Generosity
I think I mentioned this, but I’m doing a Leadership Circle with some co-workers. It’s based on Make Today Count by John C Maxwell.
We’re making our way through 12 topics with weekly lunch meetings where we read the chapter out loud and discuss the questions/discussion points.
Here are the topics :
1. Attitude
2. Priorities
3. Health
4. Family
5. Thinking
6. Commitment
7. Finances
8. Faith
9. Relationships
10. Generosity
11. Values
12. Growth
For me the book is a little lacking because it doesn’t really give good examples on how to improve in these areas, it just talks about the benefits of having these areas down.
Also interestingly, the people in the circle all kind of have the same issues…we’re the “go to” people who sacrifice our time and energy to make sure everyone else is okay…so we don’t have a lot of good feedback on how to balance that.
For example, today’s topic was generosity. For us, the problem isn’t being generous per say, it’s being TOO generous.
In general, being generous mostly DOES, come back (I feel like the beginning of April with the Bino all access concert and free trip to Vegas was a huge positive karma return), but I’m not sure that it comes up directly the way that you put it out.
Like for all my complaining and boo booing all over these relationship standards and rules, it’s not to say that I have a problem with doing these things, I honestly do a TON for the people I date, it’s more that I know doing them doesn’t necessarily make me more attractive, or that being a generous person won’t come back by the dude wanting to do the same for me.
For work, I might be doing the most to make sure my people are good on all fronts, but I won’t necessarily get that back as someone guiding me through my career that way.
For random acts of kindness, I DEFINTELY don’t expect the person in front of me to pay for my meal in the drive through…or for someone to pay for my groceries because I forgot my wallet. (I’m extremely fearful of the latter happening, so if that happens, I definitely help them out…)
Then there’s the whole “don’t do things because you want a return…do it just to do it.”
I think that’s probably why I get upset about feeling like a doormat. Or almost that it’s easier to be generous toward strangers than people you know…because if it’s someone you know, you can’t help but feel a certain way if they don’t appreciate your effort…or even if they come to rely on you for certain things…
I don’t know…like I said, we weren’t really solutions oriented today…just kind of thought that we need to learn how to cut people off when you notice they’re taking advantage of you…and that we all need better measures of what being taken advantage of means as it’s not always a blatantly disrespectful thing…
One day at a time though. Maybe the life coach can help with that…
