to make that job work except follow the "rules" they had set up in the 1950's for success.  He loved those rules.

I once worked at a job where we had 13 internal meetings each and every week.  The problem wasn't the meetings, it was that I had to go to them.  I'm actually great in meetings, I'm witty and there isn't any actual work to do as long as you are meeting.

Sometimes we feel a certain way because it is the correct way to feel.  Following marketing rules from a time before the internet existed is stupid.  Spending one out of every three working hours each week in a meeting is stupid.  Not eating chicken because it is what you have to do to gain muscle is sabotage.

There are some things we are good at.  I'm good at finding things that don't need to be done.

The challenge is being self aware of how we use our strengths to overpower our intelligence or to reinforce resistance to what we really should be doing.