Valuing Others’ Gifts – Stop Feeling Guilty When Others Help You
Friends of ours are having their wood floors stripped and stained this week. We invited them to stay at our place while the process happens. This morning the friend texted saying she felt bad because it felt like they were imposing on us. I replied with:
“Let’s flip your mindset so you don’t feel guilty. We GET to have your family stay with us. This is something we can do and like to do. It’s like your cooking – you enjoy it. We enjoy having you here and get to help provide some basic needs while you are here – no more feeling bad.”
Knowing this friend, she’ll still feel slightly guilty. However, when they stay with us, she’s sharing her amazing cooking skills with us, and even including hot breakfast for our family in the deal. What?! Who cooks hot breakfasts? (Okay, we do – about 3 times per year but that hardly counts.)
What she loves to do brings her joy. It’s her gifting. As team members, we often feel guilty when we ask someone to use their gifts and skills because their gifts and skills are hard for us. We feel like we’re asking a lot of them, when in fact, what we are asking them to share what brings them great satisfaction.
If using their gifting brings them joy, how can we give ourselves permission to stop feeling guilty?
- We can tell the other person we feel guilty and why, but when the other person tells us they really don’t mind, we need to believe them and let go of our guilt. That frees the giver to enjoy the full process of using their gift without the overriding worry of how you are reacting.
- We can also acknowledge their gift by saying thank you and telling them what their gift means to us and the impact it has on the team. It doesn’t have to be a gushing, overblown public acknowledgement, it can be a simple, “Wow, thank you for serving our team with your attention to detail. We are better because you share that gift with us.”
What if we’re the ones serving? How can we help those who feel guilty?
- We can let them know we’re grateful for the chance to use our gift. It can be a simple statement like, “Thank you for letting me do what I love to do. That means a lot to me.”
- For our friends and colleagues who have a strong guilt complex (and we know who they are), we can free them from guilt from the get go by saying, “I’m excited to be able to share my gifts and talents in this way, and I’m releasing you from any guilt you may feel because I truly enjoy doing this. Thanks for your thoughtful concern, but know I’m glad to do this and we’re moving on guilt-free. Deal?”
We are all wired with unique skills and talents. It takes all of our abilities to thrive, and we can do that best when we let others serve in their areas of gifting.
Your challenge for the week is to use your gifts to serve your team in some way this week and to acknowledge the skills others bring to your team. It’s time we let go of our guilt, and it’s time we free others to be who they were made to be.
While I’m on the topic, thank you for how you serve your teams, your communities, and your families. There’s no one who could do it in the same way you do!
Keynote speaker, trainer, and consultant, Sarah Gibson, helps organizations leverage the power of communication, teamwork and diversity to improve engagement and transform teams. To buy her book or inquire about her speaking programs, please visit www.sarahjgibson.com.
