#self-criticism

(for someone who’s being too hard on herself)

“Measure results, not processes.”

The first time I heard this, I was in a training session for new managers. The trainer repeated it, and the whole room lit up. Like the clouds had parted.

Making results your benchmark for success is an approach that can be very liberating for the people you are managing. Done right, it supports creativity and gives them the room to improve in unconventional ways.

As human beings, we want things to be universal. To apply across the board, to work every time, everywhere.

That impulse can become a liability. When we take something that was meant for a particular purpose or a limited context, and try to use it across the board.

When we do, it’s like trying to use a specialty tool to do something that it was never meant to do.

It is true that making results our benchmark for success can work – in the context of managing people.

But outside of that context? Making results our benchmark for success can be a recipe for frustration. Especially if we apply it to things that are beyond our control.

When you and I try to help other people, we are setting ourselves up if we judge the value of our efforts based on the results we’re seeing.

Because different people respond differently.

And it doesn’t matter how you’re trying to help them. Whether you’re telling someone about Jesus. Or teaching someone, or helping someone who’s homeless, or trying to raise funds for a good cause. Different people respond differently.

God knows this. That we’re all different. And that we all respond differently. After all, that’s how He made us.

Which is why God doesn’t judge the value of our efforts based on the results that you and I see.

It’s the point of today’s Gospel, the part about “the measure with which you measure will be measured out to you.”

The one measuring, the one giving, the one pouring out their help, their encouragement, their support doesn’t know how what they’re doing will turn out. What happens with the help, the encouragement, the support is beyond the control of the one doing the giving. And yet, more comes from that than we know.

The important part for you and me? Look at the only place where human effort comes in.

Not in growth. Not in progress. Not in the end result. The only place where human effort is involved? Giving. Pouring out the help, the encouragement, the support.

So what does that mean? It means that whatever good God has called you to do, do your part. And do it well.

Keep giving. Keep pouring it out. Over and over.

But don’t worry about the rest. That’s God’s part, not yours.

Trust God for the growth. Trust God for the results. When you do, you will be amazed at what comes from what you’ve given.

Trust God. And keep pouring it out.