That issue you’re struggling with this week, whether it’s with a peer, an employee, your child or other significant relationship…take a step back and ask this question: Was that an incident, or a pattern?
Great hearts make bad decisions, and bad hearts make great decisions. Neither is perfect, and both can change. Before you decide to terminate, write off, disengage, reprimand, alienate, respond, or even react, figure out whether the behavior you’re dissatisfied with is an incident or a pattern. Incidents are isolated choices and require action independent of long term impact. Patterns are cycles that either need to be broken (beginning with a willingness to grow and change by the person stuck in the pattern), or recognized as the limit of that person’s capacity/willingness to grow for the season they’re in right now.
