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Series 2: What Do You Meme? Episode 1: Introduction

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What Do You Meme? 4-Part Series Introductory Episode Jill Williams

What Do You Meme? Podcast Series, Episode 1 of 4

Hello again! Here we are together again for another Serenity in Motion Podcast series. This new series is a 4-week series called, What Do You Meme?

I was talking about the topic for the series this morning in the kitchen and my daughter gave me this title because I’m going to spend these next four weeks talking about what I mean by shaping a strong sense of self, belonging, and purpose. She immediately had the idea to call it what do you meme and showed me how I could create a meme for each episode….so that’s what I’m doing.

Bear with me.

I’ve never made a meme before.

I do hope this series gives you opportunity to think more about what it memes, I mean means, for you to be shaping your own strong sense of self, belonging, and purpose. And that order is on purpose.

Self, belonging, and purpose. We’ll get into each of these over the next three weeks. For now, let me get us started at the beginning and pave for us a foundation to build on.

I care about words. I make connections so words hold a lot of meaning for me. More than I can often communicate. That’s why I spent a lot of time coming up with a name for my coaching company and it’s why I landed on MettlEdge.

MettlEdge speaks for itself. It communicates that having mettle gives you an edge, and in this new era of life and leadership, I know I need every edge I can get to keep going strong.

If you are living in the world I’m living in, I’m sure the same holds true for you.

Merriam-Webster defines mettle as vigor and strength of spirit or temperament, staying quality, and quality of temperament or disposition.  The Cambridge Dictionary says mettle is ability and determination when competing or doing something difficult.

I have always been a high achieving, high performing, determined and driven person. But something happened to me. Over time, responsibilities and relationships in my daily life grew, and while I was intentional, forward-thinking, and determined to make the most of it all, I was along for a wild ride.

  • It was made up of the usual twists and turns of things like a big girl job, a marriage to an amazing man, the privilege of raising up three amazing babies who are all now amazing big people, one who is about to get married himself.

  • It also threw me for loops and drops with things like a difficult work situation, two cross country moves, a child’s undiagnosable sickness, the loss of a young friend way too soon, and not being there to get to love and support them in the journey of grief.  

I love roller coasters and some of these twists and turns felt like it feels when you’re racing on the rails with the wind in your face, arms in the air, and joy in your soul.

Other days the loops and drops left me feeling unequipped to face what was real.

I was shocked when I started to forget appointments.

Who is this? I am known for being responsible, I thought to myself.

I have worked hard to be known for being dependable.

I am resourceful. Organized. On time.

Yet, I found myself forgetting to return my kids library books before they were due. How embarrassing, I thought. Maybe I can return them under cover of darkness. I am losing my mind, I thought.

Okay, now, you may be thinking Jill, you are ludicrous. That’s all very normal human behavior---Fair.

But for me, it didn’t register as normal at all.

My growing responsibilities and relationships felt like they were becoming a burden to me.

I had built up years of defenses against any and all interference to my carefully controlled, high performance world. Some would say I was a perfectionist. I had built for myself a strong sense of self, belonging, and purpose on getting things right and whatever happened to me, I all of a sudden was unable to keep it from coming off the rails.

Me. The high achieving, high performing, determined and driven me.

I wanted to take it in stride, I wanted to learn, to grow up, but I was trying to move through life with as little discomfort as possible. You wouldn’t necessarily have known this. But you also may have known it. I talked about it with close friends. I sought out a mentor and told her the reason I wanted to spend time with her is because I didn’t know how to learn. Despite graduating summa cum laude at SMU, I really didn’t know how to learn. Because to learn is to show up.  I worked really hard to show up prepared. Competent. Ready for whatever the world dealt me in that day.

I knew how to perform, but I didn’t know how to just show up.  

Focus for a moment and sit with your thoughts. Again, you may be thinking Jill, you are ludicrous. That’s all very normal human behavior. But you may not. What are you thinking about all of this?  

 

I didn’t know how to just show up with what I had to give, ready to discover what the world had for me to experience, trusting my response would be enough. What would happen if I showed up incompetent? What would I think of myself? What would others think of me?

Well, I found out because that’s what started happening to me, without asking my permission for it to do so.

So, there I was. Stressed. Spent. And Stuck. Struggling to learn how to learn.

I mentioned in episode 3 of the Six Frames of a Proactive Mind series that growth happens when we individuate and relate. Learning happens when we show up with what we have to give and experience positive connection with others.

These connections with others we sometimes cannot even imagine. Such connections being positive, or good, can be so difficult to imagine that we throw all of our capabilities into the effort to keep ourselves from experiencing them. Oh wait. I did that.

It’s tragic that we often use the very gifts we’ve been given to thrive within ourselves and with others to protect ourselves and limit our experiences with people and opportunity.

No matter how convinced you may be that to keep performing is the best thing for you or for the people you lead, you—and they—will not really grow up if you—and they—do not really show up.  

I’m not saying don’t prepare. Don’t put in the work. Don’t give effort.

What I’m saying is think about what’s driving your performance.

Are you putting in the work and giving effort with your reputation on the line.

With your image on the line?

Does your performance define your worth? Do you need to perform to be fulfilled?

Or are you putting in the work in service to others.

Are you giving yourself permission to shoot for perfection, but to not demand it.

If you keep using all your capabilities to do everything because…who are you if you cannot—if you do not? If you keep busting your butt to be everything because…who are you if you aren’t—if you can’t?

You may not really know who you are. And you may struggle to enjoy the people and possibilities you have been made to show up and relate with. To connect and create with.

You and me, we were made to make a difference by being our distinct selves in positive relationship with one another so together we grow up the everything we were each made to be—made to become.

In this way, we are serving one another.

Fuel: In what ways do you relate to this? I what ways do you not? What’s disrupting you, if anything?

 

Good growth does not always rise from things we may deem as “good things”. It can. But often it rises from ashes. From hurts. Disappointments. Difficulty. Differences.

Even shame. Yes. I said that.

And here’s what I mean by it.

I held myself in such high esteem, thinking my ability to get it right. Be on time. Return my library books without a late fee all made me whole. In some ways worthy. Good.

And I felt a sense of shame when I could no longer keep it up. That feeling prompted me to investigate.

I don’t know what this kind of investigation might look like for you, but for me it looked something like this: As I said, I am high achieving, high performing, determined and driven. I was a focused teen, crossing my t’s dotting my i’s and taking names. But I was dying on the inside. When I was 19 years old, I gave up the burden of performance for the grace of God and if you ask people who knew me back then, my eyes were literally opened. Like I began to look people in the eye. I was alive.

So, being troubled with a sense of shame about not getting my library books returned on time meant I had to investigate. I mean, it’s not like I didn’t pay the late fee. And there were other things, tool Like moving into a high performing place with a real concern about whether or not I could be there and not drink the water. What was going on the inside of me?

I had to dig down to the roots of my beliefs. It took time. Years.

Maybe I am still making myself out to be only as good as my performance, I thought.

Maybe I do hook myself up to my performance especially when it seems to me that others are measuring me in this way?

Maybe I’m not performing this Christian life thing good enough. Ohhh….

So, as it turns out while my growing responsibilities and relationships disrupted me, they opened my eyes further than before, showing me how much more I have to grow. And I’ll always have more.

You too. It’s a human thing. To be growing is to be alive.

It means freedom to return my overdue books in the light.

 

To conclude, when I talk about shaping your own strong sense of self, belonging, and purpose, I mean growing up the everything you were made to be to serve others outside and beyond yourself.

This will take time. Years. And that’s fine because we will all be growing until our last day.

One quick story to end this introductory episode …

I was fretting about my vegetable garden a few years back and my farm-to-table restaurateur brother simply said to me, “Jill, you do know a seed wants to grow?”

In other words, don’t fret, it was made to become more. Give it what it needs; it wants to grow.

Lest we forget, we too began as a seed. Do you want to grow? If so, give yourself what you need.

We all know seeds need soil, water, and sunlight. But the type of soil, the amount of water, and the amount of sunlight needed differs from one type of seed to another.

Similarly, we all have the same basic needs:

  • We need connection with people we trust to ground us in our families and our communities.

  • We need healthy stimulation in mind and body to fuel us daily.

  • We need accountability to shine the light on what’s true of us to help us move ourselves forward.

And just as with a seed, the amount and type of connection, stimulation, and accountability we need differs for each of us.

Do you want to grow? If so, take a moment to honestly answer these questions for yourself:

  • What connection, healthy stimulation and accountability do you personally need?

  • What connection do you currently have with people you trust?

  • What stimulation do you currently have for your mind and body daily?

  • What accountability do you currently have to help you move yourself forward?

  • What do you need that you don’t already have to give yourself what you need?

Now, after taking the time to honestly consider these questions, what do you want to do?

 

 

How will you Fight to shape your strong sense of self, belonging, and purpose?

What’s that thing popping into your mind and within your power that you can do?

When will you do it?

What difference will it make for you and for others when you do?

Who will you tell?

 

Whatever you do, don’t fret. Be encouraged. You were made to grow.

 

 

This has been our foundations episode to our 4-part What Do You Meme series. A series on what I mean when I say shape your strong sense of self, belonging, and purpose.

Please follow and comment on this podcast on apple podcasts and follow, comment on, and share our IG posts @MettlEdge.Coaching

I hope you enjoyed this episode and that it gave you some good food for thought. Catch you next week where we’ll dive into what it memes, I mean means, to shape a strong sense of self.

I pray this podcast has been and continues to be a blessing.

  

 

Sources:

https://www.merriam-webster.com/dictionary/mettle

https://dictionary.cambridge.org/us/dictionary/english/mettleHello again! Here we are together again for another Serenity in Motion Podcast series. This new series is a 4 week series called, What Do You Meme?