Category: Relationships

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Living On Purpose – Goodbye 2017, Hello 2018

2017 is almost done. For me, that means it’s time to begin plotting how to make 2018 a joyful success! But first, I like to take time to reflect on the year gone. Did I achieve my goals? What were the major themes? What did I learn? How have I grown? What do I need to improve? Who helped make my year memorable?

First, I looked back at my 2017 goals and celebrated the wins and noted where I fell short. Then I went through my journal and walked through some of the major themes of the year, reliving the ebb and flow of the thoughts in my head during 2017.

Then I began to look at my life in pictures over the last year. If you are a photos/visual person like me I highly recommend this as a great way to celebrate the end of another year. You hardly ever take photos of your depressed times or worst moments, so it really focuses you on the positive things in your life, what’s important and what you have to be thankful for and most importantly who you have to be thankful for. Undoubtedly, who you spent 2017 with matters more than what you did. I actually took the best 150 photos or so and made a slideshow video with Google Photos. I’ve been watching it over and over and getting the warm fuzzies inside every time.

All considered, I would have to say that I made significant progress in 2017. I achieved some of my major goals, like taking my mummy on a trip 😊. I fell short in others (I definitely did not get enough rest in 2017 ☹). And then there were the things I did not plan to achieve but did, like starting this blog! God certainly had some surprises up His sleeve this year and I loved it! 2017 was definitely a year of growth and key to that was the people I connected with in 2017 and the relationships I invested in.

But a good year doesn’t just happen. I had a plan not only for what I wanted to achieve but also who I wanted to become. Every year I set goals for the following year and revisit them regularly. I use a planner called Action Daily which has a goal setting exercise in the front and then arranged with weekly goals and tasks for each week of the year. I completed my 2018 goal plan yesterday.

I have it arranged in four categories:

  1. Spiritual
  2. Physical
  3. Relationships
  4. Vocational (which is everything else – work, business, education, church ministry)

If you want your life to be significant, you must be intentional. Otherwise, you will have a default life, adrift on the river of time. You have to be intentional about everything; how you will develop yourself, how you will work on that weak spot in your character, which relationships you will invest in, how you will achieve that big dream that you have.

A joyful life does not just happen, it is designed. You must have a strong, passionate WHY for each of your goals. Why is this important to you? Why do you want to achieve it? Motivation to achieve anything comes from passion. If your goals are not aligned with your deepest desires, you will not achieve it. If you do not make a plan to follow your passions, you also will not achieve it. You need passion AND planning. I have one why for all my goals – to fulfil my purpose on this earth and glorify Jesus Christ.

What’s your passion? What’s your plan? Write it down and begin designing the life of your dreams! May 2018 be a year of unprecedented progress in the making of your authentically joyful life!

Joyfully,

Copyright 2017, Matik Nicholls

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Look Bacchanal!

In Trinidad and Tobago, the word bacchanal means confusion, argument or scandal. I’ve seen more bacchanal in my lifetime than I care to admit, but on the plus side, it has afforded me a wealth of experience in dealing with conflict.

What I’ve observed is that how people deal with conflict can be described on a sliding scale with avoidance (passive) on one end and confrontation (aggressive) on the other. Most people have a natural tendency that falls somewhere on this scale. We foster healthy relationships neither by avoiding conflict nor by constant confrontation.

By constantly shying away from having difficult conversations about sensitive or emotive issues avoiders rarely experience deep meaningful relationships. Avoiders will not tell people their real feelings in order to keep the peace. They seem like they are the ‘good guys’ next to the more aggressive confronters but they are just as toxic to a relationship. Often, they resort to passive aggressive behaviours. Then the only clue that you may get from an avoider you have offended are some sarcastic remarks in passing conversation.

I remember in my first supervisory position I couldn’t look at people in the eye when giving them negative feedback. It took me some years of self-development before I could hold those types of difficult conversations but even now I don’t like doing it.

Some examples of avoidance behaviours at its worst:

  • Using public forums to address personal offenses covertly with general statements such as when making work presentations or delivering sermons from the pulpit or ranting on Facebook.
  • Creating organizational policies to address one person’s behaviour.

Not all avoiders are this externally toxic of course. Many will just harbour bitterness and resentment quietly for a lifetime. There is a famous article by Bronnie Ware that talks about the 5 Top Regrets of Dying People based on her experience giving palliative care to dying patients. Number 3 was; I wish I’d had the courage to express my feelings. Living without saying how you really feel is a tragic existence.

Confronters do not suffer from any problems of pent up feelings. Confronters have no interest in maintaining harmony or not hurting the other person’s feelings. They often appear to be the ‘bad guys’ always causing bacchanal. Their need to get the issue off their chest or prove their point is the overriding motivation. The result is often that they come across as aggressive and the result is more destructive than constructive as far as building trusting healthy relationships is concerned.

Some examples of confrontation behaviour at its worst:

  • Cussing out people when they feel unfairly treated.
  • Personal attacks on Facebook.

I have highlighted the very extreme ends of the scale only to make the distinction very clear. Most people, thankfully, will reside closer to centre with a tendency in either direction and will display a mix of these behaviours. So, let me offer a more balanced way of handling conflict; open and honest dialogue.

Open and honest dialogue recognizes that issues need to be brought into the open in order to be resolved while simultaneously recognizing that everyone deserves to be treated with respect and dignity. This type of engagement focuses on the issues not the personalities and has relationship building as it’s goal. This subtle shift is very powerful. The goal is no longer to keep the peace nor is it to assign blame. The relationship is prioritized as the most important thing.

This mindset demands that avoiders share their true feelings directly with the person. It also demands that confronters consider how the message will be received and therefore strive not to communicate in a way that could be interpreted as a personal attack. The bible calls it speaking the truth in love. You have to do both.

To do this it is most useful to consider:

  1. Choosing a place and time which brings out the best attitudes in both parties.
  2. Leading with more questions than statements.
  3. Making as few inferences as possible, assuming pure motives on both sides.
  4. Talking about the issues or situations and how they made you feel rather than making judgemental statements.

Here’s an example: Don’t say, “Matik yuh selfish, greedy bastard! Yuh eat meh cake again!” Do say, “Matik I was looking forward to eating my slice of cake all day and when I came home and it was gone I was so disappointed and upset. Did you eat it? Why?”

Where there are human relations, there will be conflict. Living a joyful life necessitates a mindset of treating conflict not as an opposition to relationship but as an opportunity for deeper relationship.

Joyfully,

Copyright 2017, Matik Nicholls

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I Am A Number 7

The Enneagram is a model which consists of nine personality types. The model proposes that every person falls into one of the nine types. It is not a perfect system of course. It’s kind of like giving everyone a colour that matches their personality. There are as infinite a number of colours as there are personalities but we can form broad categories like reds and greens.

I recently did a questionnaire that revealed that I was a type seven; The Enthusiast. According to https://www.enneagraminstitute.com, sevens are extroverted, optimistic, versatile, and spontaneous. Playful, high-spirited, and practical, they can also misapply their many talents, becoming over-extended, scattered, and undisciplined. They constantly seek new and exciting experiences, but can become distracted and exhausted by staying on the go. They typically have problems with impatience and impulsiveness.

As I read more and reflected, I gained some valuable insights into myself and how I relate to others. There were some things that did not apply to me and others that ‘fell in my garden’ as we say. Now I know some people don’t place much stock in personality typing. Some take the ‘I can’t be placed in a box’ stance or the ‘only God defines me’ stance. To which I say:

  • Nothing about personality typing limits you or places you in a box. It does quite the opposite. It can give you greater insight into what drives you, what are your strengths and what are your weaknesses which frees you to choose a path of growth that’s best for you.
  • The types are not designed to define you but to describe you (generally). If God made you an introvert for example the test will just reflect your natural God-defined nature.

I have done numerous of these types of assessments. For example, I am an ENTJ (Extrovert-Intuition-Thinking-Judgement) under the Myers-Briggs model and an I (Influence) under the DISC profile. Each assessment has provided feedback that I have used to grow and develop as a person.

But for me the real bonus of understanding these models in some depth has been the appreciation for the different personalities of the people I live and work with. It has made me more understanding and compassionate.

When it comes to relationships, I wish I had understood more about this stuff earlier in life. For example, the five love languages (http://www.5lovelanguages.com) proposes that every person has their particular way in which they give and receive love. I have found this to be so true and so empowering. The five love languages are:

  1. Words of affirmation
  2. Acts of service
  3. Receiving gifts
  4. Quality time
  5. Physical touch

If you are married, in a relationship or thinking of being in a relationship (have I covered everyone) I highly recommend finding out your love language. Imagine if your highest scoring love language is physical touch and you marry someone for whom that is their lowest scoring love language?! The more you know, the better able you are to articulate your needs and show your partner love in their language. For example, gifts are dead last for me. You could buy me a new BMW and I would be like “Thanks.”

As Polonius said in Hamlet, “To thine own self be true.” Well, the more you know about yourself, the truer you can be. Greater self-awareness and greater ability to understand and celebrate the diversity of personalities in your world will undoubtedly lead to more joyful and fulfilling relationships. And you know what they say; the quality of your life is really the quality of your relationships.

Joyfully,

Copyright 2017, Matik Nicholls

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Mummy And Me

From a young age I was very independent. As a result, my parents and I were not really close in the sense that we did not discuss life issues or have regular ‘check-ups’ like I imagine other families might. My mother would always complain that my dad, my sister and I would eat dinner in front of the television instead of having family interaction. I think she yearned to be more involved in our life. I can hear her now, “You all only in front of that screen every night! No conversation!”

Then we all became born-again (Pentecostal Christians) except mummy and she felt even more alienated. There is this concept when you become a Pentecostal that your real family now becomes your Christian brothers and sisters. This is true up to a point as, of course, you want to relate with people who are as excited about Jesus as you are but sometimes we take it too far which is what I did in my early Christian years.

About three years later, at the tender age of twenty-three, I got married. Another concept that seemed part of my Pentecostal experience is the concept of ‘leave and cleave’ which means when you get married you should leave your parents and cleave to your spouse. Needless to say, the gulf between mummy and I widened. Then things changed. Five years later I was getting divorced and had left the church. Now I was on the other side and I suddenly understood what it was to be out with the out crowd.

The people who I thought were my Christian family became aloof and distant as I was now a sinner. I never knew what scorn felt like until then. It is that feeling when someone has no regard for you whatsoever. When your opinion or viewpoint has no value to the other person. On the other hand, my old friends welcomed me back and my mother was a pillar of support. Funny how life is.

That began a process of recalibration, particularly where my mother is concerned. I began to let her into my life. To treat her like her opinion matters to me because she matters to me. Through my mistakes and experiences, I slowly began to mature.

I began to understand that love is more important than ideology, much much more important. I learned that everybody can add value to your life despite differences in ideologies, arguably, the more divergent their view from yours the more valuable their viewpoint. I learned that when people make mistakes or deliberate decisions that are against the core ideologies of your faith, the job of real Christians is to love and support the person even if you don’t support the decision.

I cannot change my past mistakes but going forward I can try to be a better person. I try to improve how I treat the people in my life (actually, how I treat people in general).  I have also dedicated my life to fighting this rotten attitude in the church that threatens to undermine all that we stand for because, without love, we are nothing.

So, for the first time in my life, at the age of forty-four, I am taking my mother on a trip. Just she and I, spending a week together. A week to bond, to discover a new part of the planet together, to deepen our relationship and for me to say thanks for all that she has been in my life.

Don’t make my mistakes. Don’t wait until you are forty-four like me. I am thankful I still have the chance to do it now but our time with the ones we love is unknown. Life won’t get any less busy. Initially, I thought I did not have the time or the money but in the end, all that was stopping me was the will. Connect meaningfully with your loved ones today. It will bring you and them much joy!

Joyfully,

Copyright 2017, Matik Nicholls