We all want “high performance”, “success”, and “fulfillment”. For some, it looks like Elon Musk. Some people think to themselves, “Maybe if I just worked hard like him, I’d have success.” Or some people ascribe to Gary Vaynerchuk’s montra of “hustle”. There are many messages and marketing stories that promote the pathway to success, fulfillment, and high performance.
I used to ascribe to them and think that way. I would push myself to do more and be better. I’d set goals and plan my days and weeks. I was driven to achieve and accomplish my dreams and ambitions. Why was I so driven? I didn’t know. I just wanted to feel whole inside and “hustle”, “success”, and “this [however many step] process to achieving your goals” were some of many things being marketed as the means to “fulfillment”.
Each time I had faith that these schemes would work, hope would well up that maybe, just maybe, I could find fulfillment, purpose, meaning, and the life I was searching for. Maybe I could find the love and peace I was told was out there through success, but could never seem to find. But after several weeks of insane amounts of work and sleeplessness, I was even more drained and empty than when I started. I’d face yet another failed attempt at making my “side hustle” or “dream” a reality. This would plunge me into deeper despair. I would feel even more pressure and condemnation from not seeing any tangible results. The shame and stupidity of my naive belief that I could find goodness in success bound me to contempt and hatred of who I was. I would even externalize my contempt by hating the people near me that were “holding me back.”
This cycle repeated over and over and over. What’s really crazy is that I was a Christian. I was supposed to have all the answers. I was supposed to be fulfilled and happy. Wasn’t all I needed was Jesus? So, why wasn’t he fulfilling?
I began killing my desire and longing for my dreams and ambitions to bring me wholeness. I labeled it as “bad” because it led me away from Christ. I would make vows in my heart to destroy what I sought and longed for. I had to deny that which was sinful and wrong. My desire for success and high performance was bad. I was bad for having such strong desires. And I was bad for being a failure each time I attempted, but then burnt out.
No one around me had answers. Not even my spiritual mentors and leaders knew how to engage me. I had already done discipleship and all of the things that a legalistic Christianity says to do. Yet, it did not yield anything new. Just more of the same cycles. Therefore, I isolated more from those closest to me. I began searching for answers outside of my spiritual community and desperately pleading with God for help.
In my search I came across two books. One was called “Anatomy of the Soul” by Dr. Kurt Thompson. The other was called “The Power of the Other” by Dr. Henry Cloud. These two books opened my eyes to understand what I was searching for and a pathway of change.
In the midst of my crazy cycles, it effected my relationship with my wife. I treated her with a lot of contempt and often blamed her for “holding me back.” It got to a point that she decided to get counseling because we would get into fights that would lead to ruptures between us. That also led me to start counseling with her, even though I didn’t believe I needed counseling. I even told the counselor, “I’m just looking for someone to help with coaching and high performance. I don’t think I really need counseling.” Oh, man. I’m chuckling to myself as I remember how I was back then. I used to hate myself so much. I have so much more grace and kindness for that “past me.” I don’t hate who I was or who I am now.
But to get where I am now, I needed a safe place to go to. I needed someone to help me into the places of my heart I didn’t want to go. Heck, I didn’t know how to go to those place. Feeling the pain I’d dissociated from isn’t a natural. I needed a place and person where I could talk and vent about my struggles without a fear of condemnation, more shame, or being “fixed”. I needed someone who could handle my BIG emotions and desires. I needed someone who could attune to what I felt without being overcome by it’s bigness. I needed someone who could bear my burden without running away from me. I needed someone who could respond kindly to my sad face, my anxious drivenness, and offer hope. I needed someone who was willing to know me, the true me – all of the parts that I hid from others, even Christians – especially them. I needed someone who could help soothe me when I was in distress. I needed someone who could guide me into grief, lament, and sorrow for the underlying pain and trauma I’d experienced that caused me to be so driven and empty inside. And I needed someone who could own when they failed me, even in little ways, and yet was willing to confess, repent, and reconcile – repair the relationship. I needed to experience what a secure attachment felt, looked, and sounded like so that it could be internalized.
And, although I originally started counseling because I wanted help with “coaching and performance”, I was patiently engaged in such a way to begin seeing and naming those places in me that evil had assaulted and marred in my heart. These were the real things “holding me back” from high performance and living out my calling. Slowly, I began to change. Entering the pain that I was so driven to escape from was the hardest and scariest thing I’ve ever done in my life. It was fraught with danger, land mines, and debilitating/overwhelming fear. I could not have done it without my Father in heaven, my best friend and wife, Kate, or the wise and patient grace of trained theological psychologists and counselors.
The beauty of this is that I also discovered a deeper relationship with Jesus. I now had fellowship with Jesus’ suffering. I knew Jesus in a deeper way than ever before. He knew/knows me in a deeper way than ever before. The gospel and hope of Jesus Christ made more sense to me because I have experienced what he experienced. I have stories of betrayal, abandonment, rejection, crucifixion, and death. But it is because of Jesus that I have gone through them and also seen resurrection in a spiritual sense that has transformed my physical sense.
Sadly, churches, pastors, and congregations have adopted and become much like the world. There’s not much difference, which is why many leave the church. There’s no difference within the people of churches than those who are of the world.
Few, very few, have discovered true Christianity. Most practice a rigid, hypocritical, and surface level religion. The theological psychologists and counselors have been better pastors and teachers of God’s word than those who stand on the stage and preach. Not all, but many. Just as the world markets success and achievement as means to a fulfilling life, so have churches adopted much of the ways of businesses; they are all blind guides leading the blind.
“They tie up heavy burdens, hard to bear, and lay them on peoples’ shoulders, but they themselves are not willing to move a finger…You travel across the sea and land to make a single proselyte, and when he becomes a proselyte, you make him twice as much a child of hell as yourselves…” – Matthew 24.
The pathway to high performance isn’t through success principles. The pathway to high performance is to unburden the load on your shoulders to be someone you’re not. This was the whole point of Jesus’ gospel. He unburdened you from the requirement to pay for your imperfection, murder, idolatry, and sin. It is to heal the pain of your past relationships that marred the beauty, goodness, and dignity in your gifting and likeness of God. It is to repent of your depravity and seeking life outside of God. It is learning dependence upon God, not yourself, for you are poor and needy inside. You do not have life within yourself. You need God to make you whole. It is he who grants you high performance when you are secure in his love, have healed your past, and secure in who you are and where you are.