Some years ago, I had a particularly large client, which accounted for more than half of my annual income. The trouble was: they knew they were a big client. When they needed something done in an unreasonable amount of time, they knew I’d still accept the assignment. I’d pull an all-nighter (or two), or work through the weekend if necessary to deliver the report, the position paper or whatever they wanted by Monday.
My habit of always coming to the rescue made me very popular with my client, but distinctly un-popular with my wife and children. Weekend plans would have to shift, date night would be canceled, and I’d be in a bad mood, surly and short-tempered for days.
I knew something had to change. I needed to take a stand.
The opportunity came one Friday afternoon when I was feeling accomplished, and just about ready to pack it in for the weekend. This client called, and of course they needed something urgently. I could feel that this was it. It was the turning point! I was finally going to calmly explain to them that their lack of planning did not constitute my emergency.
While my brain was screaming “No no no nonono nooooo,” what came out of my mouth, without hesitation or equivocation, was an enthusiastic and emphatic “Yes. Sure. I can do that!”
I have never felt so powerless in my life.
And I was going to have to tell my family, again, that our weekend plans would need to change so daddy could work.
I knew they’d be disappointed in me, but I’d find a way to explain. I just wished I’d find a way to explain to myself.
The Two-Surrender Paradox
As high achievers, we’re endlessly resourceful, eminently capable, and utterly responsible. Giving up, quitting or dropping the ball is unthinkable. We are winners! We always find a way.
That’s the story we tell ourselves. But in reality, it’s a fairy tale.
I had to learn that surrender isn’t losing. It’s abandoning a battle that’s just not winnable. The only way to win is to surrender.
And for me, that meant two surrenders: external and internal.
The external surrender is the one that every workaholic eventually faces: my life had become unmanageable. It was plain to see. Work was massively out of balance, and the casualties were my wife and kids: people who should have been more important to me than any project or task.
The internal surrender was harder: I had to admit that there was a subconscious part of me, something deeper than my rational brain, that was truly running my life. It blurted out things I didn’t want to say. It made me do things I couldn’t explain. And it stopped me from doing things I knew I needed to do.
That realization truly scared me.
My reality, up until that point, was that I could outwork, outhink or outmaneuver any problem. I was in control. And I was never afraid.
But wait: I can’t control what comes out of my own mouth?
After some time in recovery, I learned that the “control” I had been cultivating my whole life was, in fact, only the illusion of control.
This is what high-functioning professionals must understand if they are going to surrender. They’re not surrendering control. They’re surrendering the false premise that they ever had any control in the first place.
And honestly, let’s widen the lens here. This isn’t a “me” problem, or a “you” problem or a client-call problem. The problem of surrender is that it confronts the false reality that many of us have carefully created over decades:
- We are in control of our own bodies. Really? The last time you got sick, or injured — was that your choice?
- We can convince other people to behave the way we want. Ha. If you have kids, employees or aging parents, you know this is BS.
- We can “make things happen” if we just try hard enough, long enough. If you’re still laboring under this delusion, I hope you reach the end of yourself soon.
What Surrender Looks Like
I recently saw The Odyssey, Christopher Nolan’s retelling of the epic by Homer.
You know the story. Greek hero, Odysseus. The fearless warrior and brilliant general who was sure strength and cunning would get him home… until his crew was gone and so was his mind.
Once proud Odysseus winds up on Calypso’s island, where she feeds him the lotus flower, which erases his memory and keeps him docile. He’s fallen from extreme heroism to numbed complacency. He’s lost and unhappy, but isn’t sure why, and not sure he even wants to know. Sound familiar?
But then Odysseus makes a decision. It’s time to try something new: not another scheme, but surrender.
What does surrender look like? Notice, Odysseus doesn’t just throw up his hands and shout to the heavens, “I surrender!”
No. He builds something. A raft. And Odysseus paddles away from the safety of the shore, and the familiar comfort of the lotus, fighting past the breakers to let Poseidon’s storm take the raft where it will. Trusting the outcome to Zeus rather than his own strength.
And don’t miss the victory here. Odysseus survives the storm. His raft is destroyed, but he is delivered safely to the shores of his home: Ithaca. When he finally surrenders and stops struggling, then he is given his heart’s desire.
Surrender Isn’t Passive
Surrender doesn’t mean curling up in a ball, or passively drifting away. It’s making a decision and then acting on it. It’s admitting reality, and then adjusting your life to conform to that reality.
For me, the external surrender — admitting my life was unmanageable — happened once. I crossed the threshold from the soft lie of “You got this!” to the hard truth of “I can’t do this anymore.”
Then there was the internal surrender — admitting I was powerless to the degree that I couldn’t bridge the gap between my brain and my mouth. That’s not a one-time fix. It requires internal rewiring that takes months and years. It’s daily discipline and multiple opportunities to practice, call by call, “no” by “no.”
In closing, I’ve got two questions for you.
- What’s the external mess you’re still resisting?
- Where has your body (your mouth, your gut, your exhaustion) already told you the truth before your mind caught up?
Leave me a note in the comments.