Play along with me for a few minutes…
Right now, write down all the things that BUG you. You know – the stuff in life and work that make you:
- roll your eyes
- sigh in exasperation
- turn a corner to avoid
- the annoying little itches
Don’t judge yourself; many of them will individually seem too small, or too silly, or too petty to really matter.
It is YOUR list – don’t judge yourself, keep writing them down; big and small, silly or serious, petty or critical!
As a leader, I would suggest you break your tolerations – you know the things that bug you but don’t seem significant enough to do anything about – list down into categories:
- tasks/activities (things you have to do)
- situations (that you find yourself in)
Notice that “people” isn’t a category?
Too often, sales mangers and leaders allow themselves the toleration luxury of looking at someone as the problem.
Don’t get me wrong, you might have a bad fit for the inside sales job – but that is about the JOB (ie: the situation) not the person.
If you were writing down people’s names on your list of tolerations, go back and figure out what the situation is that is bugging you.
That is what you have to resolve to get rid of the toleration.
You’ll probably see that although whatever is bothering you seems to be about the individual – the same behaviors, tasks, activities, situations BUG you about everyone.
Figuring out how to eliminate the ones that pop up frequently will make your days better, your team more effective, and your world less stressful!
The good news is that the act of writing them down will get a few of them out of our heads.
Step 1 – scan your list for the ones that you’ve been carrying around in your brain and now that they are on paper, you feel better and you’re smiling at yourself with a little head shake.
Is it time to cross that one off and let go?
GREAT! Keep going down the list looking for the ones that you feel the same way about.
Step 2 – look for the tolerations that are going to take SERIOUS effort to get rid of.
The things that feel like you were out in a mosquito swarm just reading them – you’re itching all over!
Put those on a separate list for the moment. You’ll probably need to do some prioritization and planning, but don’t start just yet.
Step 3 – Does the list you have left now feel a little less overwhelming to tackle?
All the things that are left might require a few minutes or a few hours, but there isn’t a huge plan or time commitment to resolve them.
You may have:
- Avoided conversations because the topic or person makes you uncomfortable. In reality, the energy to worry about it is typically worse than the conversation itself.
- Tasks that FEEL like a big deal, but now that you’ve written them down may only take 20 min and they will be gone off the list.
This week make it all the way through step 1 and step 3 (see how I skipped right over the big stuff).
The crazy thing is you just might find you’ll have the time – energy – effort to tackle the tolerations that ended up on that list you made in step 2.
The key there is to prioritize, plan out your fist step, and work through them one at a time.