Don’t Be Self-less, Be Other-ish
It can be difficult working on yourself, because just like anything else, it takes time. And I'm not talking about "the journey is long" kind of time. I'm talking about physical time out of your day or week when you decide this is for me and not anyone else. If you want to reach a goal or make moves in your career by skilling up in new areas, you need that this is for me time.
If you're lucky, you can find it by cutting back on another personal hobby or bad habit like mindlessly scrolling through social media. If your life is already full of good stuff, it may mean saying no to that social engagement or volunteer opportunity. If you are a giver or a people pleaser, this will be very hard for you.
It is easy to think that we should try to be self-less people, the kind who just give everything of themselves with no thought about their own needs. We think others must come first because you are either self-less, or self-ish, and no one wants to be selfish. Or maybe the motivation is just fear that someone won't like you. Or as a person of faith you may have some equivalent of I need to be like Jesus that's been drilled into your head. Yet we somehow forget that even Jesus took time away from the crowds to pray and spent years learning before he was able to teach others.
So is it possible then to be able to give wholeheartedly while still taking time for yourself? Research shows it is.
According to Adam Grant, author of Give and Take, "Self-interest, and other interest, are completely independent motivations: you can have both of them at the same time." He describes these people as being otherish. They are not selfish, yet they are not completely self-less. They manage to care about benefiting others while also having ambitious goals for advancing their own interests and needs.
Does the idea of having an ambitious goal just exhaust you? My inclination when I am tired is to want to sleep more and just watch or read something mindless. A little of that, I think, is good. However, if I do too much of it I leave feeling worse than when I started because real rest doesn't come from shutting your mind off. It comes from reminding yourself why you're working so hard in the first place. Real rest comes from feeding the soul.
Grant went on to research people who gave selflessly and compared them to those that gave in this otherish way. It turned out, that the selfless givers burnt out. They gave so much, that they forgot why they were giving. Whereas those that maintained a connection to their own goals and desires were able to prevent burnout. Which means in the end, they lasted longer and gave more. The real rest that they needed didn't come from stopping, it came from giving more to their goals and dreams.
What's your schedule like these days? Do you carve out time for your goals? Or are you too burnt out to even think about it? Try this week to make some space for your passions. Don't just be like the Jesus who gave to everyone. Be like the Jesus who gave and spent time with God. In the end you may discover that giving to these things - to your rest, your goals, your faith - doesn't take energy, it produces it.
