Achiever to Relater

“Seek ye first the kingdom of God, and His righteousness. Then all these things shall be added onto you.” -Matthew 6:33

For the past couple of weeks, we’ve been talking about traits of being “achievers & relaters). According to the quiz we took last Friday, I am somewhere down the middle. Sunny told us that being in the middle probably means that we don’t know who we really are. The problem I had was that I could see myself taking both approaches to different situations. I guess to this point, I still have a hard time figuring out who I really am. I know myself in the way that I operate and feel; but the sense of needing to try everything makes it really hard to decipher what type of person I am. Anyways, we drew this chart:

Relaters                                                        Achievers

Worst fear Alienation                                                      Humiliation

Source of safety Relationships                                               Being in control

Basic Pattern Seeking approval of others                            Earning respect

Attitude Naive                                                              Cynical

Instinct during “I’m sorry….are you alright?”                         “You are wrong!”
conflict

As I sat there thinking I had identity crisis because I saw myself in both categories, it finally dawned on me that I feel like I am both because I grew up an achiever, and now that I’m going through this whole phase of wanting something different, I am trying to become the relater. A lot of the achiever’s characteristics have been instilled in me because I grew up under a certain environment. But years ago, I felt a sense of emptiness, like I was numb inside, and strive to be on the other side. According to Sunny, everyone lean towards one side, but they can exhibit traits of the other. I guess in my core I am still the achiever; however, it really causes a lot of heartaches on my humane side, so I try to be the relater but many times I see myself fail terribly. Somewhere down the line of my childhood, I decided that it was a good idea to not trust in other people, because humans are flawed and can disappoint many times. Except, now that I see the problem and I want to make the change, it has become increasingly difficult to turn the tides.

So, making another allusion, last year I felt like I was on the road to rediscovering myself; and now that I’ve finally figured out who I really am, I see where I need to improve and change. This is where the grueling work comes in. We talked about how we can change from being less of an achiever or relater, and I said that in order to be a little more like the other side, we have to allow ourselves to get hurt. Otherwise when we encounter conflicts, our defensive mechanism will not allow us to be open-minded. I guess I’ve spent some time allowing myself to feel the hurt or pain, that I pretty much stuck myself into a self-destructive cycle because I know that I will always come around.

Living the Christian life really takes a lifetime. I’m just curious to find out how many of us have actually managed to make that change.