After the third Nor'easter in as many weeks, my client Sam climbed
out on his roof to fasten the shutter that had been banging against his
house all spring. "Oh that
felt good," he said. "At
night for weeks I've been lying in bed hearing that shutter, and it
reminds me of all the things in my life that need fixing or that aren't
quite as they should be." Sam was beginning to enjoy the power that comes
from eliminating tolerations.
Now
you may say, "What's the big deal about a banging shutter?" In and of itself the answer is,
nothing. But that's not the
way our minds work. We have a way of lumping all the irritating
tolerations or "shoulds" in our lives together until they become a blob of
negative energy that dwells
just below the surface of our consciousness. Every time we encounter one of
those tolerations, even though it may be a small one, we stir up that
negative energy. While we're
at it we rob ourselves of creativity and enthusiasm. Before we know it
we're feeling irritated, or we have a headache, or we have a vague feeling
that something is awry.
If
you are willing to admit that these little energy drainers are a part of
your life, you can either choose to systematically eliminate them or you
can keep them. If you choose
to ignore, and therefore keep your tolerations, your greatest risk is of
becoming a chronic complainer. We all know how the chronic complainer
operates: nothing is quite right, yet there's a deep-seated resistance to
taking action to make them right. These are the "yes but" people. Their
comfort seems to lie in discontent.
Make
Way For Energy
The
place to begin eliminating tolerations is with a list. List as many
of your tolerations as you can
think of. This process is a little slow in the beginning, but you'll pick
up steam as you go along. Don't try to finish your list in one sitting.
You'll be amazed at the number of things that are draining your
energy. Be sure to consider
all aspects of your life when making this list. What bugs you in your
home, your office, your
health, your relationships? Is there a co-workers who doesn't respect your
time? Does your lawn make you cringe? What about your closet, your car,
your outdoor grill? What about the varnish on your boat, or the paperboy
who leaves your paper out in the rain?
Once
you've made the list, perhaps 35 or 40 items, or more, group them so you
can see if they primarily concern your office or job, your home, your
health and well being, or your relationships. This will give you some
clues, but the next step is all-important. Try to see if you can find the
"root" toleration, that is the one toleration that leads to many others.
For example, if you discover that most of your tolerations have to do with
things needing repair or things that are unfinished, you need to
understand why that is so. Is it lack of money to fix things? Is it lack
of interest? Is it lack of organization? Are you just too busy? You get
the idea. In order to be
fully functioning, high-energy people, we need to give our list of
tolerations a healthy weeding.
If we can pull the big root, many of the smaller weeds will come
out with it.
Take
Action NOW!
Helen
Keller once said, "The only way out is through." That's the way it is with
tolerations. After you've
discovered your root toleration it is necessary to work through a plan to
clean up the whole negative mess.
You need an Action Plan.
Start
with the root toleration, if you can identify it. Devise a plan of action
to deal with the root cause of all the tolerations attached to it. If the
root toleration is lack of money, then you need to take whatever action is
necessary to spend less, save more or earn more. Just taking a look at your
financial picture and getting a plan together will re-energize you. If
it's being over committed, then you must prioritize those commitments and
weed out the extras.
Whether
you can find your root toleration or not, come up with a list of 10
tolerations you can eliminate now by taking whatever actions are
necessary. When you look at
each of these items remember that there are generally three options for
dealing with each one: You can
choose to do it, delegate it or dump it.
Let's
say your aging computer has been driving you crazy, and you've put it on
your toleration list for immediate action. Remembering that "The only way
out is through," you look at
that computer and ask yourself these questions: "Should I "do" it? (keep
it and take action to get more memory or whatever is required); Delegate
it ? (have someone else take action to fix it); Dump it? (literally take
it to the dump and get a new one). This method of clearing tolerations
works equally well with frayed rugs, recalcitrant co-workers and hedges
that need trimming. In the case of the co-worker you have the choice of
continuing the relationship but setting a personal boundary, arranging
with someone else to deal with the co-worker, or getting yourself
permanently removed from the co-worker. Note you are only responsible for
your own actions, not those of the co-worker.
Once
the first 10 items have been completed, it is essential to plow right into
the next 10 items. By that time your life will feel so much lighter,
you'll be anxious to complete the rest. Occasionally procrastination
serves a purpose. If you are feeling unusual resistance to a specific
toleration, ask yourself why, then wait to see if there's a healthy reason
not to clear it out.
Avoid
the Toleration Trap
While
we're on the subject of procrastination, I think it's worthwhile to look
at why we humans tolerate so much for so long. Some of us, especially those who
were reared in New England and/or by Depression era parents, learned that
making do, getting by and doing without are virtuous acts. While this philosophy has its
place, all too often it becomes an excuse for living the scarcity
mentality. The scarcity model holds that there will never be enough to go
around, so we need to batten down and hold on for dear life to whatever we
can scratch together! If we
have the scarcity mentality, tolerations will not only be numerous and
acceptable, they'll actually feel virtuous.
Getting
negative energy from tolerations can be habit forming. More often than not we don't even
notice our tolerations until an event triggers our awareness. Sometimes we're in a rut or we're
depressed, and we simply lack the interest to make our lives easier. Mostly, though, I think
tolerations creep up on us, something like crab grass that takes over a
lawn. Just one toleration here and another over there is too much trouble
to pull, but before we know it our whole life is a network of things and
relationships that need to be fixed or dumped.
Setting
Boundaries
Drawing
a line around others' actions that are unacceptable in our presence is
called setting boundaries.
This is a legitimate way of dealing with tolerations in our
relationships. We set boundaries because we want the best possible
relationship with the person involved. In the July issue of The Coach's
Bench I'll be talking about how to set and extend boundaries that work.
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