Don’t let your tolerations become “holes in your personal success cup.” Eliminate your petty annoyances and stop the drain on your time, energy, and other resources. Don’t wait for disaster to strike. Handle them while they are small. Do it now.
“The Ripple Effect”
Jamie Rivers lived in the little town of Lakeview. With a growing family, a demanding job, an active social life, and pets, cars, and a house and yard to take care of, Jamie was diligent in staying on top of things and dealing with issues at once. He always tackled tasks as they arose and managed his work, household chores, and personal commitments promptly.
Until he didn’t. One day, Jamie discovered a small leak in his house’s plumbing. It was down in the basement and was very tiny, so instead of addressing it immediately, he placed a bucket under the drip and decided it could wait a few days.
But with all the other things going on in his life, Jamie forgot about the leak. The “few days” turned into weeks, and the tiny drip gradually intensified. One bright Tuesday morning, he got a call from a neighbor who informed him that there was water gushing from under his basement garage door. Dropping the phone, Jamie rushed down the stairs and stared in dismay at the water swirling through his basement. The delayed fix not only led to significant water damage but also affected the structural integrity of the house.
Now instead of a minor plumbing repair, Jamie and his family faced major plumbing and structural work, not to mention that they had to evacuate the house till the repairs and clean-up were completed.
The consequences of the ignored plumbing issue rippled through his life. The time-consuming repairs and relocation disrupted his work, affecting his performance and straining relationships due to the stress. By the time he addressed the problem, it had snowballed into a major predicament, causing far more disruption and inconvenience than if he had dealt with it promptly.
What Am I Tolerating?
“To be really great in the little things, to be truly noble and heroic in the insipid details of everyday life, is a virtue so rare as to be worthy of canonization.” ~ Harriet Beecher Stowe
Although I aspire to deal immediately with stuff as it comes up, I lean towards delaying and putting things off. However, I don’t want to end up in a situation like Jamie Rivers found himself in, so periodically, I go about my house, sift through all the areas of my environment and my life, and make a list of things I’m tolerating or putting up with. I did this exercise just prior to writing this article. I’m going to be painfully honest here and share the list of things I saw.
Car that needs to be washed and vacuumed
Scratches on car that need to be repaired and painted
Leak under sink in upstairs bathroom
Blog posts that need to be completed
Cluttered cabinets in my garage
Eating too much sugar (especially ice cream!)
Too many unsolicited e-mails
An outdoor electrical outlet that doesn’t work
An ugly front porch light
Plans that I’ve made but not followed up on
Paintings I have wanted to do for years
Having too many things to do and not properly prioritizing tasks
Not tracking finances properly
Having more books than bookshelves
Not having a completed end-of-life plan
Not visiting family as often as I’d like to
A noisy garage door that needs lubricating
Not hiking as much as I’d like
Old files that need to be purged
Not having a consistent workout regimen
(I got suggestions for my list by reviewing the “200+ Tolerations” from CoachU. While these things were not specifically included, reviewing the list helped me to think. Subscribers to The Excelerated Life newsletter can request access to the list of 200+ Tolerations.)
What Are “Petty Annoyances”?
Let’s begin by defining what we mean by “petty annoyances”, as some of the items on my list don’t seem so insignificant to me.
Petty has multiple definitions.
Trivial – something that is relatively unimportant and insignificant.
Small-minded – someone who is mean, narrow, or ungenerous.
Not serious – something that is not very important or serious.
Complaining – someone who complains too much about things.
I first learned about “petty annoyances” from Talane Miedaner, the first life coach I ever encountered. I read her book, Coach Yourself to Success and the first exercise in the book was to “eliminate all those petty annoyances”. [Miedaner] Many of the examples she gave were small things, but here’s the deal. Any annoying thing we continue to tolerate – small or large – drains our energy, our creativity, and our spirit. It’s like the tiny drip, drip, drip in Jamie River’s basement, but in this case, it’s our own resources that are slowly draining away. Something may seem petty, or trivial, or insignificant, but the damage it does over time is anything but.
Why Do We Need To Eliminate Petty Annoyances?
As Jamie discovered to his dismay, when you fail to deal with and eliminate those “petty” annoyances, what could have been a simple fix becomes a major event you have to deal with. When you let them hang around, unpleasant things can happen.
Let’s go back to Talane Miedaner, who tells us petty annoyances are the barnacles of life. Barnacles are “sticky little crustaceans related to crabs, lobsters, and shrimps.” These sticky little guys develop colonies on the hulls of ships, increasing the ship’s weight by as much as 60% and increasing fuel consumption by as much as 40%!
Many of the things we put off and put up with seem small and insignificant, in fact, petty. But they’re like barnacles on your goals and aspirations. Over time, they create resistance and drag. So while you may eventually reach the goal, it requires more time, energy, effort, and money.
Petty annoyances may become a drag on your spirit as well because they contribute to a negative mindset. Sometimes, it’s getting up “on the wrong side of the bed” as my mother used to say. You feel annoyed by every little thing that doesn’t go exactly your way and out of sync with the world. You focus and zoom in on any negative happening, no matter how petty or minor.
Alternately, you may be happily going about your day and feeling pretty good, when you meet up with one of those petty annoyances and it rises up and “stomps on your day”.
However, when you name and face the things you are tolerating, you get a reflection of what is going on inside you . . . “as within, so without”. And, as Thomas Leonard once pointed out: “A toleration can be the grain of sand in your oyster that creates a pearl.” Change your environment by dealing with your annoyances and your outlook brightens.
Getting Started
So how do we begin to eliminate all those petty annoyances? You can start the way I did and make a list. Take your notepad and walk around, writing down everything you see that is an annoyance to you. Alternately, decide to deal with annoyances as they crop up. This requires that you have time to deal with them then and there or you can add them to your list. Either way, you MUST make time to deal with them — so write it down in your calendar and make a plan of when you’ll do it.
OK, you have your list and today’s the day you’ve committed to attack it. You have at least three options.
Act on it. Sometimes, we become so accustomed to something we’ve been putting up with that we forget we can fix it. Sew on the button. Repair the leaky faucet. Toss out the broken toaster. And if you can’t – or don’t want to – fix it yourself, hire someone to do it.
Let it go. Are you tolerating some things that you could let go of? Your grandmother’s silver tea service that needs polishing and which you will never ever use? Those books you’re never going to get around to reading? “Friends” that constantly criticize you and others? Let them go.
Improve it. You may face some situations, relationships, and environments that you cannot “fix” right away and that you can’t completely let go of. Can you improve it to make it easier to accept? Can you lessen your exposure? Change the way you think about it? Get someone’s help with it?
Are You Feeling the Drag?
You likely aren’t dealing with a catastrophe like our friend Jamie due to failing to address some petty annoyance. But you may unknowingly have a drag on your life, akin to the barnacles on a ship, caused by putting up with too many annoying things, circumstances, and people.
- Are you feeling stuck, not making progress on an important BIG goal?
- Do you wake up in a negative frame of mind more often than not?
- Or do you start the day with a positive outlook but get forced off track by some minor occurrence?
- Do you know, deep down, that there is an issue with a friend, a loved one, or your spouse that you need to deal with?
A “yes” to any of these is a likely indication that you are tolerating some things that you need to deal with.
Taking Action
As you begin making your list of the things you are tolerating, examine these different areas.
- Home and environment: needed repairs, cleaning, clutter, unhealthy or uncomfortable surroundings?
- Possessions: needed repairs, broken items, unwanted, dirty?
- Relationships: issues with spouse or children, “friends” you can’t trust or rely on?
- Work/Career: issues with boss, problem employees, conflict with a co-worker?
- Finances: living paycheck to paycheck, too much debt, not enough savings?
- Issues from the past that you’ve never resolved.
A helpful (I hope) resource is The Excelerator Jump Start – Excelerated Response. It contains steps you can take right now to begin dealing with the things you are tolerating. It includes short, quick actions intended to give you a jump start for this step in creating your Excelerated Life™.
Plug the Drains
Can we ever completely eliminate petty annoyances? My experience is that we can deal with them today, but others are going to crop up tomorrow. But when you address a toleration, do as Thomas Leonard (the “father” of life coaching) suggests and deal with it in such a way that it won’t rise up to bite you again. This requires not only addressing the annoyance but dealing with the underlying cause as well.
Don’t let your tolerations become “holes in your personal success cup.” [Leonard] Scrape the barnacles off your goals. Do this periodically. The ideas we’ve discussed here can help, but like all ideas, they only work if you do, if you take the necessary steps to put them into use.
Eliminate your petty annoyances and stop the drain on your time, energy, and other resources. Don’t wait for the basement to flood or disaster to strike. Handle them while they are small. Do it now. That is one step in embracing your Excelerated Life™!
What petty annoyances are draining your time, energy, and wallet? Can you identify them? Name them, then get started to fix what you can!
Share your experience 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:
Leonard, Thomas. The 28 Laws Of Attraction. New York: Scribner, 1998.
Miedaner, Talane. Coach Yourself To Success. Lincolnwood, IL: Contemporary Books, 2000.