Goals gone wild
November 27, 2024
24 hour Catholic Health Hotline, a ministry of love
November 27, 2024
By Daniel Francis
I recently went out with a friend to catch up. I had not seen this friend in a few months, so she was giving me all the tea, as some people say. I got the stories about the craziness at work, that her family was doing great and then she told me that she stopped seeing the guy she was dating.
I was a bit shocked to hear that as the last time she spoke about this guy, it sounded as though everything was going very well. So, I asked why she ended it. She said that he had too many red flags and she could not handle that.
So, I went on to ask what those red flags were. She said that sometimes when he gets overwhelmed, he might shut down, limit his communication, and need time to himself.
He works extremely hard as he was recently promoted and isn’t always the best at replying to messages during the day when he is working, and he has a bit of lingering trauma from a past relationship, so he sometimes associates what she does with that past relationship. He would sometimes get triggered and have a negative reaction.
On hearing that my initial thought was that these could be difficult to manoeuvre around especially if he isn’t working on them. She quickly responded that he was upfront about all these early on and he admitted that he is working on them. My confusion started from that point.
I realised my friend did not understand what a red flag was. What she had described to me were the man’s weaknesses or what I like to think of them as ‘Opportunities for growth’.
You see, a weakness is something you can work on. Typically, a weakness is identified by the individual and they have the opportunity to work on improving it. If a weakness is shared with a level of reassurance that the person is working to improve it, then it’s not a red flag.
A red flag, contrary to what some may believe or what my friend believed, is not simply a weakness. A red flag is being comfortable in your weakness. When someone accepts their weakness to the point of deflection and misdirection when it is highlighted, then it is a red flag.
Having a red flag is knowing you have a problematic trait, and you go to extreme measures to deflect from addressing it. You somehow turn it around on the person who is asking you to address this trait.
You gaslight them and make them feel like the bad guy for calling you out. They don’t want to deal with their bad behaviour so they fight to warp the reality of the situation.
If she continued by saying that when she tried to bring up any of the problem areas with him, he completely denied it and got upset at her for even asking him about it and even accused her of imagining it, that would be another thing.
Then I would have agreed, yes that is a red flag. But in the case she described, he already knew what his issues were. He made it a point to communicate it early and he described all the ways that he was trying to improve.
The key differences between a red flag and a weakness are awareness and accountability – awareness of your deficiencies, and accountability to work to improve on those inefficiencies in earnest.
I’d like to think if we are in alignment with God, we would better be able to discern on these as well. He can guide us on who is being true to their betterment and who is simply in denial.
I hope you can now spot the difference between a red flag and not a weakness but an opportunity for growth.
________
Daniel Francis is a millennial helping other millennials. He is a two-time author of the books The Millennial Mind and The Millennial Experience, and an entrepreneur. Over the past four years, he has served as a Personal Development Coach whose work targets Millennials and helps them tap into their full potential. He is also a self-publishing coach and has guided hundreds on self-publishing their book successfully.
LinkedIn: Daniel Francis
IG: o.m.publishing
Website: www.ompublishing.org
