A Relationship You Honor Can Detach You From Your Winning Recipe

EVEN AS A young child you discovered that the world was extroverted. You then concluded that you did not have what it took to feel safe, and created a winning recipe to cope.  Now the recipe allows you to hide inside a socially acceptable way to be – knowledgeable, moderate, persevering, unforgiving, or withdrawn. Or any of the thousands of other ways introverts try to be to achieve success.  For example, my recipe is to be process-driven by building step by step procedures to cope with life.

In Post #23 we looked at creating a new context around your life. It is a powerful way to detach from your winning recipe and avoid the costs that it imposes on you.  Here we will talk about another effective approach, that of leveraging one of your most precious relationships.

This strategy works because it goes to the heart of why you created the recipe in the first place . Namely, to reduce overstimulation by finding a productive way to distance yourself from others. 

The relationship solution reverses what you did as a child.  Instead of pushing others away, this approach asks you to consciously draw someone closer. 

Combined with the context solution in post #23, this allows you to deliver a one-two punch to the winning recipe.  Your formula will never go away. But as we will see in the next post, you can convert it into something harmless and even useful.

In 2009 I almost committed the worst blunder of my career.  The only thing that saved me from it was a cherished relationship.

How I Discovered The Relationship Solution

IN THAT YEAR I created a new context to live as a straight-up introvert instead as of my winning recipe (see Post #23), and was ecstatic about that.  But that lasted for only two weeks before my winning recipe struck back.

I saw an ad for a Strategy Management Director at a chain of hospitals for cancer patients. Soon I went into overtime fantasizing about how such a job could be the epitome of my career. It would allow me to implement the most powerful process that I had ever seen, something called the Balanced Scorecard. 

Despite the fabulous boss I had, one who built on my strengths as an introvert, I applied to the other company.  The interviews went extremely well and I was on the verge of getting an offer when second thoughts hit me. 

What was I doing?  I was in my late 60s and saw that the new job could have been extremely stressful.  More importantly, however, I was working for the best manager I had ever had. I thoroughly enjoyed my job even though mostly I was not using the Scorecard method. 

My winning recipe – to be process-oriented – loudly told me to jump ship and take the job.  I had run the recipe since age ten in an attempt to fill a void inside me. It said that I was not good enough to succeed in an extroverted world.

But after reading Quiet by Susan Cain, that void had all but disappeared.  I saw that being an introvert was not a defect, it was an advantage. I no longer had anything to compensate for. 

After looking at the stability of my current job, and especially the incredible quality of the working relationship with my boss, I withdrew my candidacy at the other firm.  That was a major turning point because I chose a relationship over the very thing that I had designed the recipe to do – to distance me from other people. 

For me, a powerful antidote to detaching from the recipe was a relationship. One in which I could interact with that other person as myself. As a full-on introvert unadorned by a phony formula.

Unpacking The Relationship Solution

WHAT HAPPENED TO me in 2009 shows the danger of not anchoring a new context in something more tangible than a declaration.  I had not done so, and that left an opening for my winning recipe – a compulsion to build step-by-step processes to handle everything – to come roaring back and almost take over again.

Susan Cain’s book had shown me intellectually that as an introvert I no longer had anything to compensate for, and that was important.  But I did not get it emotionally until I faced the stark reality that I was about to give up the best boss I ever had for the uncertainty and stress of a new job. 

I was living openly as an introvert and loved it.  Behind one door was the new company and the Balanced Scorecard process, the height of what my winning recipe had always called me to be.  Behind the other door was this kind gentleman – 17 years my junior – who could not offer the Scorecard but could and did offer me a useful and productive life with no need for me to make apologies for being an introvert. 

Viewed that way, the choice was easy. And afterwards I never regretted it for a moment.

How To Use Someone You Honor To Detach From Your Winning Recipe

1. Openly declare the new context that you are an introvert.  Go to Post #23 to do this as a necessary first step.  It will give the relationship approach an environment in which to blossom.

2. Identify a relationship so dear to you that you would be willing to give up your winning recipe for it.  If you have a stark choice to make between continuing with your recipe or giving it up to remain with a relationship you treasure, all the better.  But you may have no such dilemma facing you. If not, pick a person for whom you would willingly back away from your winning recipe if you ever had to choose.

3. Consciously choose that relationship over the recipe.  This is a nail in the heart of the recipe.  You designed it to avoid relationships, so if you choose to keep a relationship instead of the recipe, you are doing the formula grave damage.  This will not kill it.  But it will help to make it a far less potent force in your life.

I Invite You To Choose A Cherished Relationship Instead Of Your Winning Recipe Today

• What relationship did you choose?  How did it feel to select it instead of your recipe?  If you would like us to consider sharing your story with The Satisfied Introvert community anonymously please email it to me at thesatisfiedintrovert@gmail.com.
• How can I help you choose a relationship over your recipe? Please go to the Contact page and enter your name, email, and questions. I cannot answer everyone, but will do my best – especially if the answer could benefit others.
• To be notified of new posts to The Satisfied Introvert blog, please go to the Subscribe section at the bottom of this post and enter your name and email.  Under no circumstances will we share your information without your express permission. A new post appears every two weeks.  Coming up next: “Feeling Whole Can Detach You From Your Winning Recipe.” If a particular post does not apply to you, future ones most likely will!

Welcome to the satisfaction that comes from

openly choosing a relationship over your

winning recipe, and from being free

of the recipe’s incessant demands

 2022 The Satisfied Introvert LLC