Breaking the Performance Trap

Breaking free from the performance trap begins by examining what your father named you and finding your true identity beyond achievements.

• Core identity questions arise from childhood and determine what we give our hearts to
• The performance trap creates a constant need to prove ourselves and never allows us to rest
• Children look to parents to define who they are through words and actions
• Parents transfer not just ethics but their own relationship with themselves to their children
• Moving beyond political, racial, and achievement-based identities allows for authentic connection
• Discovering who God says you are exchanges the treadmill of performance for true rest
• Breaking generational patterns allows children to live from security rather than constantly proving their worth

Visit www.thefatherdifference.com/store to get your copy of The Father You've Always Wanted. Plus, get your access to our free coaching resources and free book at www.thefatherdifference.com/links!

Chapters

• 0:00 The Performance Trap Explained
• 4:16 Finding Your Core Identity
• 9:30 The Father's Role in Identity Formation
• 17:26 Breaking Free from Political Identity
• 23:10 The Father You've Always Wanted
• 35:51 Prayer and Final Thoughts

Transcript

Speaker 1: 0:09

Okay, I think we are live. Okay, we are live. Welcome. Tonight we're going to talk about the whole question what did your father name you? What was the name?

Speaker 1: 0:29

You got away from your childhood and I had to really find freedom from the performance trap that it's so easy for us to get our identity from our name from. And the only problem with the performance trap is that what if you lose that role or you're not connected in life to maybe the core of who you think that you've been called to be? You think that you've been called to be and you know that's. It's so problematic for us in our life if the core identity of our life has to be made up all the time. Matter of fact, we live in a world where the core identity of people is discovered every day. Online. People are looking constantly for who am I? How is my life going to be different? And so the problem is is that if you're not really clear about who you are, you'll get into this cycle of performing constantly. And tonight we're going to talk about finding freedom from the performance trap in your life.

Speaker 1: 1:43

I'm your host, ed T-McLanson. I'm so grateful that you're joining us from different places. Every week we come together. We have people from different parts of the world with all kinds of things happening, and we have some crazy times that we're living in right now in the United States of America. If that's your country, or you're visiting from Canada, I'd love to hear about you and where you're from. You can send me a comment, or not, of discovering and really being able to break through with this whole idea about your core identity. So let's get started.

Speaker 1: 2:33

So, when you think about your childhood and your relationship with your dad, with your mom, your relationship with your dad, with your mom, and discovering who you are, how would you name yourself? What is that core identity that you came away from your childhood with? Was it something you did? Was it a hobby? Was it an athletic event? For me, it was about playing in the National Football League. Being an athlete and based on how you name yourself really determines kind of what you give your heart to and how you live your life for. And that can be so problematic if you don't reach those goals or connect with really who you, you know, really think you're supposed to be.

Speaker 1: 3:46

And you know I meet people all the time. You know in our coaching business and what we're doing here in our ministry, here in our nonprofit, where people are really not clear about who God's made them to be. So they're constantly shifting, they're constantly looking for who they are. They come away they came away from their childhood many times with gigantic big question marks about personal identity and they're constantly looking. They choose spouses many times because they put into that moment in their wedding that that person is going to really help me discover who I am and it's great to make a great choice.

Speaker 1: 4:24

But how do you get off that treadmill where you're constantly evaluating yourself with everybody else around you? You can feel really great about yourself until you find somebody who does the same thing you do and they're so much farther along than you are. And one of the symptoms of somebody that's kind of in that performance trap in your life is that they don't rest very well. They're constantly driving and pushing and ambition and you know, maximizing your life and everything that you've been called to be and do is a great thing. But what's the expense to other people when they begin to feel as though they are more a part of your story being complete than you being able to be present and really make it about them, than you being able to be present and really make it about them.

Speaker 1: 5:28

I learned this when being a father in the early days. I remember coming home from work and ministry and my travels, and my children would meet me at the door with his daddy's home and I had to be really careful because little Luke would run up to me with his head down and right and turn sideways he could knock me out, if you know what I mean and they were waiting for me, as a dad, to be present with them, helping them, you know, with whatever they needed to. But the real question with my children was a question I was raised up with so much in my life and that is hey, dad, who do you think I am? Your kids are constantly looking at you and I don't know how many of you had done kids who do crazy stuff, but they're constantly looking towards you to find out what you think about them. And why is that? Because, dads, you carry identity in you. Even moms, they have this ability to you know, either make their children's chests go out or their heads bow low by the way they use their words and the things that they do.

Speaker 1: 6:48

And one of the secrets of being a great parent and even being a great spouse, or if you're single and you're dating somebody, is to make that relationship completely about that other person and not just about you, and one of the things that happens when you make it about you and you're constantly trying to discover who you are is that many times your relationships. I was with this guy the other day in a coaching session and he really wanted to find the right girl in his life and they get married and everything else. And so as I began to interview him and ask him a few basic questions, I determined right away he was looking for a girl. That made him look better, and my comment to him was well, as soon as you find her, you're going to find a flaw with her, and then you'll probably trade her in for another one Because you're not clear about who you are.

Speaker 1: 7:51

So when I asked you that question who has God made you to be and how do you see yourself? Do you see yourself as missing it in life? Do you see yourself as broken in some ways? Are you really clear about who God has called you to be? Are you clear about what God has called you to do? All those questions God promises to answer. And he does answer in this book, in the Bible. And he does answer in this book in the Bible. And the better you are at understanding who God says you are and living out of that, the different—let me say it this way your heart changes from trying to find out who you are and making your life about yourself to living your life like Jesus did, where he was constantly living so that other people could discover who God, the Father, wanted them to be. And that's a sweet spot for you, that's a sweet spot for me, that's a sweet spot for me. And so how do you come to that place? How do you escape that performance trap where you never rest because you're always going for the next thing?

Speaker 1: 9:23

I remember when I first began to understand these things and I was before I even wrote my first book I was on an escalator, one of those moving walkways to the airport, and I was walking. And what I love about those things is it helps an old geezer like me to get to a plane really quickly. And I'm following a guy who's on his telephone and I'm bouncing up and down. You know, they've made it. It's a really fascinating invention. The walkway is metal, yet it bounces. And so when you walk on it, whoever is in front of you or behind you especially if you're a retired NFL football player is bouncing on that moving walkway with you as you're going towards your plane.

Speaker 1: 10:21

And there's a guy on the phone who sort of turned around and noses me. But I listened in on his conversation and he's talking to his wife. I can tell by that, by the way he's talking. And I overheard him say. He says I know I know I haven't made a game all year long for my son, but you know, honey, this next deal, if I can just get to this next deal in my life, we're going to get the breakthrough that we need and I promise I'll make the rest of the games. And I can just hear the inflection in his voice and how. You know he was really conflicted. But he was on that treadmill man. He was going to the next city, he was getting ready to get on the airplane and he was going to miss that fathering moment with his son that he had not had yet this year. And so we come off the end of the moving escalator and he turns around and looks at me and he says did you just hear that and I said, yeah, I did. I mean, that's pretty obvious. You feel conflicted about going to the next place. And I looked at him and I said, sir, you know you can get this deal and make all the money in the world, but if you lose the heart of your son, you're going to feel like the poorest man in your neighborhood. And he looks at me and it just strikes him and he smiles at me and I just saw the light bulbs go off in his head and he turns around and gets on the escalator on the way out of the airport.

Speaker 1: 12:28

He discovered something in that moment. He discovered probably the sweetest spot that we can have in our lives is followers of Jesus, and that is when we pay attention to what God is calling us to and we begin to live our lives for the sake of the people that God has given us to love. And one of the ways you can really find out about what that core identity or name is in your own life is to look at the way you respond to your children and look at the way you father them. Or maybe you're a mom watching. Look at the way you mother your children, because we begin fathering, having children. Children is a beautiful thing, but one of the gifts that God gives us in the midst of being a father or a mother is— and the way we father them says a lot about what we believe.

Speaker 1: 13:41

And I'm not just talking about Christian ethics and teaching them right from wrong and how to go for life and build goals, but we transfer to them the way we deal with ourselves in our own hearts. Right, I mean, you can't, as a father or a mother, say, son, listen to me, don't do what I do, do what I say. We're not able to say that because our children's model of the way they do their life they're constantly looking at you and they're constantly looking at me and the very same ways that we live out our story. And here's the here's the thing that that is incredibly powerful to me when I learned this is that my sons even did my life. The way I did things when they weren't even around. It's like who I was as a man in the dark that my children wasn't privy to, became the place of strength or weakness that I lived in in my life. And when I didn't rest and when I didn't, you know, spend time with them, when I was constantly driving myself.

Speaker 1: 15:17

I remember in early years watching my own children live the same way, same way, and so what I was transferring to them wasn't this security that I had found in the Lord. I was transferring this treadmill and I was watching how it was affecting them and the way they were driving themselves, and then the way my children began to compete with one another. In the family, everyone's trying to get to the next level, trying to outdo one another, and competition in itself isn't wrong or evil. But when your core identity gets broken because they never discover who God's really made them to be, because their dad never discovered that, then you're giving them the same treadmill and the result of that happens is that you know, and I'm going to tell you, there are things that I have had to go to my children about and ask for forgiveness for, in patterns and ways that I treated them. That boy brought some tremendous healing with my kids when I was able to really deal in honesty with them.

Speaker 1: 16:46

You know what I'm talking about those places in your life where you are still. You're pushing to break through, pushing to arrive, and believe me when I say this, it doesn't matter how much you achieve in your life. It's the man, who you are dad, and if you're a mom, the woman you truly are and how you really see yourself determines a lot of how we react in situations and things are going. I'll kind of bring it to present day reality. Have you ever wondered why? You know, if you're from America, you're probably watching. We're in the midst of a presidential election Congress, senate and we've never been more polarized as a nation and just the vitriol in both camps back and forth has been enormous. And yet I've coached numbers of my friends that are following and supporting us in ministry here to where their families have been split because of politics.

Speaker 1: 18:25

Because of politics, and as though you know, especially if you're a follower of Jesus and talk about politics, they treat you with even more disdain if they're from maybe the opposite point of view in politics. Have you ever wondered why there's so much heat in all of that and I discovered this a while ago and it really helped me understand and how to be compassionate with people that are, you know, part of our story, part of my family, my friends who maybe have different political views, et cetera is that when you make your identity your political party boy, you've taken a step into an abyss. I mean, you know, people ask me all the time are you Republican, democrat, etc. And I smile at them. I said, no, my name is Ed. Who are you? No, no, no, no. How do you vote?

Speaker 1: 19:37

And it's like this idea that if you are not left or right, or center, or progressive or conservative or et cetera, it's interesting how those have now become personal identities in the world and based on your party, it's like you've got to toe this line. It's like you've got to toe this line. And if other people believe something different, we don't agree to disagree anymore. People begin to demonize one another, we begin to hate that other person We've never met them, we've never been there because that identity affects you. And so if you're suffering from political disarrangement syndrome, which we seem to have a lot of, and the only cure for that is to rediscover in a fresh way who God has called you to be, as either one of his sons or one of his daughters, and that is the only stabilizing place that's safe for us, that keeps us in a place where our hearts are free to love whoever God brings our way To, where we don't see people you know based—it's almost like the new racism in the world right now is politics, by way, you believe, because racism has been such an ugly thing around the world. It touched us in all different kinds of ways and you know, the issue is that God's made us to not get our identity from these external factors that can limit us in relationship with people that we could have incredible encounters with and change the world with. Because if your identity is only couched in your race and that makes you superior or inferior in identity, then, boy, you're going to spend a whole life on a treadmill to try to change that.

Speaker 1: 22:09

I mean, my best friend in the world that we met on a high school football field, brian Holloway, is in the midst of, you know, preparing his house right now for a hurricane, preparing this house right now for a hurricane. And when that hurricane comes in, it's not going to, you know, it doesn't go after a certain people, group, man, it's been destructive, the one that just happened last week. As a matter of fact, I was planning on doing this anyway For anybody that's joining us, would you just take a moment with me right now? We're talking about identity right now and we're going to get back into that, but my heart is just really heavy about everything that's been going on in the southeast of our country and these hurricanes and everything, and so, instead of worry and fret and all these other kind of things, would you just pray with me right now and let's just do that together?

Speaker 1: 23:23

Father, I just pray right now for my friends that are watching, and maybe they are in the South right now, maybe they are in Florida. I have a number of friends that normally come and come to our coaching time online every Tuesday night and I pray, father, that you would push, turn this storm away. Father, I pray in the name of Jesus. I pray that you would protect, you know, so many millions of people that are right in the wake of this storm. I pray in the name of Jesus, right now, that you would change the storm, you'd push it back, that you would give wisdom to Governor DeSantis, you would give wisdom to the town leaders and the mayors and the councils and the people in those places and you would protect them. Lord, you would protect my family back in Tennessee, my two sons, my grandkids there, lord, they're incredible lives that they have. Protect Brian and his family and all those families that you might have and you might be related to. So, father, I pray right now that you would do what you need to do for the sake of all these families, and we speak to this—woke up this morning with this verse where Jesus, in the midst of a storm, asleep in the boat, disciples thinking the boat was going to sink.

Speaker 1: 25:07

He wakes up from his boat and he just prays, and his prayer wasn't a long prayer. His prayer that he praised was basically he said be quiet and the storm ceased. Jesus, would you speak to the storm? And we speak with you in Jesus name and ask you, lord, to do what you need to do, and we pray, lord, that not a single life is lost, that Father, you would protect Florida. Father and Lord, you would prepare them and give people wisdom right now, in the name of Jesus. And all God's people said Amen, be praying for this. I mean, this is a current reality that we're facing right now. Current reality that we're facing right now.

Speaker 1: 26:07

And so how do you get clear about who God has called you to be? Well, there's a verse in 2 Corinthians, 6, 18, and God says and Paul is quoting two verses from the Old Testament he says and God says and I will be a father to you and you will be my sons and daughters, says the Lord, god Almighty. There's something that happens when you begin to discover God is your father in a new and fresh way. Is your Father in a new and fresh way? Because, with that and connecting to Him as a Father in your life, to Christ, identities exchange from Him to you about how he sees who you are, and that was that's what changed my life. What changed me more than anything else in my life after receiving Christ in my life was encountering God, the Father. That's why I wrote this book that we're talking through right now.

Speaker 1: 27:17

The Father You've Always Wanted and it's my story, and it's my story and what the Bible is. How can you connect to the Father in such a way to where you don't have to live out the broken story of your dad and you maybe have heard it said that. You know that many times it's the sins of the fathers that kind of visit three and four generations. We don't have to live out the brokenness of our family stories. But Christ came so that you and I could have a new beginning and discover who he has called us to be and to do what he has called us to do. And so how do you get that? Well, you have to receive Him.

Speaker 1: 28:15

Identity is transferred when we begin to discover who Jesus is in our life. It's not about being religious or being good that God gives more favor to one person or another Boy. What a treadmill that is. How many would shout hallelujah on that one? It happens at the moment when you learn to do one thing with God, the Father and His Son, that will revolutionize your life. And here it is, when you go to Him to discover who he's called you to be. He's the maker of heaven and earth. He's the one who formed you. He's the one that you know.

Speaker 1: 29:06

David quoted in Psalms that knew you before you were born. He is the one that you know spoke to young Jeremiah and said, before you were born, I knew you. I knit you together in your mother's womb, so you were perfectly made by God. Get you together in your mother's womb, so you were perfectly made by God. You were designed for a purpose and a discovery of a life that he has for you. That no trophies. Hear me when I say this. No great moments or even bad moments can limit who God has made you to be when you turn to Him.

Speaker 1: 29:48

And the only way that I have been able to get off that treadmill of production, because I learned at a very young age that if I was going to have the Vataboys from my dad the only dad I really knew my stepdad, dan McGlotson, you know, who did the best he could and gave us all he could. He was a military submarine commander. Commander of a submarine was that I had to live every day like a winner, was that I had to live every day like a winner. Well, the problem with that is that we got a lot of days that aren't wins. If we could put them on a scoreboard, then who are we when we're not living up to whatever that is? I meet men all the time who you know. They're still waiting for the breakthrough to come. That just seems so elusive to them, and they go to bed at night just not with wow, what a great day. I had to serve the Lord and serve my family and work hard. They come away with this kind of man. I could have done so much more.

Speaker 1: 31:12

And when you're in that place, there's one thing that you don't do very well anyway. You say you don't rest, and you know I remember our first, one of our first trips to Hawaii was so exciting being there, smelling the coconut breezes and love that place so much. But we put hundreds of miles on our rental car On an island that wasn't very big at all and I needed a vacation from my vacation and it was because I was on this treadmill. You find yourself on a treadmill right now with your family, with work, with everything. I just want to invite you to take a deep breath with me right now and just to bring your current life and current state of who you are to the Lord and let Him give you something different.

Speaker 1: 32:45

Now the Bible says to cast your cares upon Jesus. Cast your cares upon me. You know he has this capacity in his heart to carry us through our lives, through the most unbearable things, because he went through everything for us lives, through the most unbearable things because he went through everything for us. And in exchange of when we get with Him, there's an exchange of His presence into our life as men, as women, for your sons and your daughters, and the reason why this is so important for us to even just talk about this subject is that who you are and the way you do your life is the way your children are going to live out their story. And if you've got kids right now, you're looking at a mirror image of who you are dad and who you are mom. I mean, they are genetically 50% of you, but the way they handle life and stress and things, they've learned a lot from you and it can be a great—it's such a great gift to not only have children but to be able to understand and connect more to God, the Father yourself.

Speaker 1: 34:08

And so tonight is a little bit shorter and a little bit more, you know, rambling on, because part of it is that my heart has really been in prayer all day about what's going on, not only in our country, politically and with people, but what's going on in Florida right now there's another hurricane coming and the other part is what's going on with you, my friend, and your story and the things that God wants to do in your life. And so I want to close with a short prayer and invite you just to answer that question I asked right in the beginning how do you see yourself? How do you see yourself? What was the name that you came away your childhood with, and are you still living that way still trying to prove yourself to your father. Maybe he's even long gone and he's in heaven and not on earth. You're still trying to prove yourself. And why is that so important to change?

Speaker 1: 35:33

We talked about that Because your children are watching and getting the same download from you. And, boy, that's a powerful day. That's a powerful day when you begin to understand the difference you can really make as a parent, as a mom or dad, when your core identity is not in your family structure but your core identity is in who God says you are, as one of his beloved sons or beloved daughters. Imagine the healing, the revolutionary healing that would happen to our young people today if they weren't trying to find their identities much in the same way we did, or from the broken culture now that's coming in. And really, who's really behind it is that the devil himself wants to name us by our brokenness, by our sexual appetites, by our failures. He's really good at doing that. He'd love it if you name yourself by your wins and your successes, because then he can use that in your life for his own propaganda machine and get other people pushing and pushing so they can be like you, and the only cure for that is the risen Christ himself, who never lived his life in discovery of who he was, because he had that blessing from his Father and he made his life about everybody that came his way. Does not sound better.

Speaker 1: 37:38

I'd love any questions you might have you can send me. You can email me tonight. Questions you might have you can send me. You can email me tonight If you want to connect. Maybe you don't have this book that we're talking about and you can go right now to thefatherdifferencecom.

Speaker 1: 37:58

We have a free book for anybody that's watching the Difference a Father Makes, which is right now in over 200 countries around the world. I'm so grateful that it's there. If you've not gotten a copy, we want to send that to you and if you want to join us on our talk and I highly recommend you get this for you and your wife right now is to read this book. Sorry, I got it upside down. It's the Father You've Always Wanted and you can get that from our website. I think I heard it sold out on Amazon and so we're going to be in the reprinting phase on that book as well, but we have plenty in our warehouse, so we'd love to send you book as well, but we have plenty in our warehouse so we'd love to send you and it's a tremendous book to help you connect to the really to the Father you've always wanted and really the Father that we all need in our lives.

Speaker 1: 38:55

And when he said, I'll be a father to you and you'll be my sons and daughters, says the Lord. God Almighty is that God has actively been approaching you through what he did with his son to father you in a way, to help you discover who he's called you to be, so that you can complete and do everything he's made your life for, your spouse's life, for your children's life for, and your grandchildren and man when they get it. Wow, what a powerful thing. So let's pray, father, I thank you for my friends. I thank you that they're joining me tonight, in the midst of this time. We lift up to you all the things that our hearts are filled with, all those places of trying to name ourselves by what we do, that treadmill of life that we get on, and I pray for my friends right now and I pray that you would visit them right where they are and help them discover who you have called them to be. I thank you, lord, for those that are following us regularly. I ask you to bless them.

Speaker 1: 40:06

We also lift up our friends in Florida. We lift up their families. We ask you to protect them. We ask you to be with them, father. In the name of Jesus, we pray for wisdom down there and we speak, we come together and we speak to the storm. In the name of Jesus, milton, stop it, and we pray, lord, that you would push it back. And then they're calling it the storm of the century. Lord, I pray that you would do what you can do, jesus, and speak to this storm and blow it out. Even from this moment, in the name of Jesus, we ask you to do this and I ask you, father, to touch my friends and to help them discover, every single day, the incredible plan you have for their life, to be with them, to fill them, to give them hope, to give them a future. In the name of Jesus, I pray Amen, thank you. Thank you for being here.

Speaker 1: 41:16

We're going to be back next week, same time, same place. Make sure you get this book. We're finishing up chapter four. We're going to be on chapter five. Whoops, here we go. Artificial visual training. I did not get in high school. Anyway, I'm so grateful that you're here. Thank you for your support, thank you for your prayers for us and what we're doing. And, yeah, keep praying for us A lot of people we're trying to reach.

Speaker 1: 41:44

We got a number of things on our website at thefatherdifferencecom for you a free devotional things that maybe you want a daily way to connect. Well, we have one that will get sent to you every single day. All you got to do is sign up right now and you can have access to that and it'll come to you every single morning just to help you, through God's Word, hear the voice of the Father better and the voice of Jesus in a way that will change you, mold you, shape you and let you know you're not alone. Bless you. My friends Praying for you Can't wait to see you soon. We'll let you know when our conferences come in your area. We'd love to meet with you and have you be a part of that as well. Lord bless you, praying for you. Keep praying about this storm and the peace of Israel. Lord, continue that there as well. In Jesus' name, amen.