Leader…Keeping Your Growing “Hat Stack” In Check?

Adding responsibilities and tasks to your life requires very little effort, especially if you are known for getting tasks done!

Initially, adding a hat or two doesn’t seem like a big deal, but over time, two become four, and four becomes eight, and pretty soon the load you are carrying is in the brink of toppling over. Or worse, your load has already toppled!

Hats Are a Fashion Statement

According to Vogue Magazine, hats are back! It’s an accessory that’s sure to dazzle!

An elegant Fedora with a short brim, a sporty winter cap, a cute quilted or woolen bucket hat or French chic beret are all on trend in fall and winter for women.  Come summer the straw hat or the sun hat is brimming with style.

For men, you might consider a pub, newsboy or Henry Flat cap. Or a Fedora with a wide or narrow brim. Perhaps you prefer something more functional like an Elmer Fudd cap.

Man or woman, the cowboy hat or baseball cap are always a winner!

These days, I only wear hats out of necessity. I have a cute baseball cap decked with pearls that I wear to keep my hair from becoming a tangled mess when we are boating on the lake or driving in my husband’s convertible.

I also have a knit hat or two with matching scarves that I wear every now and then when forced to go out when it’s crazy cold.

When it comes to keeping my hat collection in check – that’s not an issue for me.

Enough About Hats!

The real reason I’m bringing up all the hat talk is that hats represent roles, responsibilities, and tasks! While donning too many actual hats is not a problem for me, I am prone to taking on more than is realistic. That’s why periodically conducting a “hat check” is critical for me,

I’ve noticed that my challenge is a common one for leaders, professionals, and entrepreneurs, as well as for those driven, ambitious types!

You may be feeling the weight of your heavy load of hats right now!

Here are a few signs that you’ve donned a hat or two, too many:

• You feel like you are perpetually in motion, but important tasks are falling through the cracks.
• Peace is a long-forgotten feeling for you.
• The feeling of failing, making one too many mistakes, or being overwhelmed has you thinking about giving up and quitting.
• People are sad that you never have time for them.
• Your relationship with God is shallow or non-existent.
• You never have time to do what rejuvenates you or gets your creative juices flowing.
• “Frustrated” is the word you use repeatedly!
• You are tired, unmotivated, and dissatisfied with your life.
• Margin is a foreign concept – your schedule is jam packed!
• You’ve accepted stress as a way of life! Even worse, you may not even realize just how stressed you are you’ve been burning the candle at both ends for so long!
• Important habits like exercising and getting enough sleep, eating well, and consistently engaging in self-care are not among your habits.

The #1 Reason You Keep Donning Hats!

The number of “hats” one is able to comfortably wear varies from person to person. It’s also worth noting that in some seasons you have the capacity to take on more than in other seasons of life.

Everyone has their reasons for collecting hats, but it typically boils down to the same root cause. Deep down you want to make a difference and successfully contribute in a way that’s significant. What you desire most is quite compelling! It might be recognition, significance, challenge, justice, worth, security, approval, or coming through and saving the day!  And that’s just the beginning of the possible desires that might be driving you to add hat after hat!

You might articulate your reason differently. A hat might represent being needed, validation that you are capable, or enough, competent, successful, etc.

Could it be that in your mind, the multitude of hats makes you feel valuable, important, or more acceptable?

Have you ever considered that amassing hats might be a clue that your Fear Monster is at work?

Hats & Fear

Fear tricks you into doing more and more and more! And yet all the striving and additional responsibilities never have the effect you were hoping for. Nope! While you’re wearing your stack of hats proudly, like a mature set of antlers, you miss the absurdity of what’s precariously stacked on your head!

God generously gives each of us talents and abilities that are meant to be used and have a multiplying effect in how the contribute to the Kingdom. In other words, the work that you do is about making a difference – a Kingdom difference, even if you are leading or working in the marketplace. Your job is to steward your talents and abilities well – applying them where they will have the greatest impact in the most effective way you know how. The results, those are in His hands!

Rather than endlessly adding hats, the idea is to add only the hats that best serve you and allow your gifts and talents to shine. Too many hats and your efforts are diluted. Too few hats and you are sadly minimizing both your potential and dependence on God.

When I’m attempting to do more, more, and more, the reality is that it would be incredibly more rewarding and significantly more effective if I did less – much less.

The Remedy

I’ve discovered the ease that comes from wearing fewer hats and making a conscious effort to focus on who God created me to be. For me that’s being loving and when that’s what I’m putting my energy into, it naturally limits the number of hats I try to wear. It also requires me to depend on God – I need His help to be loving!

Who God has created you to be might be something different – it might be…

Leaning into who God created you to be helps to keep your hat collection in check because you aren’t trying to prove your Fear Monster wrong.

Here’s what’s really interesting: when you are focused on wearing the best hats for you and walking in who God created you to be, that’s when what you desire most is experienced – whatever your grab for hats was trying to accomplish for you in the first place!

New Opportunities

Even when you lean more fully into who God created you to be and you guard the number of hats you choose to wear, you will still encounter enticing new opportunities or “hats.” Some you will need to pass on, others you will need to trade a current hat for, and occasionally you will add a new hat, especially if it’s for a limited amount of time.

Keeping tabs on your hats is an ongoing process. It’s tempting to see the “hat” so and so is wearing and want that same hat in your own collection. Just remember, your hat collection is YOUR hat collection and it doesn’t have to look like anyone else’s. The number of hats, the variety of hats, or the perceived status of the hats – none of those matters.

What Does Matter?

Being realistic about what you are capable of, keeping your priorities in order, and choosing hats that are well suited for you in this season of life. Even more importantly, that you are simultaneously able to boldly reflect God in all that you do!

I invite you to examine your stack of hats and evaluate them one by one. Allow God to show you the hats He wants you to wear, the hats that will be most flattering on you in this season, and the hats that it’s high time you pass on to someone else who would benefit from the chance to grow, stretch, and is an appropriate hat for them in this season.

Keeping my visual going, imagine a person with a literal stack of 15 or 20 hats on their head. That would require tremendous balance to successfully go through the normal activities of a day sporting such a precarious load. Pretty ridiculous, and yet we often do the very same thing in the figurative sense.

In need of shrinking your hat collection down to a more manageable size? Let’s chat! It would be an honor to partner with you as you seek to make life-giving changes. Imagine your life making a significant different with a much lighter load!

What entices you to keep adding to your “hat’ collection?

I’ve updated & revised this post just for you! (Originally posted on 8/3/13.)