Know Your Limits

Spring is almost here and just like our clocks last weekend, we sprung ahead for #daylightsavings into this work week. If you work in #construction or within the industry, you know that this time is year is when things start to get going. Budgets are renewed, summer schoolwork fills the pipeline and buildings start coming in from the ground up. It's a beautiful time of year to regroup and refocus - to decide what is working for you and what isn't - to do something different or new - personally and professionally. A lot of times, especially after the new year's resolutions fade, we find ourselves still overcommitting. This could be things we promise ourselves. This could also be things we promise others, which is almost worse because when we put ourselves last, those promises to others never get broken.

When you #challenge yourself, the idea is that you exceed your limits.

Go too far, too quickly outside of your zone and you run the risk of never stepping outside that line again. Sometimes that risk is worth it, sometimes it isn't.

The only way you are going to know where those limits reside in our life is to track that information or the feedback you get from those situations.

For example, as a construction estimator, whether you are just soliciting subcontractor proposals or doing the take offs yourself and applying unit pricing, the only way you are going to know if you are high or low on you bid is if you track those bid results. The name of the game is to be low but not too low where you end up leaving money on the table, or else chances are someone missed something. Take those bid results and compile them by owner, then by project type and you have yourself a little handy dandy database of really good information. You have your limits of what you think these projects should cost so that the next time you bid a project like that project, you can make an educated decision as to whether or not you cut some points or fatten it up.

The same thing should apply to your personal well-being. During your years in the workforce, you are gathering data about your limits, these thresholds about where you are comfortable and where you are not comfortable. When your manager tells you that you need to put together a #projectschedule for a $36M ground up high rise in a big city like #chicago by the end of the week, you know that he's been smoking something because that ain't gon'happen. That is not an example of getting out of your comfort zone - that's trying to do the impossible and you just end up setting yourself up for failure on so many levels. A more manageable and successful example would be maybe take lead on a bid for a type of project that you are accustom to bidding on to utilize your perception of the schedule and logistics. This will work in your favor to win that bid. This has a much higher success rate and the personal and professional reward is long lasting.

For some reason, and I say it all the time, when it comes to our #health we don't pay attention. We keep burning the candle at both ends and wonder why we get sick all the time, why we're tired all the time, why we cannot perform like we used to. For some of us it may be age, but for most of us, it's our health. You don't have to be overweight to be unhealthy but you do have to be complacent.

Our emotional, mental and physical health all play into understanding our limits. If either of those are stressed or inaccessible, it makes it much hard to go beyond those limits without repercussions.

Here's how my coaching benefits the people I work with - we not only set goals but I become your resource for obtaining those goals. I teach you how to track all that data about yourself, how to understand what it means specific to you and how we can use it to our advantage to get you to your goals and continue to propel you into a state of self that can push those thresholds each and everyday with out the backlash of being tired, sick or stressed all the time. A state of self that is happy with what they see in the mirror. A state of self that is confident and entitled. This state of self will not only make you feel good but the others around you.

When you make your health a priority - success will be the end result.