I'm driven. Why does missing a goal hit me so hard?

Where the question came from

On the last call of my Aligned Man cohort, a man pushed back on me. He said we're all high-performance, high-driven guys. Maybe it isn't his identity. But it still sucks not to do what you want to do, not to reach the goal you set. So how do I deal with that in my mind?

Sometimes it's the expectation

I would honestly say that sometimes we're setting the wrong expectations. There could be some laziness. There could be some other things involved. But more often than not, honestly, I think it is an identity issue. We either aren't willing to admit it, or we just can't see it.

Nine times out of ten, it comes back to identity

I remember when I was at my lowest financially. My wife and I looked each other in the face. We had nothing. We lost our house, everything. And we said, as long as we're in a cardboard box as a family, we're going to be happy. We really believed that in that moment. And here I am now, complaining about a slow month.

I'm not trying to be successful to be greedy. I want to do great things for my family and for other people. But when we're truly striving and we're not getting it, and we're disappointed, frustrated, angry, I would say nine out of ten times it comes back to something in us that struggles with the fact that we haven't gotten it. It makes me look bad. I'm comparing myself to somebody else.

It becomes a distortion of what we know to be true versus what we want. I miss the expectation, and then disappointment, fear, anxiety, comparison, envy, one of a multitude of things comes into play. It really comes down to: I'm just not good enough, and I don't like that other people know that, or I don't like knowing that myself.

You are not what you do

I want this to sit for every man reading this: we are not what we do. If, God forbid, you were bound to a bed for the rest of your life, you could still be an incredible husband to your wife. Life would look very different. But it's not about what you do. It's about who you are.

Yes, works are the byproduct of our faith. We need to show up for our spouse, show up for our kids, produce at the highest level for our organization and our families. Output, output, output, to the best of our ability. But the limitations that get put on us, whether we did it to ourselves or it was out of our control, don't prevent us from being the man God created us to be.

Paul had a thorn in his side, and God told him, "My grace is sufficient for you, for my power is made perfect in weakness" (2 Corinthians 12:9, ESV). I also believe it's there to prove you can go out and do every single thing God calls you to with the thorn in your side. It may not look the way you want it to. That sucks. It doesn't mean you're any less of a man.

The reset is not a scorecard

This is why the weekly reset we use is not a scorecard. It's a realignment stick. If we're scoring ourselves with a performance-based mindset, even a good one, we are always going to suck every day. Nothing is ever going to be good enough.

If that doesn't sink in, go look one of your kids in the face and tell them that unless they're a straight-A student, they're never smart enough. You would never say that. Not only because you love them, but because you know it's not true.

I'll be honest with you. I had the best month of my business in fifteen years, and the next month I did a fraction of it. You want to know what that makes me feel like? A one-hit wonder. I get it. I'll keep fighting for the next one, but it doesn't make me any less of a person.

Hold on to what can't be taken

Identity is the one thing we have to hold on to for dear life, because it's the only thing that can't get taken from us. Every other thing can be ripped from us, and the longer we live, the more of it will be, just by the natural stages of life. It's not about my output. It's about my heart and my intention. That's what God did for us: He changed our hearts.

This is what we mean by Settled Identity, the milestone a man reaches at the end of Grounded in Faith: knowing who God created you to be before you measure what you produce.

The one move for today

Go back to your identity statement, the line that starts with "I'm the type of man that." Read it out loud the next time you miss a goal. You may not nail it perfectly, but that is what is true about you. You are who God made you to be. That can't be taken away, so don't take it away from yourself.