Tolerance can be a two-edged sword. On one hand, it can be a high value and very useful trait that gives you the ability to overlook aberrant behaviour, particularly that of others which may be different than yours. This is the subject of a discussion at another time. The other side of the ‘sword’ is the one that I wanted to address today.
Imagine a foreman with a crew of a hundred skilled workers. These people really knew their stuff. They could take any concept and turn it into a work of art. Well, at least that is what they were capable of – that was their potential.
The challenge was that the foreman was only able to get a handful of them to do what he wanted them to do at any given time. The rest may get enrolled but they would then get caught on side issues and distractions.
At any one time, you may find one occupied thinking about an e-mail she had been meaning to send to a friend sorting out the event on the weekend. Another would be fretting about a difficult conversation he knew he needed to have with his next-door neighbour about the broken fence, while a third kept thinking about a spider web that she meant to clean up off the ceiling in her garage.
Other people in the team were preoccupied with various states of stress associated with unresolved issues in their life. Guilt, fear, anxiety, anger, blame, resentment, hate, justification – and the list goes on. Others keep getting pulled away by urges that they buy into. Eating, shopping, drinking, dieting, exercise or any number of cravings or addictions claim space in their life.
Any of these distractions be dealt with, leaving the person free to achieve greatness. But rather than taking action, they simply tolerated these conditions. They bought into an idea that this is who they are, this is genetic because mum, dad, sister or brother was like this. In short, this was their lot in life. They considered that they were powerless to change it. They tolerated their role. They tolerated their limited effectiveness. They tolerated the less than ideal output from the team and above all the foreman tolerated the limitations as being something that you just have to live with this day and age.
These people were capable of much more but this team of skilled workers constantly fell short of its potential. It became used to that, the company’s business dwindled dramatically, as the crew was performing just enough to keep them from going under completely. It was such a shame as they had so much to offer the world. There were millions of people who could have benefitted from their expertise if only they had not tolerated their missing links that were sapping their energy. Just think what they could have done with a larger percentage of the crew being present and attending to the job in hand more regularly.
As you have no doubt guessed, you are the foreman, the leader of this team. You have this amazing crew ready and waiting at your service. The handful of workers who are totally present represent the 5% of your neurology that is under your conscious control. The rest is called the subconscious. The subconscious is powerful beyond all measure. It is a willing servant waiting to do what it asked.
The power of the subconscious can be severely diluted when we tolerate something that doesn’t support us. Every thought we have has an associated neurological result. Every time we entertain a thought that is non-serving we reduce our ability to operate at peak performance.
Distractions, incomplete cycles, un-kept promises, habitual non-productive thoughts, behaviours and emotions eat away at us draining our mental, emotional and physical health and resources.
How many of your own ‘team’ in your brain are out on worker’s comp and stress leave?
How many of your ‘team’ are below their best because of your tolerance of insufficient diet and exercise?
How many of your internal ‘team’ are not working due to the myriad of factors that are within your control to change…?
Think for a moment of your mission. Think of what you really want to be, do and have in your life. Can you accept the possibility that you have within you the capacity to achieve all of that?
Imagine what you could you accomplish if you didn’t indulge in all of those tolerances? What successes are you denying yourself… and the world at large? Stop tolerating those factors that hamper your potential – that distract your ‘team’.
Give yourself the freedom to succeed.
Make a decision to take your foot off the brake by clearing out those things that you have accepted as “normal”, “me” and “my lot in life”.
Decide to become intolerant with those things in your life that prevent you from being all who you can be, doing all that you want and having all that you desire.
Tolerate – NOT.
Join us at a ‘Missing Link’ weekend workshop series in Australia this October and identify and change forever those ‘Missing Links’ that you have been tolerating in your life.
