The covenants we make

Dinner table conversations from my childhood were informative affairs. They often took on a very specific flavour. Why? Because my parents were small business owners.

The talk would of course include the, "So what did you do today?" type questions. However, as staffing issues, union strikes, equipment failures and financing concerns often filled my parents' business-owning minds, these subjects would often turn up at the dinner table.

In my mind, they were uninvited but persistent guests. They would tend to hunker down, dominating the evening's chatter.

Mum and Dad were honest types who shared their concerns and revealed their distress when they felt it. They thrashed many areas of their lives out openly in front of their children. Hence, we were frequently, unwittingly invited to experience the trials and tribulations of business ownership.

I remember one evening when I was eight years old, my father verbally tried to reconcile what he thought of as a really positive relationship with his cleaning staff with the fact they had informed him they needed to join other union members in a countrywide strike over rates of pay.

My parents were generous, they paid their employees well above award rates and I remember my father's consternation at his staffs' collective decision.

He sat at the dinner table, sifting through conversations, employee reviews and his own conscience to see if he could have done anything better. Trying to figure out whether his staffs' announcement was due to intense dissatisfaction or a simple sense of solidarity with other cleaners up and down the country.

Many employees had reassured Dad that it was the latter but I remember the process he went through, the complexity of the issues he and my mother grappled with.

It was at that moment I thought, "That's it! This stuff is way too hard! I'm never going to own a business. I'm always going to be an employee."

I didn't realise it at the time but I had just made a covenant with myself.

Convenants, especially ones made with the simplistic passion of childhood thought, are agreements we make with ourselves. They are designed to protect us or let us off the hook from doing things that seem, if not disagreeable then down-right unpleasant. And they are powerful, often etched across the very bedrock of our souls.

Some covenants can be positive. One I made that has served me well is, "Two major repairs and a car is gone," made after I watched my parents pour endless money into an aging luxury car that was constantly breaking down and costing them far more cash and grief than it was worth. But others can be self-limiting and even destructive.

I see it all the time in the disabled and disadvantaged young people I am currently privileged to teach. Covenants such as "I'm stupid," "learning is hard for me," and, "I can't remember things easily," have crept into their belief systems.

Such covenants often take root as protective mechanisms. If you believe yourself stupid, then you don't have to engage in the struggle of learning or rail against the critical statements of parents or caregivers. Their criticisms seep into your soul and simply become a belief residing there.

However, such beliefs are corrosive, limiting and often lead to a shocking lack of self-esteem. And often they are wrong. I can't tell you how often young people with literacy issues and learning difficulties, depression and anxiety stagger me with their abilities and their intelligence. It is simply that their confidence and self-belief have been shattered by long held internal covenants. Variations on a theme of not being good or worthy enough.

One of my favourite things to do is uncovering and smashing such negative covenants.

I love the light that shows up in a person's eyes when they are confronted with evidence that directly contradicts a negative belief they have long held about themselves. When they get to ask, "Have I failed at failing? Can I dare to think I can succeed?"

I remember receiving a national rowing medal and blowing an unhelpful, "I'm useless at sports," covenant out of the water. Such successes, get you thinking, "Well if I can do that, what else can I do?"

So it's with this history of blowing up negative convenants, that I now discover the employee mentality one lurking within me.

Over the past few years, I have had to set up my own business to bill for writing and training services I deliver. I did this reluctantly and frankly, quite poorly. But recently, I have begun to investigate the mindset I'm bringing to this fledgling endeavour.

When challenged, a person I care deeply about burst out, "You present as an employee."

It was an inordinately helpful piece of information.

My internal eight-year-old with her employee mindset has been running the show! I love her dearly for her efforts to protect her future self but as Director of my company she needs to be fired, yesterday!

In a favourite video game I like to play, you do best if you bring what I call "kaboom energy" to the problems at hand. You simply need to blow shit up to get the job done.

Over the coming weeks I know I'll be bringing some serious kaboom energy to both my business and my mindset, redefining them both in ways that work for me moving forward.

I wonder, what are some of your childhood covenants that could do with a good, well-placed explosion?