Performance Oriented Workers (POW's)

Do you know who the control freaks are in your life? Perhaps you find the first one in the mirror. Perhaps you live with one. He or she could be your best friend, co-worker, boss, pastor, parent or sibling. Chances are you've got at least one in your life and if you recognize yourself as one then you're halfway toward becoming a recovering control freak.

I'm a recovering control-freak, a desire to control fueled by perfectionism. Recovery is similiar to a 12-step program. It's a daily choice with accountability to stay out of control. Perfectionism is one of what Henry Cloud calls a "hole in your fence." These are the "unhealthy needs, fears, inabilities and other conditions that tear holes in our boundaries." (p. 58, The One-Life Solution)


Excellence is a high value for me but I often have overstepped boundaries into perfectionism. I won't go into where it all comes from; I know I've got it and have spent years figuring out how to overcome it, sometimes becoming a control freak about not being a control freak!! If you are one then you know what I'm talking about!


Here's what Cloud says about the need to be perfect which represents a hole in the fence of my boundaries:

"It gets you dancing around, 
spending time on things that are

not worth spending time on, just 
because  you cannot stand for them to be less than ideal.


The need to get it right has 

turned into the need to have 
it perfect, and you spend hours and 
fret and stress over things that 
others are able to let go." (p. 59)

One lesson I'm learning through this book is understanding my lack of boundaries. Not moral boundaries but mission, vision, value and goal boundaries. The kind of lines in the sand that keep me on the playing field of my strengths, calling and job description. I have little doubt that I am only scratching the surface of it all.


Excellence honors God. Doing things half-hearted for our Lord is simply not acceptable. There's no shortcut to excellence. Getting there requires practicing deliberately, delaying gratification and forever challenging your current comfort zone. And that's the line between excellence and perfectionism that takes one into the world of the Performance Oriented Worker - a spiritual POW.


Perfectionists and control freaks are often that way because we haven't yet internalized grace. Grace means receiving favor and blessing that is undeserved, unearned and unrepayable. Those are three descriptive words that are difficult for control freaks to live out. When we live by grace we're not in control. When we accept God's grace we are acknowledging we're not perfect.


Do your best. Give 100%. Be disappointed if you fail. Honor God if you succeed. Move on to the next hill. That's living out grace and it's very difficult if you have perfectionistic tendencies (which can be due to any number of relationships and issues in life).


Ephesians 2:8-9 "For it is by grace you have been saved, through faith —and this not from yourselves, it is the gift of God— ⁹ not by works, so that no one can boast."


Any gaps in your boundary fence?