The Performance Trap

This morning we are going to start work in earnest as we take the first steps together in our “Search for Significance”. Hopefully we have all had a chance to look at chapter 3, “The Performance Trap.” Before I get into our study this morning I want to open up the class to anyone who has something to say about what they have read this week, in either the book or the journal.

Now we are ready to start. I’m not going to begin within our study subject, I’m going to get us going today by reading a small piece of a very important scriptural passage, we’ll discuss it for a moment, and then I’m going to read a prayer I’ve written for this time. First we are going to go to 1 Cor 2:12-16:

Now we have received, not the spirit of the world, but the Spirit who is from God, so that we may know the things freely given to us by God, which things we also speak, not in words taught by human wisdom, but in those taught by the Spirit, combining spiritual thoughts with spiritual words. But a natural man does not accept the things of the Spirit of God, for they are foolishness to him; and he cannot understand them, because they are spiritually appraised. But he who is spiritual appraises all things, yet he himself is appraised by no one. For WHO HAS KNOWN THE MIND OF THE LORD, THAT HE WILL INSTRUCT HIM? But we have the mind of Christ. NASU

The essence of this piece of scripture is that we, as believers, have been given the Holy Spirit, and that gives us something that an unbeliever can never have, the mind of Christ, which gives us spiritual discernment. Let us pray:

Father, we come into this study resting on the truth explained by your word in 1 Corinthians chapter 2. Most holy God, we desire to put aside the foolishness of the world and replace it with your truth. Lord we are going to ask for your help in understanding the material we will cover and how to apply it into our thoughts, feelings and actions. Holy Spirit we ask that you guide our minds with the mind of Christ into a full awareness of the things that the Father wishes us to learn about ourselves. Lord Jesus we ask that you speak your wisdom into our hearts that we might discern any lies of the enemy that we cling to. Father we ask you to enable us to place our willful actions under your guidance that we might honor and glorify you by how we change and what we do as a result of this study. We pray this today because we want to live in love of, and obedience to, our savior, the Lord Jesus Christ. Amen.

Now I feel like we are ready to tackle the work, but before I do, does anybody have questions about the passage we just read?

Okay, the performance trap; what is it? (Ask for thoughts and discuss) If you have your book go to page 29 and there we can see how our author defines the trap:

· I MUST MEET CERTAIN STANDARDS TO FEEL GOOD ABOUT MYSELF.

What are some thoughts that come to mind when we consider this statement? Here are some examples:

· I don’t feel good about myself unless I do well.
· Success always results in good feelings.
· I’ll feel better when I finish this task.
· I feel awful, because I didn’t get my work done.
· I’m inadequate; I didn’t get an “A”.

The book introduces a scripture here to enlighten us on where this statement about “certain standards” comes from and which we ought to spend a moment on, let’s turn to Col 2:8:

See to it that no one takes you captive through philosophy and empty deception, according to the tradition of men, according to the elementary principles of the world, rather than according to Christ. NASU

This scripture identifies three basic sources of opposition to right thinking and that is why it is a good verse to reflect on in this matter of the performance trap. Lets quickly look at them:

1. “Philosophy and empty deception” – This is a reference to what we would call “the world system” or secularism. The world has a set of rules and regulations developed over the years based on man made philosophies, and this forms the world system. An example here would be, “live to work and work to live”. This means that our source of life is work, a very worldly perspective suggesting that you are nothing unless you work.
2. “The tradition of men” – is similar, but refers more to dealing with our fleshly nature than the world system, it is more personal. We all have behaviors and thought patterns that come from our families or culture. This scripture calls this “the tradition of men.” An example in the context of performance traps might be that we choose to go to our parent’s alma mater instead of a superior choice of school.
3. “Elementary principles of this world” – This refers to the “truths”, which are actually not truth at all, which the enemy pushes. Examples are, it is okay to lie about things and if nobody gets hurt, it is acceptable to steal. These are originated from the enemy himself, who is called the ruler of this world. He runs the game, because he sets the rules!

So, in this verse Paul is warning us to watch out for these three basic opponents to right thinking; the world system, our fleshly nature and Satan.

Let us now go back to our statement and definition of the performance trap.

· I MUST MEET CERTAIN STANDARDS TO FEEL GOOD ABOUT MYSELF.

Because we have identified what God says about the origins of the opposition to right thinking, it is now easy to see how where the “certain standards” come from. They are from the secular world, our fleshly nature or the enemy. No matter what the source, they still represent a false belief when held up against God’s word. We will be covering this comparison in more detail next week. For now let us all agree that the false belief about needing to perform is a lie and a trap.

There is one major result that believing this lie seems to achieve in all of us, it places a root of fear in us. In this case it is a fear of failure. Tell me, has anybody taken the ‘fear of failure test” on page 32 of our book, and is willing to talk about it? (Open for class discussion)

Now let’s look at some of the potential consequences of this fear of failure, first I’ll list the ones mentioned in the book and then we’ll cover a few of them in some detail.

· Perfectionism.
· Avoidance of Risk.
· Anger and Resentment.
· Pride.
· Depression.
· Low Motivation.
· Sexual Dysfunction.
· Chemical Dependency.
· Addiction to Success.
· Identity Entanglement.
· Sense of Hopelessness.
· Anger at Ourselves and God.

Perfectionism

Let’s begin with perfectionism. The book calls it “an unwillingness to fail”, are there some other ways to define it? (Open for discussion) In the context of our subject, perfectionism is the result of not feeling good enough about oneself, having a low self-esteem.

This is how it works. We either have a low self-esteem or an incorrect view of it. We notice that when we do something well, we feel good, and that is a legitimate internal response to excellence. However, we substitute our bad feelings that come from low self-esteem with good feelings that come from performing. The first time this happens, which will most likely be in our childhood, a potential perfectionist is born!

Over the years we fine tune and develop our perfectionism so that whenever we get into some form of slump we can go out and do something and we feel temporarily better. Some of us will even develop systematic ways of doing things in a perfectionistic way so that we have a constant source of feeling good coming in at all times. It is like being emotionally paid for performance. There are a couple of variations of perfectionism that I won’t detail but will mention. The procrastinator and the mess-up.

Let’s look at some actual examples of perfectionism, can anybody give us some?

· The always on time person.
· The clean freak.
· Yard of the month man.
· The fashion Queen.
· Ms. Busybody.
· Mr. “Always in a debate” Man.

The common theme with all perfectionists is that they feel better about themselves when they do something. Their motivation for performance is about their own needs not what is right. God speaks to this in Col 3:23:

Whatever you do, do your work heartily, as for the Lord rather than for men. NASU

This verse supports excellence, but not perfectionism. We are to do our work, meaning perform, as if we are doing it for God, rather than for men, which includes self. It is about motivation, not personal need. When the personal result of feeling better is taken off our emotional backs in this way we get freed from the “hamster wheel” of performance. We can continue to do well without having the result of our work determine if we will feel good from day to day. God will accept anything we do for Him, nor matter how we perform, as long as it is done out of love and obedience to Him.

A last word on perfectionists. They can drive the people around them crazy, and make life miserable. They do this by demanding that others meet their needs to perform for self-esteem in some way. An example could be a boss that has everything done his or her way when another way might work just as well, and take less time and effort. Can anybody give us some examples of craziness like this?

Addictions

The connection between the fear of failure and addictive behavior is not always easy to see. However in some cases it is the fear of failure that is at the root of a compulsive behavior that eventually becomes an addiction.

Consider what a person driven by performance typically experiences. They tend to feel better when they are performing well, which puts them under a great burden. They operate with a fear that they will fail, and they are basically on a “hamster wheel” of their own choosing. They have to keep “performing” to keep the good feelings about themselves alive. If they stop the good feelings recede and other feelings develop, which usually are experienced as less than good and sometimes as bad. This person probably ought not to be called a “human being” anymore, but is better thought of as a “human doing”.

Operating as a “human doing” is not how we were created, and is a dysfunction or malfunction within our soul. Sometimes the person carrying this malfunction will discover how to ward off the bad feelings through self-medicating. Self-medicating is giving oneself an emotional drug. Can anyone think of some examples of self-medication”

· Prescription Pills, Illegal Drugs and Alcohol.
· Exercise.
· Pornography.
· Entertainment.
· Illicit relationships.
· Socializing.

Did you notice that not all of the items on the list we came up with are thought of as compulsive behaviors or addictions?

Let’s be clear here. Not everybody who has an addiction is dealing with the performance trap, there can be other sources, as we will discover later in our study of the book. Also, not everyone who is performance driven will fall into a compulsive behavior. The performance and addiction connection is quite common, but hard to see or link up in practice. Does anybody here experience this difficulty or have a family member or friend that is a type A with a “performance” issue?

Are there any questions about this connection between the fear of failure, which is the performance trap, and addictive behavior? Solomon, who was known as the wisest man that ever lived, although he wasn’t, Jesus was, wrote about this in the book we call Ecclesiastes, let’s focus on Ecc 1:8:

All things are wearisome; Man is not able to tell it. The eye is not satisfied with seeing, nor is the ear filled with hearing. NASU

This comes within a whole section of scripture of the futility of the things we do, which we usually call work. I want us to all take in what God is saying for us here:

· Work or performance is ultimately wearisome.
· We can’t figure that out.
· It will not satisfy us.

While Solomon doesn’t speak to becoming addicted, which can be thought of as seeking satisfaction in the wrong places, he does say later that we need to turn to God for satisfaction. We’ll look at that more next week.

Identity

In the discussion we just had on addiction I talked about a person moving from the status of “human being” to “human doing”. This can be thought of an identity shift. Let me demonstrate this to you.

(Ask people to introduce themselves with a name and to tell us what they do for a living if they work. This is what will happen. They will all say something like this, unless they have seen this done before, I’m Fred and I’m a carpenter or I’m Judy and I’m a homemaker)

Did anybody hear what happened? We all gave our names and then said, “I am something”! Our identity, or who we are is automatically wrapped up in what we do. This says that how we think about ourselves is wrapped up in what we do, and that we get our sense of feeling valuable from our work. If we are afraid of failing in our performance we will most likely have a fear of feeling worthless too.

That is not how we were created to think and experience life though. I will speak more about this next week, but I do want us to leave us with the appropriate understanding of who we are as we conclude today’s lesson. Let’s look at 1 Jn 4:16 and combine it with 1Cor 13:1-3:

We have come to know and have believed the love which God has for us. God is love, and the one who abides in love abides in God, and God abides in him. NASU

If I speak with the tongues of men and of angels, but do not have love, I have become a noisy gong or a clanging cymbal. If I have the gift of prophecy, and know all mysteries and all knowledge; and if I have all faith, so as to remove mountains, but do not have love, I am nothing. NASU

This reminds us that God is love, and that without love I am nothing. It doesn’t matter what I do, or what I know or what I feel, without God I am nothing. Without God I am worthless, without God I have no value, and I can be thrown away.

With God I am priceless, with God I have value, with God I am treasured. Isn’t this one of the messages found in the good news of Jesus Christ? Isn’t this something that we must remember at all times and be willing to share whenever we can?

Let us all say this together, “I am a priceless child of God, fully loved and having infinite value”.

And that, ladies and gentlemen, is where we finish today. Next week we will cover the deep subject of “Justification”.