What defines you? part 2 of 2

Today's Career Tips

 

What defines you? part 2 of 2

July 22, 2012

By Nelson Dy

“Who am I” is a fundamental question many people ask themselves. Since our jobs take up a large portion of our time and effort, many people link their identity with their work. We tend to describe ourselves by our profession (“Hi, I’m Ted. I work as an engineer for XYZ”). A thriving career would boost one’s self-esteem and accumulate wealth.

However, take away one’s career and very likely, he will feel lost, empty and dismayed. That is why Part 1 of this article argues that work, possessions and failure should not define us. Then what should? Here are three suggestions.

Grace should define you. Surprised by my first topic? Take the case of Chris. He wanted to do a terrific job for his boss. He had a passion for excellence which, truth be told, tended to border on perfectionism. However, once in a while, he discovers a mistake in his work or his boss points it out to him. Chris would scold himself such as “You’re so stupid,” or, “You should have known better,” or sometimes, “You are so careless!”

We do not expect a normal person to take a razor blade and slice his own body to bloody shreds. Yet, there are many people like Chris who do just that emotionally to themselves. These are the people whose theme song would be “I did my best. But my best is not good enough.” They are disappointed with themselves. They see a chasm between who they want to be and who they really are.

The antidote is to let grace, not failure, guilt or shame, define us. Grace is extending love or kindness to someone who doesn’t deserve it. Interestingly, there are people who can forgive others who did them wrong, but they can’t forgive themselves. They are even harder on themselves than their own bosses. On more serious cases, there are people who are so used to self-flagellation that they can’t imagine or even desire a life without it.

One practical starting point is to have a peace treaty with ourselves. Declare a cessation of hostilities where we will stop castigating ourselves. At first, some internal put-downs will still creep into our thoughts—old habits die hard—but as we enforce the “peace treaty,” we will find them cropping up less and less. Do we deserve giving ourselves some slack? Maybe, not. But unmerited favor is what grace is all about.

Excellence should define you. Notice I put grace first, then excellence. This is because grace, when properly understood, is a motivator for excellence, not a license for mediocrity. If Chris made a major blunder and his boss forgave him, would we expect Chris to think, “Hey. I got away with that one. That means I can get sloppy at work?”

No. Chris’ proper response would be to be so grateful that he will be more diligent next time. He will strive to improve not only because he has to, but because he wants to. After his boss gave him a second chance—maybe even a millionth chance—how can Chris let such a boss down again? To be realistic, Chris is still human and will make more mistakes down the road. But at least, he no longer slashes himself with an emotional razor blade. If we think ourselves as failure, or mistake-prone, then that tends to become a self-fulfilling prophecy. But if we free ourselves of such apprehensions, we free ourselves to focus on doing an excellent job.

When we think about it, our job is ultimately by God’s grace. True, we study hard to get that diploma. We send our resumes and go through the interviews. But at the end of the day, God crowns our job-hunting with success. Even our education, our health, our intelligence, our skills and yes, our paychecks are all blessings from God.

Gratitude, then, is the proper response to a good God, just as we would to a good employer. In fact, the words “grace” and “gratitude” suspiciously sound like they stem from the same root. Excellence, then, should mark not only our work, but everything we do. Let us strive to be the best employee we can be. If we fall flat on our faces, then get up, dust ourselves off, extend grace to ourselves, learn from our mistake and still give our best.

God should define you. It is not enough to say that what we have is from God. Who we are should also be from God. That brings us full circle to our quest for identity. The Christian Good News is that God adopts us as His children through faith in Jesus Christ. We cannot hope to become His children by our own efforts—His standards are way too high— thus, He saves us out of grace (unmerited favor, remember?).

If so, then the question “Who am I?” is gloriously answered by “I am a child of God.” This identity is unshakeably secure no matter what is happening to our career, what we are not proud of in our past and even what awaits us in the future. I love how James Bryan Smith puts it: “I am a citizen of the Kingdom of God. The Kingdom is never in trouble, so I will never be in real trouble,” even if we lose our jobs or even our lives.

Finally, how does this tie with the workplace? With our identities deeply rooted in God, we can truthfully say, “I am God’s worker. For some reason, He has put me here. Therefore, I will pursue excellence, live in integrity and be faithful to my task.” This will be our battle cry even though others will find our work conditions to be depressing or our co-workers difficult. When we learn to peg our central meaning in God, everything else will make sense in due time, yes, including our jobs.

More career tips can be found in Nelson T. Dy’s book Your First Job: A Practical Guide for Success. Give your just-graduated friends and loved ones a great gift with this book that’s full of insights from seasoned Filipino executives. 

Comment or questions are welcome via nelson_dy@hotmail.com