Things I Think I Know...."Showing Up."
Language is stressful! So much of what we say and mean changes and keeping up with the latest buzz word or phrase takes commitment, endurance and a shortcut on your phone to the Urban Dictionary.
For the past few years, I have heard people talk about "showing up" and I hadn't given it much thought until lately. I mean, I show up somewhere just about every day so I must be doing it correctly. True, I haven't always shown up on time or even at the right location (I have a great story about going to the wrong city in the wrong state for a meeting, but I will save that for a post on Adult ADHD), but I still checked the box by showing up, right?
Well, lately I am getting the impression that the "showing up" that people are referring to is way more complex than what I was giving myself credit for all this time. In fact, I am learning that the type of "showing up" that people are referring to seems to have a lot to do with being "authentic" and bringing my "whole self" to the workplace.
So, one day I decided to give this "showing up" thing a try and dug out an old Metallica t-shirt that I had managed to keep hidden from my wife. Why do I have to hide Metallica t-shirts from my wife? Well, because she seems to think that 30 year old t-shirts don't merit any of the coveted space in our dresser drawers (by the way, it's from the Wherever We May Roam tour in '91 which I had the shame of attending with my mom because she didn't think a 13-year old should travel 50 miles by himself to see a heavy metal band......she was no fun). I also threw on a pair of jeans and my cleanest pair of Vans and proceeded to head out the door to "bring my authentic self" to work.
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My wife stopped me and had to explain that this was not what people meant when they used the word "authentic". She also explained that a 46-year-old man who dressed like a 13-year-old boy circa 1991 was a crushing disappointment for a woman who had painstakingly been working to evolve said 46-year-old man over the course of 18 years of marital bliss.
So, back to square one it was. Because I am relatively slow to grasp certain concepts, it took a while to come to the epiphany that "showing up" isn't about me at all... it's about WHO I am showing up for! Once I arrived at that point, I was able to stumble my way to the following possibilities for what might be the best way for me to "show up authentically":
While this seems like a pretty good list of ways to authentically show up each day; I still would like to throw the occasional Metallica shirt in to the mix on "casual Fridays".