Real Life in Draft: Giving up to start again

This past week has been rough.

Monday I told my boss I planned to do something in a month and he said he approved of the idea.
Tuesday I was crushed due to lack of participation in a project I've been working on, which ultimately throws off the plans I proposed on Monday (hard to host a special event when nobody wants to participate).
Wednesday, I had the opportunity to discuss my project with a coach in order to iron out kinks and hopefully, eventually, push the project to a larger audience. My coach was in a van full of people on the road, distracted, and the call dropped several times before it devolved into a text message conversation with no productive outcome.
Thursday, I felt so defeated, I didn't bother participating in my own project event. I didn't even bother checking in with the people that normally participate to see if it went well, or even happened at all. I was ready to throw in the towel.

I've been listening to the book "Dare to Lead" by Brené Brown, and Tuesday, I came across the section where she shares a story by Retired Air Force Colonel Dede Halfhill. The story touched on exactly what I was feeling and struggling with all week--exhaustion and loneliness.

I loved the way Dr. Brown narrated the story in the book, so I went looking for a clip of that exact audio on YouTube. I didn't find it, but I did find a couple videos with different tellings of the same story.

edit: I should add that this list is in the order I found these videos. I've been bouncing around rewatching them to absorb the story, and I'd probably recommend watching them in chronological order: 2010 TED Talk, 2012 TED Talk, The Art of Language and Connection, and finally the Interview with Col Halfhill (retired). Now back to my regularly scheduled chaos...

First, here's the story. A weaker telling, but as close to the book as I could find:

This story revealed to me that the exhaustion I'm facing is LONELINESS. I feel alone in my efforts. I feel alone because I can't express my feelings with anyone due to the mandate of sterile, politically correct language. I lack friends. I feel alone at work. I feel alone at home. I don't know how to connect with others, or who to connect with. But this story tells me I'm not alone in those feelings.

In my search for other versions of the story, I found a full interview with Col Halfhill (retired) that covered The Man in the Arena quote by Theodore Roosevelt and how she met Brené Brown and shared the story that ended up in the book. I watched shortened clips of the interview out of order, but here's the full interview from start to finish. Thank you Josh for starting The HeroFront Podcast. I wish I had found this nine months ago:

This interview mentioned Brené Brown's TED Talks, so I went digging for those.

First there was Brené Brown's 2010 TED talk on Vulnerability:

And finally, Brené Brown's 2012 TED Talk on Shame (I think this one is stronger than the 2010 talk):

So now I'm back to reassessing the value of my project. Ultimately, I have to remember it's not about me. As I prepare to share some of these videos with my coworkers, and open up about my struggles, I drafted up the following to describe why I continue pressing forward:

For every one of me that's struggling to get people involved, there are hundreds of you who could potentially benefit from one of these discussions. So I can't give up.

Ultimately, the potential benefit this might bring far outweighs my frustrations and disappointments.

Accordingly, God reminded me this morning that He is bigger than my unmet expectations.