When I was in seminary, one of our professors used to discuss how it was dangerous to talk about balancing Scripture and the Holy Spirit.

He didn’t like the word ‘balance’. The idea of balance implies tension. You don’t have tension between Scripture and the Holy Spirit. At least you shouldn’t.

Instead, he says, you find the harmony. Harmony comes when you have more than one note being sung in a way that gives you a fuller experience with the music.

Consider when you hear a single violin. The violin can be wonderful in and of itself, but what about when multiple violins and violas and stringed bases and woodwinds and brass all harmonize.

The sound becomes large and full and breathtaking.

Anytime I see the word balance applied to anything besides walking across something that you don’t want to fall off of, I think of that old Theology of the Holy Spirit professor (Hollis Gause was his name) and his idea of harmony over balance.

Work Life Harmony vs. Work Life Balance

I particularly love the idea as it relates to work life harmony vs. work life balance.

Balance implies holding two things as equal and managing the tension between the two.

I do not see my work as equal to my family. It is a tool. It is something I enjoy. It is something that helps me serve my family.

But if I try to keep the two in balance, it creates tension.

Yet if I work toward harmonizing my work and my life outside of work, then work becomes something that adds fullness, color, and breadth to my whole life.

And the same goes with my family life and outside interests. They all make up the orchestra. The various instruments. The themes and variations. They work together if I let them.

Consider this idea next time you think about work life balance.

How can the various areas of your life harmonize?

How can you release the tension among all of your competing priorities and allow them to work together, serve each other, and create overall growth and joy?

Most of us have an idea of the type of person we want to become.

Most of us have some idea about the types of relationships we want to have.

Most of us have an idea about our ideal fitness level.

Most of us have a preferred financial future.

Most of us have some picture of a better spiritual or faith life.

Most of us have an idea of the type of career they want to have.

Are you spending time and energy doing the things that are true of what those pictures look like?

It’s simple. But it’s not easy.

First, you have to believe that those things are actually possible.

Second, you have to allow yourself to clarify and identify what those pictures truly look like.

Third, you have to believe that you’re not stuck. Not at all. You have to believe that you are capable and that the resources are available to you.

I believe that most of the thing we want – quality relationships, discipline to be fit and financially healthy, excellence in our careers – are things that God puts in our heart and desires for us too. With those things, we can serve others the best.

If you don’t know where to start, start here: Begin doing the things that the person you picture would be doing. Just start doing those things. And stop doing the things that that person would NOT be doing.

Again… simple. Not easy. But a good place to start.

Some of us feel extremely ill-equipped to be effective in whatever current roles we find ourselves in.

The TL/DR version of this post: You’re called to your current role(s), whatever it is. If you view your role as your current calling, then you’ll treat it as a precious stewardship and develop whatever skills and personality traits necessary to perform well in that role. Many roles are permanent (spouse, son, daughter, dad, mom), but many are temporary (job, team member, community volunteer role). If you want to move into a new role in the future, treat your current role as a calling and develop yourself to be effective in it.

Your Current Role Is Your Current Calling

Regardless of your job or family situation, where you currently are is where you’re currently called.

Believing this fact can be transformative to how you approach all your current roles. Mom, Dad, Spouse, Employee, Job Title (fill in the blank there), Friend, and so forth. You are called to be that particular thing right now.

What good does it do you to not view it as a calling – at least for the moment?

Some of those callings, in my humble but accurate opinion, should be seen as permanent. For instance, I’m a dad. I hope that this calling remains and that my kids enjoy the fact that I’m their father.

Other callings might be temporary. For instance, if you’re in a certain job right now that you might prefer to not be your career, then it’s you’re current calling, but it doesn’t have to be a permanent situation.

I remember when I first got into insurance sales back in 2002 after having been in the ministry for over 8 years. I despised it. I considered it proof of my failure in ministry. It wasn’t my ‘calling’.

Not until I got to the point that I realized that God had me in that new role to learn something about myself or to be an influence or to learn how to apply my faith in a new way, did I finally start making headway toward being good at it and actually enjoying it.

I treated it as a calling, and things took off in a positive way.

Learn the Necessary Skills

Being effective in a role is often about developing the personality and skills for that role.

If God has you in a certain role, it’s on you to learn the skills necessary to steward that role well– and to qualify you for any future role that you might prefer. I’m mainly speaking of work, community, and other roles here.

If you’re a parent or spouse, your role is your role and it’s even more important to develop the skills and grow the habits necessary for being effective at that role.

Your choices, beliefs, and unique combination of skills and personality have led you to where you are now.

But there’s nothing to say that you cannot learn new skills and develop your personality if you feel like any particular role right now isn’t a ‘fit’.

I suggest you read Carol Dweck’s Mindset or Benjamin Hardy’s Personality Isn’t Permanent for more in depth treatments about how you can develop and grow your skills and personality or even treat your personality as a skill.

Regardless, you are where you are. You might as well become better at being there, right?

Treat each role and relationship you’re currently stewarding as a calling.

Develop the skills and even the personality to be better.

When you’ve learned what you need to learn and developed in a way that prepares you for any future roles that you might be even more excited about (not including roles with your family), then you’ll be prepared.

There are two things that make someone effective:

1. Consistency
2. Willingness to solve difficult problems and have difficult conversations

Consistency

The person that shows commitment to showing up day in and day out, getting the right things done or keeping the difficult disciplines… That person is effective.

You know the type. That’s the one that you trust. That’s the person who will say they’ll do something, and they’ll do it.

Things do not fall through the cracks with that person.

That’s an effective person. A trustworthy person, not because the person doesn’t lie, but because she shows up, gets the work done, and shows up again.

Facing Hard Problems

It’s about facing down a problem, making a decision about the problem, and taking action.

It’s also about facing down a difficult conversation, making the phone call or setting up the meeting, and having that difficult conversation.

Being effective is about being willing to do the things that neither you nor most others would naturally want to do.

Most people who are successful, at some point in their journey, were willing to do the things that nobody else was willing to do.

They faced the hard problems or difficult disciplines or early mornings or late nights and did not shrink back.

They made decisions and took action, iterated as needed, and kept going.

What Being Effective Isn’t

It’s not about being well-liked.

It’s not bad to be well-liked. But spend too much time trying to be well-liked, and there’s a good chance you’re chipping away at your effectiveness. You’re always taking the temperature of the room and gathering opinions and slowly grinding your decisions and consistency to a halt.

It’s also not about being right all the time or making the right decisions all the time.

Analysis Paralysis is the enemy of effectiveness. Mull and mull and mull and there’s a good chance, a window might have passed (although I’m firmly in the camp that no situation is unredeemable).

Obsession with being liked and being right every single time will both kill effectiveness.

How to Develop Effectiveness as a Person

True confession, I am king of wanting to make sure each decision is correct. Even to the point of taking a week to decide on a lawn mower or a refrigerator. Wasting all that time researching when in reality any modern appliance is going to be fine.

Moving from wanting to be liked and wanting to be right is something that I’m continually working on.

Two keys to developing more in the areas of discipline and facing hard problems….

1. Have systems and routines: One of the keys to consistency is to develop systems where you can slowly remove the distractions and other temptations to avoid doing what you have to do. Reduce your need for willpower. Consistency increases the more you create an environment and system that doesn’t depend on your white knuckles in order to get the thing done.
2. Have a decision-making filter: Solving problems and having difficult conversations are about making decisions. The filter doesn’t have to be perfect (remember – you don’t have to get things completely right all the time), but having one is key. Mine: (a) What does love require? (b) Based on my past, my current situation, and my future hopes, what is the wise thing to do? and (c) What does unmitigated discipline in all things look like in this situation?

There you have it. My personal opinion about how to be an effective person. Think through these things and let me know if you think I’m right. Overlay these ideas against each of your roles – parenting, in the market, as a friend, as a steward of your own health, in your finances.

Let me know in the comments….

One of the biggest gifts you can give your kids is to be comfortable in your own skin.

Most of us parents are good about telling our children how wonderful they are and how much they should be confident in themselves when they go about their business around friends and at school.

We encourage them to take risks and go after things they’re passionate about, whether others are interested or not.

We tell them to develop their own style and be their own man or woman.

We parrot all the right words around body image and physical appearance.

Unfortunately, it’s not all that important what we say.

Yes, we need to speak the above encouraging truths into their lives. We owe it to them to remind them as often as possible about their potential and their uniqueness.

What Is More Important…

I’d venture (assuming some research somewhere backs me up on this) that it’s almost more important how we speak to and treat ourselves.

The biggest gift we can give our children is that we act in a way that shows we actually believe about ourselves the way we want them to believe about themselves.

If we tell our daughter that she’s beautiful and encourage positive body image, yet we continually complain about our own physiques, which will she pick up on?

If we tell our kids to take calculated risks at school, yet settle for status quo in our own lives, which message will they pick up on?

One of the biggest things we can do for our children is to celebrate our own dang selves and to get after it in our own lives.

Set the example, don’t just say the words.

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Give this book a try…. I think this post has been vaguely influenced by it: Personality Isn’t Permanent by Benjamin Hardy (This post was also more directly influenced by the ideas in the book).