Revisioning and Refocusing

A few weeks ago I was thinking, "I don't know if I want to do this anymore..." Ever since I returned from the YS conventions, my desk has been piled in paperwork, and two months of being on the road had be backlogged in minutiae...

...ick...

And I discovered that I hate details... (not all details obviously...because we all know that when friends have detail questions they are very apt to say, "Who sings the song about the rain on your face?" or "Does this sentence need a colon or a semi-colon?") No--the details that frustrate me are the ones that require me to manage spreadsheets, put together 500 application packets, or write the same article every month about a new kid from a challenging life circumstance making some dramatic decision to change his life in the name of following Jesus Christ. It's these kinds of details that I find tedious and draining...

*Queue Switchfoot: We were meant to live for so much mooooore.*

So when I sat down with my boss last week and told him I was feeling this way, he said, "Heather. It's time to adjust your lens...your view has become too narrow..."

And through that conversation, I realized that I had begun to view myself as the project manager who has the responsibility to not only manage all the details in the assigned project, but do them. I no longer saw my job being about being big-picture direction and visioning of the communication for an entire organization of 50 staff, 11 offices, and 8000 donors. Also--I was entrenched in taking care of all these details myself, since I mostly work alone and there's no one else to share the workload of the details with. This narrowed perspective is what was making me despise it all.

So the theme for this week has been "Adjusting the Lens" and gaining some perspective on what it is that I do and why on earth I enjoy it. I still feel like it's a right fit for me to be in Washington working with YD at this point in my life. I still love the area, love the people I work with, love that the reason we do what we do is motivated by such solid intentions, and love that I'm getting the opportunity to flesh out what it means to be a leader and innovator while in the midst of a body of people I love and trust.

I'm reading Andy Stanley's The Next Generation Leader, which is asking me challenging questions...it's asking me to define the areas of my job where I really excel--where I can do the things that no one else can do... and it's a challenge, because it's someday soon going to mean zoning in and focusing on a few things really well and letting all the other pieces fall to someone else. But then everything I read about leadership says, "This is what you must do." Ick...

And in order to do well in all of this, I feel like it's necessary that writing becomes a more significant component of my day-to-day... I've acquired an affinity for Tazo's Berryblossom White Tea this week and have spent 1-2 hours every evening at Starbuck's doing freewriting for an essay for friend Hannah's compilation of essays from 20/30-something women who grew up in the church. That process in itself is refining--to face these individual stories of my church-raising and how they've shaped me or damaged me... and to figure out how to process through and share those stories without hurting people. ACK! But the energy I get from the daily writing is fueling the desire to be more passionate in my day job.

When do I get to stop trying to figure out who I am? When do I just get to know? I guess when I stop changing, right...which is...never...