Small Business, Big Lessons® — What Is Your Limit?

Getting to know yourself and your limits is extremely important. Like a frog in a pot of water that slowly starts to simmer and finally boils them. Not knowing your limits can have a similar effect. Limits and boundaries are important and taking the time to identify before being pushed past them is vital. Find where you get positive energy and focus on that.

I will use myself as an example. Early in my career I was in tech support and eventually lead a team and we were third level support. Essentially the step before needing to go to an engineer / developer. I had great satisfaction most of the time feeling that my team and I were helping people and solving their problems. My boiling point came when we had a cutting-edge product with issues we couldn’t solve. The fix was at a minimum 6+ months away. Rather than the usual few customers that were upset, every day began with and ended with extremely frustrated customers and rightfully so. I didn’t realize it at the time but I was already past my boiling point. After a few months of not seeing a change in the day’s inundation of issues, I decided it was time for me to exit that part of the business and made that happen extremely fast.

I will share a few thoughts on how to recognize you are being boiled and thoughts on how to manage it:

Details:

1)    Awareness – If you notice overtime that you are dreading something more than usual, time to reflect. Is it just a bad day, hour, or is it something may have changed and slowly morphed without you recognizing it. Ask a trusted person for feedback on what they are seeing. They will almost always see the change before you do. I have seen it many times before a person resigns and months ahead of them seeing and acknowledging it themselves. Many people believe they can just power through and dig themselves deeper.

2)    Boundaries – This can be setting contact from work outside normal working hours, how people behave toward you, among other limits you are in control of and enforce. I recently adopted a maximum of 45 minutes “negativity” in a day. This can be from people internally or externally to the organization but no more than 45 minutes in a day. The rest can wait until the next day. I found that that is my limit and not always possible to stick to that but the more I limit those interactions to my maximum in a day, the more productive I am. Set quiet hours to mute notifications on your cell to avoid the temptation to check every beep or flash.

3)    Mitigation – Take a break and have trusted straight-shooters around you. Everyone is different and back to knowing yourself, at what point do you know you stop being productive. In adult learning, modules try to not go past 45 minutes since people tend to tune out and it may be getting shorter. Do you take a break for a walk or other exercise you enjoy. What activity will change your focus to give you the break that works for you. If you said power through – wrong answer! Find something longer term that is positive. Mine is planning a vacation or long weekend and having it on the calendar. That helps to focus on a positive future event vs. the daily grind.

Think through

Everyone is different. I am always interested in knowing what gives people energy and what takes it away. If you can help others find the tasks and projects that give them energy and help them find others that get the same excitement from the things they do not like is a win / win. You will reduce individual burnout and if you have a team, it will lead to greater job satisfaction and ultimately retention. Having a candid truth teller around you is invaluable. These are the people that tell you what you need to hear but you do not want to hear!

What are you doing to know yourself and team better and create a positive environment? Feel free to post comments or email them to me. Small Business, Big Lessons™ – What is your limit?