I’m a Control Freak
Dec 2, 2008 Uncategorized
Never tell people how to do things. Tell them what to do and they will surprise you with their ingenuity.
- George S. Patton
I am a natural control freak.
This has become a problem as Riv has gotten bigger and bigger. My natural instinct is to try to control everything but that will lead to two things:
1) It will burn me out
2) It will burn everyone else out
And so I am learning to let go. Now all I do is set sideboards in place and allow good things to run wild within those sideboards. Two great examples are our East Lansing Venue and our Creative Team. In both areas we have set certain sideboards (which are pretty stinking wide) and we allow for tons of freedom in between. The cool part is how much better each of these areas of ministry are than they would be if I was control freaking them.
December 2nd, 2008 at 12:19 pm
I can totally relate to this. God has been teaching me this lesson a lot lately. Unfortunately I have lost out on some great things in life just because I wasn’t able to trust God and let Him do His thing! I had to go and stick my hand into the middle of it and mess things up! Hopefully I will learn from my mistakes and realize that God is the one I can always trust to do it better than myself!
December 2nd, 2008 at 9:45 pm
I prefer this Patton Quote…”A good plan violently executed now is better than a perfect plan executed next week.”
December 3rd, 2008 at 9:14 am
Awesome. I should have that hanging on a plaque in my office.
December 3rd, 2008 at 1:45 pm
So weird - I was about to post this exact confession on my blog, only you said it with far less words and included a useful quote.