(Transcribed by TurboScribe. Go Unlimited to remove this message.)
(0:00 - 19:57)
Welcome back to Goals in Grace, the podcast where faith meets high performance and where we talk about building a life that isn't only successful, but fulfilling. I'm Rev. Dr. Juliet Spencer, the Spirit-led Strategist, and we're continuing our series, You're the Adult, But It Didn't Come With Instructions. Last time we talked about something that sounds obvious until you have to live it.
No one is coming to give you permission. At some point, you become the person who signed your own permission slip. But today we go one step farther.
Here's what happens when you start giving yourself permission to change. Other people notice, and sometimes they don't love it. Today we'll talk about something that can be surprisingly difficult.
You're allowed to outgrow the person everyone knows. Sometimes the hardest part of changing isn't figuring out who you're becoming. It's dealing with everyone who's perfectly comfortable with who you used to be.
People just know a version of you. Every person in your life knows a version of you. Think about that.
Your sibling knows one version, your spouse another, your children another, and your co-workers yet another. You might even have friends that you've had for a long time who still carry a version of you from 20 years ago. Have you ever gotten together with people you knew in high school or college and suddenly found yourself behaving just a little like that person you were back then? I have, and it's fascinating.
You can be accomplished, competent, confident, build a career, raise children, lead organizations, handle crises. You no doubt have made decisions that impacted hundreds of people. And then you walk into Thanksgiving dinner and somehow you're 12.
Family has a remarkable gift for that at times, don't they? But relationships develop patterns, and if we're not careful, those patterns develop expectations. You're the responsible one, or the funny one, or the peacemaker. Ooh, maybe you're the successful one, the one who doesn't need anything, and if so, refuses to accept help.
You might be the one who organizes everything, or who takes care of everybody, or who does all the cooking. But sometimes those identities become so familiar that nobody really realizes that you're carrying them, including you. Let's call a thing a thing.
Sometimes an identity can become a job description. There's certainly nothing wrong with being dependable, or generous, or strong, and capable, because of course those are beautiful qualities. The problem comes when a quality becomes such an expectation that you add it to your job description.
If you're the strong one, then you don't get to fall apart. If you're the dependable one, then you don't get to say no. If you're the successful one, you don't get to admit you're unhappy.
If you're the peacemaker, well, then you're expected to absorb the discomfort of everybody else so everyone else can remain comfortable. You're the person who handles it, so everybody hands it to you. And perhaps for years, maybe you did.
Maybe you were even proud of it. Maybe that identity even helped you become successful. It helped you survive, and perhaps it helped your family.
Maybe it opened doors for you. And there might have even been a time when it genuinely reflected who you were. But here's the question.
Does it still? Sometimes we keep performing an identity long after we've outgrown it, don't we? It's because everybody expects it, even when they don't explicitly demand it. It's because everyone knows their lanes, and you're expected to stay in yours. Sometimes growth looks like inconsistency.
And here's where it gets uncomfortable. When you begin changing, people might say, you've changed. And they'll say it like it's evidence in a trial.
You never used to mind doing this, but you've always been the one who. Well, that's not like you at all. Since when do you? And you know what? Maybe they're right.
Maybe you have changed. We tend to get defensive about that. Oh, oh, oh, no, I am the same person.
But what if sometimes the healthiest answer is, you're right. I'm not the same person anymore. The truth is, beloved, I hope you're not.
I hope you are not exactly the same person you were ten years ago. I hope that life has taught you something. That your faith has deepened who you are.
I hope that you have priorities that have changed, and that you've discovered wonderful things about yourself. I hope you've let go of the things that used to haunt you. And I hope you've become more compassionate and courageous, honest, maybe more discerning.
Growth, by definition, means something changes. And yet we often expect ourselves to grow without really becoming different, which is impossible. Jesus did not remain who people expected him to be.
There's a fascinating moment in Mark chapter 6 when Jesus returns to his hometown. People hear him teaching, and they'd heard of some of the miracles he'd performed, and they are astonished. But then listen to what they do.
They begin locating him inside the identity that they already understand. The scripture tells us that their response is to say to each other, is this not the carpenter, the son of Mary, and the brother of James, and Joseph, and Judas, and Simon? And aren't his sisters here with us? In other words, we know who you are. We know where you came from.
We know your family. We remember you. And then the text says they took offense at him.
They're simply profoundly human about that scene. The people who knew Jesus in one context struggled to receive him in another. Obviously, our personal growth is not comparable to Jesus' identity or mission, but there's a powerful lesson in there for each one of us.
The human dynamic is recognizable. Sometimes people who have known you the longest have the hardest time seeing you differently, because they continue to see you as the old version of you. They remember who you were, and now you're asking them to learn who you are becoming.
But that can take time. Not everyone benefits from your growth, and that's a harder truth. But it is a truth.
Not everyone benefits from your growth. Sometimes people resist your growth because the old version of you worked really well for them, and that's worth saying carefully. I don't want us to assume sinister motives every time somebody struggles with our boundaries or our choices.
Usually it's a lot more ordinary than that. Systems, including family systems, church, work, anywhere there's a group of people, we like predictability. Families like predictability.
Organizations like predictability. Relationships like predictability. If you've always been the person who steps in, then people are going to expect you to step in.
If you're the one who always answers the phone, then people expect you to answer. And if you're the one who's always volunteering, even when you're stretched thin to do it, then people expect you to volunteer. I had a colleague once who was constantly rearranging her schedule to make sure that everybody who had a demand of her had access to her.
And she would rearrange things with her own family, with her own kids, and her own spouse in order to accommodate. Until finally one day she didn't. I'm sure you can appreciate that it was not a change that went over unnoticed, and it was most certainly a change that was not appreciated.
If you're that person, if you're the person who always does X, Y, or Z, then one day when you say, well I'm sorry I can't do that, everybody's going to think, well what's wrong with her? What's wrong with him? My friend, chances are nothing is wrong. Growth disrupts patterns. And when you change your part in a pattern, everybody else has to adjust.
That isn't selfishness. It's just what change costs. You don't have to make your old self wrong or feel guilty about it, especially when you're making a healthy change.
Now here's something I think is really important. You don't have to criticize the person you used to be in order to become someone new. We do have a tendency to rewrite our own history.
Let's just call a thing a thing. We discover a healthier way of living and suddenly everything we did before it was wrong. But maybe it wasn't.
Maybe that earlier version of you was exactly who you needed to be then. Maybe saying yes opened doors. Maybe working those long hours helped build something important.
Maybe being intensely responsible got your family through a difficult season. And perhaps being the one who held everything together was necessary for a while. Honor the person you were.
That person got you here. You don't need to be ashamed of your previous choices because you're making different ones now. But you can say, you know what? That served me then.
It doesn't serve me anymore. Or you might say, well that was appropriate for that season. But this season requires something different.
That's called maturity. Not rejecting who you were, but integrating who you were into who you're becoming. Your old strengths can become your new limitations.
Sometimes the very quality that helped create your success eventually starts limiting you. Maybe your willingness to work harder than everyone else helped build your career. But now your leadership requires delegation.
Or maybe the heavy price of working all those extra hours meant strained relationships at home. And so for this season you have some repairing to do. You have some reorienting to do.
Maybe being endlessly available helped you establish trust. But now being endlessly available keeps you from doing the work that only you can do. Perhaps independence helped you survive when you really needed those skills.
But now independence is keeping you from receiving help. Maybe being agreeable helped you maintain relationships, but you discovered in time those weren't necessarily the healthiest they could be. And so now being agreeable is keeping you from telling the truth.
Maybe perfectionism helped you produce excellent work, but now it's preventing you from taking bigger risks. And it's preventing you from recognizing the success you've already achieved. The strength itself isn't necessarily bad, but its expression might need to evolve.
And that's why growth can feel so confusing. You're not always letting go of something obviously dysfunctional. If it were that obvious, then chances are you would have done it a long time ago.
But sometimes you're letting go of something that used to work. It just doesn't work now. So let me ask you something.
Who are you when you're not being useful? When you're not achieving? When you aren't the somebody who fixes everything? Who are you when you're not being impressive and you're not keeping everybody happy? Who are you when you're not fulfilling the role that everyone associates with you? Those questions can feel really uncomfortable. At least they can to me. After years of performing a role well, the role can begin to feel like an identity that you did not choose.
Or an identity that you chose, but you never intended for it to be a lifelong identity. And this is where faith has something powerful to say. Before Jesus began his public ministry, before the teaching and the miracles, the crowds, before any of the things for which people would eventually know him, at his baptism the voice from heaven declares, You are my son, the Beloved.
With you I am well pleased. Notice this came before the accomplishments, before the public ministry, before. And he was called Beloved.
I think some of us need that reminder. Your deepest identity is not the role you perform. It's not your job title or your productivity and it is not your usefulness.
It's not how people depend on you and it isn't even the version of you that other people prefer. Your identity is rooted in the love of God. And when that becomes your foundation, then you gain enormous freedom to grow.
You don't have to preserve an old version of yourself just to maintain your worthiness of love. But Beloved, some people are going to need time. If you change, give the people who love you some grace.
You've had a front row seat to your own transformation, but they have not. You've been thinking about it probably for months, maybe even years. It might be a change that you've been wrestling with and prayed about, read about, talked about.
Maybe you've even worked on it with a therapist or a coach. And then one Taco Tuesday you announce, I'm not doing that anymore. And everybody else gets approximately 11 seconds to adjust.
My friend, give them a minute. In fact, give them more than one. Growth doesn't require contempt for people who haven't caught on yet.
They might need repetition and reassurance. They might need time to understand that your new boundary isn't rejection. Your changing priorities don't mean you no longer love them.
Your growth isn't an indictment of their choices necessarily. So you can be gracious, you can explain, you can listen, and you can reassure. But, and this is important, but you don't have to move backward simply because someone else hasn't adjusted yet.
Grace does not require regression. And that's important my friend. When I was growing up, I'm the youngest of three children and the only girl.
And my family, my siblings especially, whom I adore, assumed my identity as the youngest child. And by nature, I tend to be a cooperative person, an encourager, if you will. And I love my brothers.
So it was really easy for me to fall into the pattern in my family of the person who would do the things that nobody else wanted to. In fact, my favorite example comes from the days when we only had three channels on television and no remote control. And my older brother, well they're both older than I am, but the older of the two brothers I'll never forget.
He used to joke that they didn't need remote control when we were growing up because they had me. And all anyone had to do was to call me, usually by my nickname, and say, Channel 7, Channel 3, Channel 10, whatever. And I would hop right to it.
When there were things that needed to be done, let's say we were planning a party for my mom's birthday or whatever it was, the assumption would be that as the girl and as the youngest, I would take care of those details. I think I was probably in my 40s, if you can believe it, when I finally realized that that identity, that person that everyone in the family anyway assumed would take on those responsibilities, that that really bothered me. That that was not who I needed to be anymore.
It was fine if I wanted to offer. It was fine if I wanted to say, well I'd be happy to do that. But I recognized it wasn't healthy and it wasn't helpful for everyone to assume that those things would fall to me.
But the first time I told my brothers, no, if you want that done, you need to take care of it yourself. Oh my stars! You can imagine the snide looks, the teasing, the what? What's wrong with her? Oh my gosh! And then the cajoling. I would do it, Juliet, but you do it better.
Or you live closer to them. Or my job keeps me busier. Whatever the excuse was.
(19:58 - 23:39)
Fortunately, I was prepared and I knew that all I had to do was smile, keep my intact, remind them that I loved them, and that I was confident they would be able to pick up the slack. And it didn't change right away, but finally there came a time when now we negotiate. Okay, for this task, who has the most time? For this task, who is the logical person or who feels led to jump in and volunteer? But no longer was I automatically the one who would pick up the slack.
It's a great example of the fact that my brothers adore me, my parents adored me. That didn't mean they wanted the change. So just get ready.
Even when it's a healthy and honorable choice on your part, expect some disgruntled people who are used to benefiting from what you're changing. So here's the architect's question of the week. What version of me am I continuing to perform because other people are comfortable with that person? What version of me am I continuing to perform because other people are comfortable with that person? Now sit with that for a little bit.
Maybe you're still performing as the competent one when what you need is help. Or maybe you're still performing ambition when what you really want is peace. I'll never forget a client whose identity had become the go-to capable person.
The one who was emotionally and mentally strong and capable of handling whatever. And one day she finally admitted, do you know what message that unintentionally sent me my whole life? Was as the strong one, I wasn't allowed to break. I wasn't allowed to be the one who cried the loudest.
I wasn't allowed to be the one who needed emotional support. Now nobody in her family ever told her she wasn't allowed. But the expectation was so clear and the lines had been drawn so thoroughly that that's what she assumed.
And so when she went to her family and said, I refuse. I refuse to carry all the emotional angst on my shoulder so that none of you have to. I refuse to be the one who's constantly strong.
And by golly I want somebody to ask me how I'm doing from time to time. It was quite a breakthrough. So the question again is what version of me am I continuing to perform because other people are comfortable with that person? And then ask yourself, who am I becoming instead? Not who should I become, but who am I becoming? Who do you want to be? Who do you choose to be? It's worth considering.
This week notice the moments where you hear yourself say, but I've always... I've always done it this way. I've always been the one who handles that. I've always said yes.
I've always worked this hard. I've always been available. I've always been the person people can count on.
And when you hear yourself say that, add two words. Until now. I've always done it this way until now.
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I've always been the one who takes care of that until now. I've always thought I had to until now. I've always done it this way is history.
It is not necessarily instruction. You don't have to change everything, but saying I've always done it this way until now is about to open up possibilities you never even considered. So you're the adult.
It did not come with instructions. And one of the things nobody tells you about adulthood is that sometimes you'll outgrow identities you worked really hard to build. And that can feel disorienting.
It can disappoint people. In fact, it probably will. It can make you question yourself.
It can make you feel nostalgic for an earlier version of yourself when things just seemed so much simpler. Take time to honor that person and be grateful for the person you were. Take everything that you've learned as a result of being that person, but don't require yourself to remain her or to remain him forever.
Your life is still unfolding. God's still at work. And you're still learning.
Still becoming. Still discovering what faithfulness looks like in this season. The people who genuinely love you might need some time to get acquainted with the person you're becoming.
So give them grace, but give yourself grace too. You are allowed to grow and to change. You're allowed to discover that something which once fit beautifully doesn't fit anymore.
And perhaps most importantly, you're allowed to outgrow the person everybody knows. I'm Rev. Dr. Juliet Spencer, the Spirit-Led Strategist, and this is Goals in Grace. If you haven't already, I hope you'll click on the link provided in the show notes to get my free gift.
Spending 11 minutes a day can help give you the clarity and help you build the life that you're looking for. Not quite sure where to find it? Go to FreeGiftFromRevJuliet.com That's Free Gift From Rev Juliet dot com. Until next time, beloved, keep building a life that's not simply successful, but deeply, authentically fulfilling.
And may God bless you with goals and grace.
(Transcribed by TurboScribe. Go Unlimited to remove this message.)
