Conscientiousness is a trigger word for me

I had always thought passion made me better at everything. I was wrong.

Read this post on my blog.

My to-do list when the kids were home was divided into A's, B's and C's. The A's were emergencies -- like ordering a SpongeBob cake. The B's were waiting to become emergencies, like seeing if swimsuits still fit. The C's were things I couldn't admit I wasn't doing. It was like my off-site storage for wishes.

Once both kids were in college I did what everyone does with off-site storage: ignore it. But after a year, I took a peek. And this jumped out at me: attack people who think there's virtue in conscientiousness. I felt an urgent need to do this because people think I would have more money saved—any money saved—if I were more conscientious. But I know the truth: conscientiousness has no impact on success except being a gateway drug to perfectionism.

While I suffered at Harvard among the masters of conscientiousness, I was moonlighting in the kingdom of passion, where research shows that conscientiousness does not cause success. Passion causes grit, and grit causes success. And passion is genetic.

My conclusion: Conscientiousness is something people tell you is important when they want you to stop paying attention to what you care about and focus on what they care about.

This is because we all have the same amount of time in the day, so each of us is paying attention to something. Just some of us are less practical than others. Maybe it's the video game where we're so close to leveling up—just one more game, really. Maybe it's the Nancy Drew series we can't read out of order so we have to find #23, right now. Or, in my case, it's writing post after post after post, and next week will be for earning money, for sure.

It has always been difficult for me to focus on what other people see as conscientious. But every time I've done something I'm proud of, it's been with a crowd of people telling me I'm failing because I'm not following their blueprint for conscientiousness.

This was true with parenting as well. I was not a conscientious parent. I did what was interesting. Practicing string instruments with kids six hours a day is not for the conscientious, because the rest of life falls apart. I think I was driven by learning something new. Not the music—I still can't read music. But I learned an intricate, effective way to practice something very difficult. Skipping meals? Fine. I'd forget all the time. But I never forgot to outline the short-term tactics and long-term strategies that framed every hour of practice.

It's true that my career success came from devotion to my internal drive. But here's the thing: every time I could push that devotion down, even for fifteen minutes, I was a better parent.

The problem is that passionate people are inattentive parents. Y and I went to Colorado to hunt for dinosaur bones. My memory of the trip was exploring Aspen together after he decided digging in the dirt wasn't for him. His memory is that I was really excited about Aspen because we finally had phone reception and I spent the whole time screaming at coworkers. I said, "What about that picture of you in the mountains?"

He said, "I liked the trip to San Francisco better. "

"Was I on that trip?"

"No."

Being devoted to our passion means learning all about whatever we're interested in. But parenting is not about passion—it's about love. Parenting is repetitive; it's the same topic over and over again: how to love and be loved. This is very difficult for everyone obsessed with their special interests, and everyone raised by a parent obsessed with their special interests.

Last week Z called me with a business idea he and his friend had. I talked to them at least ten times a day the rest of the week helping them figure out the pitch. At the end of one of the calls, Z said, "Bye, Mom, I love you!" It shocked me out of passion mode: I need to be helping with the business idea because I'm a caring mom, not because I'm fascinated with making business ideas work.

I need to get a grip. I'm lying to myself that I waited twenty years to finally be able to focus on business ideas again. Because if I loved that so much, I wouldn't have had kids. But I was so enthralled with being a parent that I even had a second kid. So I need to admit that whatever I think I'm going back to from that life before I had kids, it was not better.

So I picked a life that requires conscientiousness. Because while it's not directly related to career success, conscientiousness is great for parenting. Kids need sensitive parents who have self-control. That gives kids the best space for developing themselves. Even now my kids don't care about my passions. They want me to have money for their plane ticket home, or their $500 textbook.

I guess I take back the part about attacking people who are conscientious. I acknowledge that it's a trait of a good parent. And I want to be a good parent more than I want to engage in my passions. So I am going back to my list of A's, B's and C's. And in a nod to conscientiousness, I'm putting empathy and being present in the A's, engaging my passions in the C's. The hardest part of all: earning money in the B's.