“That’s just me.”
She said it definitively in that way people dismiss a question. Tossing her hair with a quick flip, she signaled to the small group that there would be no discussion.
I’m not much of an eavesdropper. I normally am absorbed in my own work. But I was sitting in this little café only a few feet away.
I think it was her manager who sat down at the table, motioning to her to sit down. The discussion was about customer complaints and her abrupt communication style. Customers felt that she was dismissive and perhaps slightly arrogant. At the same time, she received high marks for her product knowledge.
“That’s just me,” she said again, before flatly adding, “I get frustrated and impatient. But I do know what to do.”
That’s Just Me.
For a moment, I bought it. After all, you can’t really fight it if that is really who you are.
But then I stopped myself as I thought about those words.
Instead of thinking about ways to grow, she had unknowingly slammed the door shut, imprisoning herself in a world much smaller than only a few moments ago.
One of the greatest attributes of people is the ability to grow, to change, to develop. Who I was five years ago is not who I am today. That incredible quality, the ability to change who we are defies those three words.
Change the Words = Change the Future
Personal responsibility demands more. Three better words than, “That’s just me,” are, “I can change.” And where does the power to change begin? In the mind.
You can determine whether you are the same tomorrow as you are today.
You can decide whether you want to have a future that mimics the present.
I didn’t interrupt or listen to more of the conversation. I slipped away, but with a lesson.
We are all wired certain ways. We cannot change everything about ourselves. But we do have more power than we think to mold the future.
I may not have said those three words that day, but often I have limited myself in the same way. Instead of shifting blame to others or outside circumstances, how can I take more responsibility for the future and make it happen?
