Eliminate Tolerations to Raise Your Standards

Tolerating situations, things, and people drains your energy and keeps you from being your best self. Taking the time and effort to fix them plugs the energy drain and helps you learn to deal with things as they occur, to become toleration-free.

Title Photo by Tima Miroshnichenko

What Is Irritating or Annoying You?

Here’s a question for you: What annoyances, irritations, and problems are you tolerating? That is, what are the things you could repair, eliminate, or otherwise deal with but which are hanging over you, draining your energy, and disrupting your peace of mind? These could range from minor issues to a major problem you are ignoring, hoping it will go away.

Anything that you are putting up with, that you are tolerating, is a drain on your energy. Think of one thing you are tolerating. Let’s say, as an example, that your garage needs cleaning out and organizing. Every time you walk into your garage, you get that uncomfortable feeling and think, “I’ve got to get this place straightened out someday.” There! You’ve spent mental and emotional energy on that thought, but you’ve done nothing to alleviate the situation. Multiply that small drain by 60 or 100 such encounters every day (the number of things the experts say most of us are tolerating), and you see what a drain these annoyances are taking.

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Add to that the fact that every time you say to yourself, “I’ve got to do this someday”, your subconscious mind says, “Oh, alright,” and adds it to the running list it keeps of everything you have to do. But the subconscious has no sense of time. It doesn’t understand “someday”. So, from time to time, usually when there’s nothing you can do about it at that moment, the subconscious raises up and says, “Remember, you need to do this. And you need to do that. And you need to do this, and this, and this . . .” Energy expended, nothing accomplished.

And the thing is, when you ignore the thing you’re tolerating, you begin to build up your tolerance and raise your pain threshold, making it easier to put up with even more stuff. [Richardson]

If building up your tolerance sounds like a good thing, remember that there is a difference between being tolerant and tolerating annoyances. To be tolerant is to accept other viewpoints, beliefs, and opinions, even if you disagree with them. But tolerating is putting up with situations or other people’s behaviors when they are bad for you. So let’s look at some of the benefits of dealing with our tolerations and explore ways to address them.

Raise Your Standards

We recently talked about the importance of setting high standards and aligning your standards and values. If you’ve been ignoring some things and have begun to “tolerate” your tolerations, maybe it’s time to raise your standards.

Standards are the behaviors to which you hold yourself. As you raise your standards, your health, your work, your relationships, and your self-esteem improve. One element of raising your standards is to look at the things you are tolerating and decide that you need to deal with them.

Whatever standards you want to improve, the first step is to decide to do it. The “how” will come to you once you know the “what” and “why”. Deciding to raise your standards and become that person is the first important step. Once you decide, then you can put into place a system to help you make the change.

Part of the practice to create your Excelerated Life™ is to raise your standards above “average”. It begins with a decision. Decide on the person you want to be, then lift your standards for yourself to become that person. When you raise your standards, your life improves.

Look at what you are tolerating and decide, once and for all, that your standard is to deal with things as they come up; no more putting up with the stuff – problems, irritations, and annoyances – that drains your energy and keeps you from being your best.

Plugging The Energy Drains

To repeat, anything that you are putting up with, that you are tolerating, is a drain on your energy. Thomas Leonard, the “father” of life coaching, was one of the first people to understand and point out how tolerating petty annoyances was a huge drain on our energy. He defined tolerations as the things we “put up with, accept, take on, and are dragged down by” . . . including “people’s behavior, situations, unmet needs, crossed boundaries, unfinished business, frustrations, problems, and even our own behavior.” [Coach U]

Gains and Drains” is a tool to build reserves in the different areas of your life to help you move up the hierarchy of needs toward self-actualization and the Excelerated Life™.

First, you identify those things that drain your reserves of energy, time, money, security, love, and self-esteem and plug the holes. Then you recognize those activities that add to your reserves and find ways to do more of them.

You can play “Gains and Drains” anytime you feel your reserves being drained or low in one or more of the six areas. But for this exercise, I invite you to use the “Gains and Drains” workbook specifically to identify and address the annoyances, irritations, and aggravations that you are currently tolerating.

Apart from the fact that dealing with those things you are tolerating plugs the energy drains and facilitates the flow of your life, it may also improve your progress toward your goals. By dealing with the things you have been tolerating and resolving to become toleration-free, you now have energy and attention to focus on your BIG goal.

Clear the Path (To Your BIG Goal)

You know that tolerating annoyances can be a drain on your energy, but did you know that tolerating annoyances could have a detrimental effect on reaching your goals?

In Coach Yourself to Success, Talane Miedaner relates the story of a coaching client who was stuck in a job that was no longer satisfying to him. Even though he worked long hours day after day, he had been in the same position for seven years and felt “like a rat on a treadmill”. Talane asked him to make a list of all the things he was tolerating about his life. A few days later, he came back with a fairly long list that included: “no social life, eating alone, no recognition at work, a tear in his favorite leather jacket, ironing his shirts, the stack of papers piled high in his in-box, a poorly trained assistant who chewed gum all the time at work, paying bills, and the bathtub needing caulking, to name a few.”

Talane stated that it was time he learned to take better care of himself. Together they came up with a plan for dealing with all the things he’d been putting up with, and then “things began to turn around”. As he dealt with all those things he had been putting up with, he took better care of himself, and his confidence improved. He “talked to a recruiter about job prospects, and within two months he had a new job” where he felt more valued and received a handsome raise in the bargain. [Miedaner]

While you may not experience the same dramatic shift in prospects as Talane’s client did – although you certainly might – it’s important to know that small annoyances can have a dampening effect on goal progress. Dealing with things you have been tolerating could improve your ability to make progress toward your goals by improving your ratio of positive to negative experiences.

A group of researchers in Melbourne, Australia, found that simple pleasures, which boost daily happiness, increase the likelihood that a person will make progress on his or her goals. Conversely, daily irritations reduce the pleasurable affect. This could have an adverse influence on a person’s goal progress. The Melbourne study discovered that “daily goal progress appeared to suffer on days that were characterized by a relatively high number of small annoyances but relatively few simple pleasures.” On the other hand, when respondents experienced a higher number of pleasurable experiences, minor annoyances didn’t seem to hinder their progress. [Mead]

Of course, dealing with the things you are tolerating, those irritating annoyances, doesn’t guarantee you’ll suddenly take huge steps toward your goal. But not dealing with them will almost certainly hinder your progress. At the very least, you’ll get a burst of energy after you mark all those annoyances off your list. By dealing with these negative tolerations, you’ll increase your positivity resources – the resources required for goal pursuit and which are depleted by negative feelings.

If you are looking to improve your progress on your BIG goal, consider dealing with those pesky annoyances you are tolerating. By reducing your irritations, you also increase your positivity, both of which can improve your ability to make progress on your goals. Take some time to deal with those annoyances you are tolerating. You just might get the boost you need to get started again.

eliminate tolerations to raise your standards

Fewer Irritations, More Tranquility

The major trouble with tolerations is this: When you put up with something long enough, it fades into the background. Major problems become minor aggravations. Minor aggravations become petty annoyances. Eventually, petty annoyances drop off your radar. They’re still there, like a rock in your shoe. You can learn to shift it around, but ever so often, it moves back and causes you pain.

However, in deciding how to approach your tolerations, keep in mind that annoyances and irritations come in two types – those you can control and those you can’t. When you are stuck in traffic, or it rains on the day you have planned a family picnic, or your favorite show is preempted by some other program, well, there’s little you can do about these. These you just accept and move on. Besides, there are plenty of other irritating things that you can deal with.

So, fix what you can, let go of what you can’t. Here it helps to remember the first rule of Stoicism: There are things within our control and things that are not in our immediate control. When thinking about the things you can’t control (and there are many), remember, too, that there is one thing that is always under your direct control. You.

You and I can’t control all the things that happen to us; we can only control our response to them. So pick your battles wisely. At least be sure there’s actually a battle to fight. Let go of the petty annoyances you can do nothing about.

You are very likely tolerating some things you can deal with. Fix them and get them out of your hair. However, you cannot control everything that happens around you. You can control your response to these annoying things, though. Fix what you can and let go of the annoyances you have no control over.

An Experiment

Try this experiment and see the difference that dealing with those annoying people, events, or things can make for you.

  1. Make a list of 10 things you are tolerating (if 10 seems too big, list 5).
  2. Take care of them, once and for all. Don’t gloss over anything, thinking you’ll get to it “someday”. Do it now!
  3. After you’ve cleared the list, sit quietly with yourself. How do you feel? Freer? Lighter? More energy? More responsible?

If you are pleased with the results, keep at it till you are no longer tolerating any irritations.

Become Immaculate

“If you say to yourself that you will do something, do it. Don’t make promises you won’t keep, and don’t make promises to others if you can’t or won’t follow through. Become immaculate.” ~ Stuart Wilde

As we’ve seen, tolerating situations, things, and people drains your energy and keeps you from being your best self. Taking the time and effort to fix them plugs the energy drain and helps you learn to deal with things as they occur, to “step over nothing”.

What are you tolerating? What do you need to deal with to zap your energy drains and “become immaculate”?

Begin a list of everything you have hanging over you that you’ve been putting off or ignoring. Then attack the items on your list. You can go about this in a couple of ways. One way is to go for quantity. Complete as many of the smaller tasks as you possibly can in your allotted time. Of course, if you can work till you complete the entire list, that’s even better.

The second option is to pick one major task that may take the entire day to complete, and then work until it is finished. Either way, after you’ve completed the work for the day, you will feel lighter and more energetic, as you feel the burdens lifted from your shoulders. Some people report a surge of creativity after they complete this exercise, a result of the energy that is freed up.

You are creating your life and your reality each day. Why not create a life where zero tolerance of energy-draining annoyances is the reality? That is one step toward embracing your Excelerated Life™!

Are you stuck and feeling like “a rat on a treadmill”?
Check in to see if you are putting up with annoying situations or people.
If you are, how can you begin dealing with these tolerations?
Share your thoughts by leaving a comment below.


Excelerated Response™ – dealing with the things you’ve been tolerating – is one practice for creating your Excelerated Life™, a life of flourishing and well-being, and a life of meaning, purpose, and service.

Read more about the Excelerated Life .


Resources:

Coach U, Inc. Coach U’s Essential Coaching Tools. Hoboken, NJ: John Wiley & Sons, Inc., 2005.

Mead, Elaine. What are Negative Emotions and How to Control Them? PositivePsychology.com. PositivePsychology.com, April 8, 2019. Web. August 26, 2019.
https://positivepsychology.com/negative-emotions/

Miedaner, Talane. Coach Yourself To Success. Lincolnwood, IL: Contemporary Books, 2000.

Richardson, Cheryl. Take Time For Your Life. New York: Broadway Books, 1999.

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