by Heather Plett | Feb 3, 2010 | Creativity, journey, navel-gazing, Passion
Sometimes I feel like a split personality.
Some days, I’m an extrovert and I get lots of energy from the people around me. Some days I’m an introvert and I can’t WAIT until I can hide away from everyone for an hour, a day, a week. And then, on particularly challenging days, I can flip-flop in a matter of hours – even minutes.
Some days I love my job – the leadership energy required to energize and direct a national team, the opportunity to talk to so many different people in so many different places, the creativity of figuring out the best way to communicate, to educate, to fundraise. And then some days I hate my job and all of the energy it takes and I want nothing better than to just hide in my little basement studio writing, painting, dreaming.
Some days I long to be a true urbanite, hanging out in a funky apartment in downtown New York or Toronto, eating at trendy restaurants, attending all the latest plays and art exhibits. And then some days (or even on the SAME day), I long to hide out in a little seaside cabin far from the hustle and bustle of the city.
Sometimes I think my greatest strength and interest is in writing. Other days I want to put more energy into photography. Still other days (or hours), I think I should focus on leadership, or art, or facilitating workshops, or…. oh the list is endless.
I’ve never fit any categories very cleanly. It’s hard to put me in a box. I’ve done oodles of personality tests, and almost every time, I end up different from the last time I did a similar test. There are some things that are fairly constant (like the fact that I suck at maintaining and organizing details), but I can flip-flop on many of the categories (especially introvert/extrovert).
I’ve done the True Colours assessment several times (and have taught it a few times too, so I know it quite intimately – it’s one of my favourites), and mostly I come out as an orange (innovator), but once I actually came out with three colours – orange, blue (relational),and green (scientist), exactly equal. (‘Course I’m ALWAYS low on gold – the details oriented organizer.) I’ve also done lots of leadership style tests, and they always show different or confusing results too.
It’s been a little frustrating, this difficulty in pegging who I am. I find myself envying those people who can so clearly say “I am XYZ and I know that I am motivated by ABC,” and in my moments of weakness I think “what the heck is wrong with me that I just can’t seem to figure myself out?” Trust me, it’s not for lack of trying – I’ve read lots of books, taken lots of personality type tests. I keep thinking I’ll be more successful at living a full and satisfied life if I figure it out and work to my strengths.
But here’s the thing – one of the other messages I’ve heard from more than one manager is that both my greatest strengths and my greatest flaws are two sides of the SAME COIN – my ability to see both sides of an argument, my tendency to be able to weigh both pros and cons, my ability to come up with lots of good – and often incompatible – ideas, and (too often) the resulting difficulty in making firm decisions I (and my team) can live with.
I’ve been reading some interesting stuff about the concept of “scanners” (people who have so many different interests that they have difficulty settling on just one), and you know what? I FINALLY found something that defines me a little more closely. I am a scanner. And then I was listening to something online about the different types of Wealth Dynamics (ugh – HATE that name) profiles, and heard about the “creator” (someone who is half-way between introvert and extrovert and who is better at coming up with good ideas than implementing them), and again, I felt like there was something that made sense. I’m a HALF-WAY person! Neither one Meyers Briggs type nor the other, but a unique blend of both!
Now – I know that these are just made up names, and ultimately, the categories don’t really matter, but after all these years of wondering why I didn’t fit (like a square peg in a round hole), I’m beginning to realize that my NOT FITTING is what gives me uniqueness, beauty, and strength.
by Heather Plett | Jan 8, 2010 | Creativity, hope, Passion
A few days ago, I let Maddie drag me out of the house to see the Olympic flame as it passed through our city. It was my first day back to work and I really didn’t relish the thought of leaving my warm cocoon again in the evening, but I just didn’t think it was right to extinquish the enthusiasm of a 7 year old child who’ll probably only have one chance to see the flame in her lifetime.
In the end, I was glad we went. We didn’t get there in time to see it arrive at the Forks, but it was burning brightly in a fairly large torch on the stage where performers were putting on a concert.
At the end of the festivities, the flame was passed from the large torch to a very small enclosed lantern where they keep it burning through the night. It was just a tiny flame, but it was still THE Olympic flame. The next day, it would burn brightly again as it continued its journey toward the coast.
As I stood there watching them shrink the flame and then extinquish the large torch, a sudden epiphany visited me. That flame is just like me. Sometimes I’m burning brightly for everyone around to see, and then sometimes I have just a tiny flame burning inside me, nearly invisible to the naked eye. The beauty of the moment was the recognition that that small flame still holds within it the capacity to burn fiercely and powerfully.
Lately I’ve been going through one of those “tiny flame” periods. There are moments when there seems to be no more passion, no more inspiration, and no more energy. No more fuel for my fire. It’s not just a “January blahs” thing this time around. It’s a “something happened that makes the future seem dark again” kind of thing.
But seeing that flame reminded me that it’s still burning deep inside me. I just have to wait for it to be refueled and then it will shine again.
This morning, after having a conversation with a good friend over a chai latte, and then reading the article that my friend Darrah passed on, I had another epiphany. I am letting the shadow of this difficult situation cloud the future and I am forgetting to focus on that tiny speck of light that still burns within me (and within the people around me). I am also forgetthing that I have some control over what fuels my flame and do not have to wait for external forces to fuel it for me. But at the same time… I don’t NEED to burn brightly all the time – some times low flame times are crucial for helping me refuel and prepare for the times when I am called on to burn brightly.
As Pema Chodron says in the article linked above, sometimes we take the shifts of our emotional weather too personally. Sometimes we let ourselves believe that our current experience is how it IS instead of remembering that things are always shifting and changing.
A few days ago, I wrote this on Twitter: “I’m in one of those moods where I can flip-flop between ‘life is beautiful’ and ‘life sucks’ in mere seconds.”
Today I wrote: “Every day gives us another opportunity to rise above the things that dragged us down the day before.”
What about you? Where is YOUR olympic flame these days?
by Heather Plett | Oct 28, 2009 | calling, childhood, Passion
On her second birthday, Nikki spent about an hour trying on all of the clothes she’d just gotten as gifts, while the toys got brushed aside. She rarely wanted to ride in the stroller if she had the option of running. She scoffed at anyone who wasted her time with fairy tales or made-up entities like Santa Claus or the tooth fairy. Now that she’s thirteen, her friends call her the “Tyra Banks” of her group because of her passion for fashion. She dreams of the day her knee heals so that she can run, run, and run some more. (She’s jealous of me when I run on the treadmill – can you imagine?) She’d rather read a biography than a work of fiction any day.
At two, Julie had a better command of the English language than most teenagers. She learned to negotiate (and sometimes manipulate) almost as quickly as she learned to talk, and before long, we couldn’t keep enough books in the house to keep her happy. Now that she’s twelve, she volunteers for every public speaking opportunity that’s available to her, she’s trying to get a student council set up in her school so that students have more of a voice, and she’s almost always lost in a book.
Some of Maddie’s first words were “can you imagine if…” She filled our house with her imaginary playmates and all of the stuffed toys and dolls her sisters had tossed aside. Her favourite game was a fanciful round of “would you rather?” Now that she’s seven, she still plays “would you rather”, writes story books, paints pictures, calls herself an artist, and creates elaborate play spaces for her dolls under tables or chairs. She loves 3D movies and insists that they’re much better when you reach out for the things that come flying at you.
I don’t know how these things will continue to manifest themselves in my daughters, but I suspect some of it will shape the way their lives unfold. I hope that we as their parents have instilled in them enough of a belief that those passions have worth.
In more than one book I’ve read recently, writers claim that “our youthful passions serve as a foreshadowing of our calling or life’s work.” I want to honour the foreshadowing I see in my children, and so (in my moments of attentive parenting) I buy books on fashion for one of them, help another one coax school leadership to consider a student council, and climb under the table with the third and help her spell out the words for her latest work of fiction.
I want to go back to the child I once was and tell her the same things I try to say to my children. “Those hobbies you have? Those things that make you happy? They’re not just a waste of time. They have value. Don’t set them aside in pursuit of a more practical career. Trust them to direct you into your path. Don’t try to fit into the boxes you think you’re supposed to fit into.”
On the bus yesterday, I read “…just scribble your recollections of childhood passions in the margins here.” And so I did. This is what I wrote:
I loved to go places, either on my horse, my bike, or (on rare occasions when our family went on an adventure) in the car. I loved to wander all over the farm and thought of myself as an explorer in the woods. I had a special little hideaway in the middle of a bramble bush that you had to know how to navigate your way through to avoid the sharp thorns.
I was always creating something – macramé plant hangers, doll beds, decoupaged memory boxes – you name it. I learned to sew and was forever digging through my mom’s fabric closet for interesting scraps of fabric. I was happiest when I had a creative project on the go.
I wrote endless journals, stories, poems, one-act plays, or whatever tickled my fancy. My very first drama was a little play my friend Julie and I wrote and performed in our living room as a fundraiser for a mission organization. I wanted to speak and have people listen. I wanted to influence.
I would walk to the farthest field on the farm if I thought that Dad would give me a chance to drive the tractor. It felt like freedom to me, to be able to drive and to be trusted with something that was usually reserved for my big brothers. I thrilled at the little grin my Dad got when he was proud of my independence and determination.
I loved to be active. I would join almost any team or group activity that was available to me. I played ringette, soccer, volleyball, and baseball. I joined the drama club and the choir. I was never a star but I was always a joiner.
I gravitated toward positions of leadership and influence. I was student council president in grade 9. (After that, though, I had to go to the ‘big’ school in a much bigger town. I lost my confidence and didn’t run for student council again until college.)
What would that little girl tell me if only she could? What were the dreams she had that got set aside when bills had to be paid and careers had to be chosen?
I haven’t totally abandoned those things I loved to do. Even in the practicality of life, I’ve usually found some small way of honouring them. But sometimes we believe other voices rather than our own, we follow someone else’s idea of what our calling should be, and we set aside fanciful things for those that seem more pragmatic and realistic.
Somewhere along the line, most of the passions got relegated to “hobbies” rather than “life’s work”.
What about you?
