Playing a variety of roles in life is exhausting, particularly when the roles seem so separate and distinct. In my corporate years, I could go from power plants(wearing washable black pants, colored tops, steel toed boots) to the executive suites (business suit with heels) to home life with children (jeans and sweaters) . And my personality had to change with the outfits. I often thought of myself as a Barbie Doll. Each Barbie came with the whole outfit and accessories. She could go from Skater Barbie to Doctor Barbie to Flight Attendant Barbie as quickly as I today go from Yoga Chris to Consultant Chris to Party Chris—not really on that last one but it sounded good. I am not shaped like a Barbie but the roles in my life seem as varied as Barbie’s various incarnations.
Alignment or Multiple Personalities?
I have often wondered whether this lack of integration in my life has led to multiple personalities with multiple goals. But in a reflection on my life I think I was much more integrated in personality than in outfits. In fact, as I aged and got more integrated, folks at the plants I ran often called me Mom. And I would laugh that my parenting style and my management style had merged. In both settings I took to setting objectives, being clear about expectations and talking about what was important. For both my children and my team I would celebrate their various successes but sometimes I would have to administer Time Outs.
What Was He Thinking?
It turns out, however, that it is quite normal to feel conflicted especially between short term pleasure and long term goals. Think of the push-pull between the pleasure of junk food and the goal of being fit and healthy. Or what about the conflict between saving money for a car or a house or retirement and those shoes you really want right now?
You see this conflict in different ways when you hear about the transgressions of various politicians and the conflicts between their public personae and occasional bad behavior. Think about Anthony Weiner or John Ensign. Knowing full well that nothing is private when you have elected to be in the public eye, their behaviors make no sense and you could only wonder about impulse control.
The Science Behind the Conflict
In his new book, Incognito, neuroscientist David Eagleman discusses the brain science between our various urges and processes. [Check out the interview with Eagleman on Radio Times] It turns out that we all have multiple negotiations going on all of the time. We set long-term goals but have many internal conflicts with our impulses. Some people do a better job of managing these internal conflicts than others. It is a matter of understanding the conscious and unconscious debates, and putting the really important decision making into the conscious discussion or automatic.
