Personal Wellness
By Rev. Alan Shaw
Early in my military career, I was told to find a mentor who would watch over my career and help teach me ways I could succeed in my jobs. The business world is no different: we expand our networks and find one or two people to help us be a success. Mentorship is valuable. I encourage my kids to find someone they trust in the fields they are studying, absorb all the information they can, and build their professional networks. But sometimes those mentors may try and help by showing you what made THEM successful, not what makes YOU successful. Their pattern may not work for you. I read a news article the other day quoting a tech billionaire who said, “This notion that somehow you can achieve greatness, you can build something extraordinary by working 38 hours a week and having work-life balance, that is mind-boggling to me.” His “every waking moment focus” shapes his high-performance pattern and provides great financial success. But that pattern and his measures of success are not for everyone, nor should they be.
High Performance Pattern coaching is a style of coaching that identifies your pattern of success and is designed to help you recognize how to shape your environment for success. Without this self-awareness, you may feel frustrated in your job or activities and not realize why. You may even avoid applying for positions that fit your pattern because it isn’t what you (or someone else) “expect” you to be doing.
I didn’t realize why my pattern led me to enjoy the military until after I had retired, but it explained a lot about my follow-on career as a government civilian. My pattern is seen in short-term bursts: I help build out ideas in planning; I create new ideas and pass them to detail-oriented people to lead; I help organizations implement change; and now – as a Christian Conciliator – I work with couples or churches through conflict. I worked best with “high impact – short duration”, so the military was perfect.
A typical assignment for a military officer is about 24 months, and then you are assigned somewhere else. At larger installations, it’s possible to do multiple assignments without having to move your family. One of my early mentors was very command focused. For him, there was no better assignment than to be a commander. The unit didn’t matter; rather, “command is command is command”. Successful commanders get promoted and receive the better assignments. I commanded 3 times in the Army – significant for my job as a personnel officer – and each one of those commands offered me an opportunity to do something new, shape the organization, positively influence or affect the lives of those I served with, and then…move on. I did that every 2-3 years for 22 years. When I retired, however, I took a job as a government civilian, and after a little over 8 years (the longest I’ve ever held one job), I was restless and didn’t know why until I went through the high-performance pattern coaching. That job no longer fit my pattern, and the transition into ministry provided the opportunity to shape my environment to fit my pattern.
What are the conditions you need for success? How can you shape your environment so that you meet those conditions? How can recognizing your high-performance pattern affect your overall wellness? Those are important questions that your SED network of coaches are willing to help you explore. If you would like to discover (or confirm) your pattern, let me know, and we’ll take that journey together.
Rev Alan Shaw is an Assistant Pastor at Resurrection Lutheran Church in Cary, NC and a part-time Transitional Interim Minister at Peace Lutheran Church in Goldsboro, NC. He is a retired Army officer and serves as a resource for the SED and LCMS with Christian Conciliation training, workshops, and reconciliation cases. He can be reached at alan@restoringharmonyllc.com.