Getting past your Upper Limit Problem

Have you ever wondered why, after working very hard, you just can’t seem to break through a certain level of success? Do you self-sabotage or are you just plain mean to yourself? Have you ever looked at someone who is successful and thought they weren’t any smarter or more talented than you, and wondered how they did it? The problem may not be your IQ, EQ, work ethic, or talent but something entirely different.

Gay Hendricks, author of The Big Leap: Conquer Your Hidden Fear and Take Life to the Next Level, offers some real insight. He calls it: The Upper Limit Problem. According to Hendricks, the Upper Limit Problem is having “a limited tolerance for feeling good … (you) do something that stops (your) positive forward trajectory … or do something else that brings (you) back down within the bounds of (your) limited trajectory.”

Perhaps your Upper Limit Problem is manifested when staying out late so you can’t focus on your work the next day, spending too much money, despite a resolution to save, wasting time watching television instead of taking a course that would help your career, or any other non-productive behavior that stops you from advancing. In the throes of feeling gloomy about your prospects, it’s easy to assure yourself that, even had you tried, you didn’t have the education, know-how, contacts, talent, or fortitude to succeed anyway, so why bother? This is where understanding your Upper Limit Problem helps.

If you can identify the behaviors that stop you from achieving what you want, you’re halfway there to getting it.

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It requires more effort and elbow grease to get a job done when using a dull knife, scissors, or saw. We recognize facts like that and, if we’re smart, we’ll stop and do a little a sharpening. People work a lot like this as well. When we’re rested and recharged, we get more done. It is such a simple concept and yet many of us push on with our work as though our attention and energy will remain as sharp as it was the first day back from a restful vacation. What are we thinking?

We Americans are no slackers, however, so the notion of stopping to smell the roses – and not pruning them in the process – is, well, a bit akin to anarchy. We have sayings like, ‘work hard and play hard’ or ‘working vacation’, as though our playtime has to be difficult or contain an element of work or we can’t enjoy it. There are lots of articles out there on why this is a bad thing and I won’t reiterate them here because you also know it is a bad thing. The problem is, you probably just can’t stop yourself.

Years ago, I lived in Switzerland. The country shut down for one month in summer. Literally; one entire month. In addition to businesses closing, many shops also closed. You had to be patient or clever to be able to buy something you wanted if you remained in the country during that summer month. But it didn’t matter for the majority of Swiss because they were off somewhere delightful like Spain lying on a beach. When they returned, they were rested, pleasant, and ready to go to work. How did they do it? They had sharpened their most important tool – self.

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If you’ve been in the work world awhile, you begin to realize a thing or two. After an even longer time, you know even that much more. Who would have ever thought that would be a bad thing?

I remember when looking for my first jobs and, on more than one occasion, hearing the words, “You don’t have any experience”. Of course, to get the experience, you had to get a job. But, somehow, you got your foot in a door and, well, you know what you got. Fast forward to 2009 where there are more people than there are jobs. If you’re one of the unfortunate who is presently dislocated from a career spot, you may enter this phase thinking, no sweat, I’ve got experience, only to find that you are now woefully over-experienced. What’s a body to do?

When a huge earthquake hit San Francisco in 1906, San Francisco was cut-off from its East Bay neighborhoods. Those who owned boats began ferrying passengers across the bay – for a price. Some people went from being a simple boat owner to wealth, almost overnight. As the saying goes, when there is a crisis, money changes hands.

It is not that companies suddenly don’t need CFOs, customer service reps, or salespeople. They need ‘em, they just can’t afford ‘em as a regular employee. This shouldn’t stop you from approaching them with a proposal on how you can make or save them money (the only two things they’re really interested in doing). Instead of trying to jam your square peg into an exceedingly small round hole, exploit your knowledge and expertise by proposing to a company that they let you do for them what you’ve done well for others – on a contract basis. And treat the transaction as would any contractor. Give them a money-back guarantee or suggest a pay-for-performance deal. While competing candidates may be looking to pare down their resumes, you will want to showcase yours.