So yeah, I’ve got anxiety about church. When I was in Nashville on Monday, Andy asked me about the situation, and that conversation set me off on a Five Whys path to figuring out the core problem.

1. Why have you not been going to church? Simply put, it became a point of anxiety in my life, and I was trying to cut out those things if I could. I really couldn’t [nor did I want to] quit my job, but church was something that I felt I could quit—right, wrong, or indifferent.
2. Why was church an anxiety point? Because I’m one of those Pareto 20%-ers who get caught up in doing 80% of everything.
3. Why are you that way? I think I’m wired into servant leadership because a) I find that it’s the best way for me to lead b) I like to lead c) I show love for people by doing things for them and giving them gifts. My love languages drive me to servant leadership—and while that is a great and admirable thing [or so I tell myself when I can't sleep at night], it’s also terribly draining.
4. Why is it terribly draining? Because I have a hard time saying no.
5. Why do you have a hard time saying no? Because, in my love language, it’s tantamount to saying, “I don’t love you.”

And there you have it. What I need to internalize, of course, is that saying no isn’t a love language issue, for the following reasons:

• I am not always the best person for the job. [Work is slowly teaching me this, although I'm still the best scheduler I know and also the best clerk. Neither of these is terribly value-added, though, because I'm awful expensive to be doing either job.] Arguing that I am both stretches me too thin and keeps other people from getting to serve. Neither is a good thing.
• Even if I am the best person for the job, I have a finite resource of time, some of which I have to learn to selfishly withhold for myself.

There probably are more … and you can sound off in the comments. But I needed to go through this. Of course, now that I’ve squared all this in my head, I’m sick this weekend and better not sicken others.

Of late, my depression … it hasn’t been good. I think it’s a lot of things, but mainly that I haven’t dealt well with the stress of my position at work. It’s to the point that it’s affecting me physically [vicious headaches], and all in all, it’s not good. Randomly this morning [but are subconscious questions ever really random?], I asked myself, “Hmmm … could the five whys help me figure out what’s stressing me out here?” And I decided that yes, they could.

I’m depressed.

Why are you depressed?

Because I’m stressed out.

Why are you stressed out?

Because of my job.

Why is your job stressful?

Because of the schedule pressures we’re under and my lack of control over things, even though I’m the public face of my company to the customer.

Why is the lack of control a problem?

Because I’m held accountable for our actions but feel powerless to resolve them.

And see, that’s it right there. Now, you don’t always get there in five whys; sometimes, it takes more. Honestly, this is not the conversation I had in my head this morning; it was far more specific, and started with “I’m stressed out because of work.” I went another couple questions deep—and actually, there were two branches to this problem, because there were two whys to ask myself:

1. Why do you feel powerless?

   Because as a manager, I have to delegate, and I’m used to being held accountable only for my actions and not the actions of others.

   Why is this a problem?

   Because I a) am still learning to delegate and b) still learning how to hold folks accountable while not being an asshole.

2. Why do you feel accountable?

   Because at the end of the day, it’s my job to be.

   Why do you not pass that accountability forward as appropriate?

   Because I’m still learning how to hold folks accountable.

See, my problem is that I learned to be a project lead in the context of being a good cop to my boss’s bad cop. The problem with that is that I don’t have anyone under me to be either a bad cop to my good cop [which I like to be], or for me to switch roles with. I sorta have that with my colleague Jaime, but not really.

So now that I’ve come down to the actual problem here—accountability—I’m a whole lot more settled. I have come to the root of the problem, and now I can act on it accordingly. I won’t just be going, “O woe is me, my job is stressful, waaaaah!” It will be more, “I need to hold my people accountable for the mistakes they make that end up making me look bad to the customer.” After all, my instinct is to always jump on the grenade, but after a while, you’re not alive when that happens.