running towards an end

Do you ever want to change but have no idea how to go about it?

That's how I feel in quite a few areas of my life right now. What's ironic is social workers are supposed to help other people do this. We're kind of like social architexts. We get to create plans, help to lay foundations, and hopefully, see a beautiful building at the end. But I'm beginning to wonder if this is even possible.

Sure, we can help people in little ways, but only if they're willing to recieve the services and act on them. However, actually helping them precludes us knowing how to help them. This is very scary to me. I am not a person that by nature knows how to solve problems. When I see people I don't instantly catalog all the things I could fix in my mind and know exactly how to go about that. It takes me a long, and I mean long, time before I begin to feel comfortable expressing or even thinking about how I would change another person. Sometimes I never get that far. I can usually come up with some shortcomings that a person has, but I don't usually find those shortcomings offensive or that they necessarily need to be corrected instantly. Those people that I do want to change significantly I tend to chalk up to personality difference and will assume it is my fault for not liking them.

None of these things are, I think, what the experts in my field would say are good to do, but the issue of solutions or resolutions to a problem is an important part of being a good social worker (at least it seems to me so far). I have absolutely no idea how to help with this. From what I know of myself I am a person that likes to be involved with the journey, to provide support, to listen and understand, but feedback is not necessarily my forte, nor is having a specific goal and achieving it. I can do it, but its usually pretty strained. A part of me doesn't want to emphasize the goal setting at all...not exactly sure why though.

So how to practice this...i guess that means that you will all be my guinea pigs... or should i be practicing it? THis middle of the road girl might need to train herself to not only run while balancing two different sides of an issue, but also to effectively run towards an end.