Leading on the Forward Edge – At Home · Character Creates Opportunity® · Reflection: “Holding Loosely at Home”

Have we ever found ourselves disappointed in someone who did not actually do anything wrong?

It happens at the kitchen table on plenty of ordinary evenings. A report card comes home, a career decision gets announced, a spouse handles a Saturday differently than we would have handled it, and something in us quietly goes flat.

Nothing bad happened. Somebody simply did not match the picture.

Most of us are carrying a picture. We drafted it years ago, we have revised it a few times since, and we have never once shown it to the person it is about.

That is the strange cruelty of a tight grip. We hold an expectation so firmly that the actual person standing in front of us starts to register as a disappointment, measured against a version of them that exists nowhere except inside our own head.

And they never agreed to it. They were never handed the standard, never asked whether it fit, never given a chance to negotiate the terms. They just live underneath it and feel the weather change in the room when they fall short of something nobody ever told them about.

I have done this. I have caught myself grading people I love against a rubric I wrote alone, and then wondering why the room felt heavy.

The tighter the grip, the more the whole relationship gets measured by a standard the other person never had any part in setting. Over enough years, that measurement becomes the relationship.

Holding loosely is not lowering the bar and it is not caring less. In the workplace we call it giving a talented person room to find their own path. In our community we call it letting a neighbor be who they actually are. At home it is the same thing, and it is far harder, because at home we have convinced ourselves that the picture is love.

Holding loosely means loving the person we have instead of the one we drafted. Below are three tight grips worthy of a consideration to loosen:

1. Our grip on the outcome. The sport, the school, the profession, the town they settle in; most of it we picked before they could talk. Some of it came from our own hopes and some of it came from our own regrets, and neither one is a good reason to hand somebody a life. There is usually physical evidence of the grip somewhere in our house like the brochure still on the counter, the jersey framed in the hallway, the sticker we bought a few years early. Find that one object this week and quietly put it in a drawer. A grip we can get our hands on is a grip we can open.
2. Our grip on the timing. Very often we do not object to who somebody is becoming; we object to how long it is taking. Ready by twenty-two, settled by thirty, over it by Thursday; those are our watches, and nobody else in the house is wearing one. The action here is simple and it is hard: stop asking the timing question for a while. No "any word yet," no "have you given any more thought to," no gentle check-in that everybody at the table hears for exactly what it is.
3. Our grip on the method. This grip shows up as running commentary on how a job got done; the dishwasher loaded wrong, the homework attacked in the wrong order, the money handled in a way we would not have handled it. If the outcome is fine, the method is not our business, and each small correction costs far more than it buys. Pick one job in the house that genuinely belongs to somebody else and go a full week without trying to improve it.

A looser grip does not mean we stop hoping for the people we love. It means our hope stops functioning as a bill they have to pay every time they walk in the room.

And something else happens that we do not expect. When the grip comes off, people tend to move toward us rather than away, because we are finally safe to be ordinary around.

The person at our table is not a rough draft of somebody better. They are the whole point.

As we hold the people in our homes a little more loosely, we will build and strengthen our character, and Character Creates Opportunity to give those we care about most the freedom to become who they actually are.

If I were to ask you, "What is holding you back today from being your best for those you care about most?" what would you say?

Please reach out if I can help you today. My mobile is 269-370-9275 and my email is david@harvesttimepartners.com

Please download some FREE resources at www.harvesttimepartners.com I hope you will find them helpful in your journey to be your best for those you care about most.

This reflection builds on two earlier Character Creates Opportunity® posts: Hold Loosely and Managing Expectations.

Questions this reflection answers

How do I stop being disappointed in my kids?

Notice the picture you have been carrying of who they should be. They never agreed to it or even saw it. Loosen your grip on the outcome you picked for them, on how fast they get there, and on how they do everyday jobs. Hope for them without making that hope a bill they have to pay.

Does holding loosely mean lowering my standards for my family?

No. Holding loosely is not lowering the bar or caring less. It means loving the person you have instead of the one you drafted. When the grip comes off, people tend to move toward you rather than away, because you are finally safe to be ordinary around.