Self-Acceptance and Potential... Fueling the fire to lead

The following excerpt is taken from the text "Extraordinary Groups".

Acceptance is about my strengths and weaknesses and my ability to observe myself.  At a deeper level, this is about my identity, knowing who I am and embracing myself as I am.  This need continues throughout my life and is regularly challenged by new circumstances.  When I am more accepting of who I am, I move my center with more confidence to the future.  Paired with the need for Acceptance is the need to experience Potential.  My Potential is the "me" I long to become and my willingness to reshape myself toward that vision.  The need to do so stems from my internal knowledge that I could be different, I could be more.  But how?  This growing of myself requires internal searching, risking, and acting to test my learning self out in the world.

I think it was just a post ago that I shared some of my vulnerabilities, and made mention that it seems that we come to a crisis of self just before God steps in with a hand of revelation.  Tonight, as I read for next week's class in Leadership of Others I came across this paragraph.  I don't know how the English language is capable, but in a paragraph a snapshot of my current paradigm has been taken. 

There seems to be a theme I am discovering about the climate of the workplace I am currently in and the type of person I am.  The result is that my actions and driven nature move faster than pace.  Sometimes the toes I step on are due to moving outside of some presumed structure or the way things are... sometimes I'm young and I get ahead of myself.  I was once told oss of how I am driven, and they like that, but to temper it.  So there are times I get to yearning to action, and before I know it, there I go causing waves.

For most of my life, I built who I am based on what I did and the results of what that was.  Often times that included the opinions of people around me... well largely it continues to.  I'm a consensus builder, and often times I let that consensus build me.

The past year or so, I've become discouraged with my "unintentional waves" within the company.  Sometimes you want to feel like you are just free and able to be in an environment that moves as you do.  I often come back to my love for the people I work with, and the community we have together, which is one that is hard to beat.  I realize at times too that this is an excellent place for this young professional to become a bit more polished, and learn to work within certain constraints.

But tonight its starting to sink in again.  That creating waves happen when you are different than the flow that surrounds you.  And these waves are things I can certainly learn from, but at the same time- I also have to not let them dishearten me, because waves aren't necessarily bad.

I sense myself so deeply within the workings of this paragraph.  Struggling to fully grasp self acceptance- even when perhaps there are those with dissenting opinions.  Learning to stand taller from my pitfalls.  If I can just come to this place...where I know who I am and what I bring, strengths and limitations.  If I can express this to myself and others while accepting myself fully for who I am right now (not when I'm 20 years further down the road and all polished)... all I can say is that once this truly happens... (slow smile)... I have no doubts about the potential.