My fantasy tough-woman CEO self. As you can see, she takes zero crap from anyone.
Like most people, I’ve always had a story in my mind about “what kind of person I am.”
I’m friendly, caring, organized, funny, curious, interested in solving problems...the list goes on.
But the other (shittier) side of that coin is that I can sometimes be non-confrontational, conflict-avoidant, slow to decide...you get it.
And it’s true that I have behaved in the ways above many, many times. Enough to make the case that those are part of my personality. Because, in all honesty, our “personality” is really just our consistent pattern of behavior: How we respond to stressors, how we engage with others in the world, how we solve problems, which things light us up, etc.
Since we humans are wired to preserve energy, once we form certain patterns of behavior in our childhood that “work” for us, we tend to stick with them. It’s way too much work and risk to try to change. For me, I clearly learned early-on that being nice and easy-going was a strategy that got me what I wanted. To be honest, it served me well for many many years.
The problem is, at some point, you become an actual, real-life adult and the personality traits that were your greatest assets in childhood no longer serve you in your grown-up life.
And your out-dated personality traits definitely don’t serve your business.
In the past, my desire to “not rock the boat” has caused me to…
Stay quiet when I really needed to give some tough feedback
Charge less than I should have
Take on clients that weren’t aligned to my values
Keep employees on staff way longer than I should have
Hold back on marketing the awesome work we do
Do more work than I promised (way beyond “above and beyond”)
Author Michael Port says, "Most of our business problems are personal problems in disguise,” and I KNOW how true it is. I have lived that reality.
So are we just stuck with our personality? Are we doomed to repeat these same unwanted patterns of behavior forever?
Here’s what I believe: It is absolutely possible (with a whole lot of help) to break a problematic pattern of behavior through developing deep awareness of those patterns. But it may not be possible to interrupt the initial internal response. And that’s ok.
Here’s how that works for me:
I shared last week about having a strong reaction to how a colleague showed up with me in a business meeting. My initial reaction was to feel angsty about it and then to move to dismiss it...to let it go. “It’s not worth the trouble of bringing it up.” “I don’t want to make them feel bad.” “I’m sure they were just having a hard day.”
And while I do believe in giving people the benefit of the doubt, I also want to be the kind of person who speaks up when a boundary has been crossed.
So even though I had the initial impulse to “let it go,” through lots of practice and some trusted support, I became aware of what I was really feeling and what I actually wanted in that situation. It took me a few days, but I was able to speak up and share with that person how the experience made me feel. And I was able to do it in a way that felt aligned to my value of “Love Humans.”
You guys. I broke the learned pattern.
And do you know what else?
I won’t break it every time.
I’ll still get sucked into the old ways of acting sometimes. But every time I successfully break the pattern, it makes it more likely that I can do it again and again.
I will probably always be someone who has to work hard at this. And there’s nothing wrong with that. Feeling pain and discomfort is part of being human. But the more I can become aware of what is causing that pain and how my trained patterns bubble up, the more likely I am to make a conscious choice of how I want to respond.
And that’s how I become more like the woman - and the CEO - I want to someday become.
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