Christmas Eve morning, my boss pulled me into his office for 'a little chat'. I wasn't sure what he had on his mind and as my mind was more on family and plans for the day, I wasn't really prepared when he asked me, "So, are you ready to take the 'Interim' off of your title?"
I hesitated in answering – for many reasons.
I thought – is this how business works? Doesn't he want to interview anyone else? Can he hire me permanently without interviewing other qualified candidates? But underneath those questions lay others: Do I want this job? Do I feel like I'm qualified to do this job? Do I want to work full time for the foreseeable future? How did I want to look back at this time in my life – was this going to be a lark that I had fun with for a few months or was this going to have more weight for me? What was I giving up by do this?
Commitment isn't an easy thing.
Since my boss is also someone who knows me fairly well, I explained some of my concerns up front. I brought up one of the very models he taught me – Johari's Window. There are things that other people know about me that I know as well. There are things about me others know that I don't know. There are things about me that only I know and then there is that opaque window of things that I don't know and no one else does either. I'm well aware of that space in light of this job. There are areas of knowledge that I don't have and I don't have a clue how to even formulate the questions yet. Is this imperative at this particular time? I don't know.
And that is a tricky place for me because being unsure of what lies ahead is a dynamic that usually triggers my deeper, ingrained patterned response to managing chaos. I feel the ebb and flow of that anxiety along with my continued self awareness that this situation does not need to kick in my survival instincts. It is a dance that I will undoubtedly struggle with for the rest of my life.
Still, commitment is difficult. However, I don't think that my hesitation is because my gut is telling me not to do this – I think I've just come to realize that life decisions are always complicated. They should be difficult, to a certain extent, because I am exploring the impact of that decision on the many facets of my life. Having more questions than answers isn't such a bad thing.
Because the bottom line question is this: Am I enjoying what I am doing right now? The answer is yes, I am. That is all I can really know. I make the commitment to myself first and foremost that I will continue to hold that question as a top priority. It is with that promise that my hesitation disappears and I can look my boss in the eye and say, yes. I want to take the Interim off of my title.
Now let's talk about how to make the coming year the best business year the organization has ever seen.
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