Knowing Your Limits, Being Able To Make Change

“I would even ignore my bodies signs that I had gone way past my absolute limit, because my body is easier to ignore than my husband or children giving me the same messages”

It has taken me a long time to understand my physical & mental capacity limits and how to recognise when I’ve passed them. Usually it’s my family that communicate it in their own honest unedited way that makes me realise, they sure have a knack at keeping me grounded. I used to ignore my bodies signs that I have gone way past my limits, because my body was easier to ignore than my husband or children giving me the same messages. But how long can you get away with that for..?!

I think knowing your limits is important for two reasons. Knowing and understanding your limits can help you make the most of what you’re doing, becoming successful for instance, pushing yourself, trying new things, progressing, moving forwards but in a balanced way. And the other reason to know your limits is in order to take a rest when you need, down tools, being able to know when to stop, reflect, & listen to your body. It’s about maintaining your health & your relationships, I suppose its like having a perimeter fence. And it’s about knowing how far you can push towards that fence, but also understanding when you’ve crossed that fence or leaped over it even. It’s about knowing the point where you need to stop or rein back for the good of your health and for the good of everyone around you.

So by knowing and understanding our limits, can we experience better joy & harmony in our lives as we move and progress forwards? Could it make that path for you that bit clearer of obstacles?

“Our mind is great at talking us out of things, so we just sit there forever more, comfortable but not feeling that we’re achieving the things we would love to achieve”

And how can this be related to making changes? One thing I think most of us are guilty of is sitting in our comfort zones, knowing that our limit is at a certain point, and because we’re comfortable with routine and never saying No to anything. We sit in the same place we’ve always sat because the effort of stepping out of our comfort zone is too great, our mind is saying – you won’t be able to cope, your limit is just here and if you take on that too, you’ll go way beyond your limit and that will spell disaster. Our mind is great at talking us out of things, so we just sit there forever more, comfortable but not feeling that we’re achieving the things we would love to achieve – the pipe dreams we all have and think about. This is where change needs to kick in for significant movement to happen…

I can give a good example of this happening at the moment with a group of Business owners I’m helping coach who all have the same goal of wanting to achieve the next level within their businesses by certain dates. They all only have so many hours in the day, and like most people they’re all sat in their comfort zones with a measure of their own limits around various commitments their lives have as individuals.

“the harsh fact is that if they keep doing what they’ve always done then their businesses won’t achieve the next level”

However, the harsh fact is that if they keep doing what they’ve always done then their businesses won’t achieve the next level.  So what does it take for significant change to happen? It takes getting rid of the areas of your life you don’t need, moving out of the old comfort zone. It takes compromise, perhaps even delegation, saying No when you need to, so other people understand your limits too, it’s about being kind to yourself – it would be so easy to try and squeeze in that extra thing when nothing else has changed in your life – but in reality how long is that going to last? This type of arrangement always has a shelf life, you can only go on so long squeezing stuff in, because you’ll begin to push yourself past your limit if you do. Real changes have to be made to move you forward but keeping you within your own limits. Once you recognise and accept that, then the pathway to significant change I think can really happen.

I have a dear friend and colleague who had been feeling overwhelmed with lots of things in her life, squeezing it all in, and so busy she couldn’t see the wood for the trees, she didn’t know what she wanted in life either, and certainly didn’t have the time to sit and think about it.

It took one significant event to help her realise she had reached her limit; that event led to my friend sitting down early one morning intent on change, she made a list of everything she had going on in her life, all her responsibilities & commitments and she marked them out of 10 how much that thing meant to her in a need or want sense. By the time she finished her list she came to the conclusion that a large amount of her commitments weren’t actually needed, and within the following 30 minutes she had typed various messages including resignations and withdrawals of her commitment from lots of things on her list.

Her sense of freedom that day was tremendous, suddenly that perimeter fence was miles away and she had the freedom to choose what she wanted to do with all her new spare time – enjoying herself being her foremost thought. My friends life as a result is changing and moving forwards significantly from being in that stuck position.

What changes can you make to become unstuck from a position you’re not happy with? Or what changes can you make to get you closer to your goals? I think we become magnets to all kinds of commitments and responsibilities and before we know it we become swamped. If we sat down and had a good cleanse of all those things every now and again, just as my friend did surely that would help us move forward and enable us to fulfil our potential more as individuals, whilst experiencing the joy and happiness that life can bring.

That’s what it’s about isn’t it…..?!

To find out more about working with me visit my Services page.