A great failing of mine is not documenting as much as I should about the journeys of my son Colin. The material he provides is never-ending and awesome.
He’s been going through growing pains – not physically, but as it relates to leaving baby things behind and turning into a “big boy.” So he’s been on a journey where a while ago we got him off his beloved pacifiers, he’s been doing the potty training thing for what feels like forever, and he’s having to take on some responsibilities in the house for the first time.
He always is enthusiastic about doing the big boy thing when it’s easy, fun, or when there is a reward. He was quick to agree to dump his pacifiers when we were in the toy aisle and I told him he could trade them in for a toy of his choice. He was like, “I’m all done, let’s get that!” But that didn’t last long.
When the first feelings come on for him which indicate that he’s feeling the reality of being a big boy and he no longer can have old comforts and no responsibilities, he utters the same thing to me in protest of his journey of growing up – “Dad, I’m not big. I’m small. I’m not big yet. I’m still small.”
Really what he’s doing is he’s trying to get me to take away his burdens and allow him to go back to where he didn’t have to have any responsibilities or hard work to do.
More than once I’ve had the thought that many of us are not so different. We want to be leaders. We want to be adults. We get excited about leadership, we talk about it, we tell people what we think should be happening. But when we find ourselves in real life or leadership moments that are hard and call out the true burden of leading, of being responsible, of being mature – we are tempted to retreat or disappear. We can start acting like there’s a recording in the back of our mind telling us, “You’re not big. You’re small. You’re not big yet. You’re still small.”
When the fun is over, many of us can start the retreat to the comforts of less responsibility and avoid “being big” – meaning being mature and responsible, having the character to meet the responsibility of what our realities require.
When it’s time to be an adult and face our reality we have a choice to make.
Do we step into the challenge? Or do we listen to the voice that tells us that we can’t handle it – that we’re still too small?
What helps you step into your “bigness” as a person and as a leader? How do you guard against regressing into “small” thinking?
