You can’t do it all, neither can I.
So what?
I’m going to be blunt with you. You can’t do it all. You will fail. Accept it! And when you do, you will:
- Save yourself from frustrations;
- Know your limitations; and
- get help before it’s too late.
Dangers of not knowing your limitations
The biggest reason why you need to know your limitations is stress. Stress is good. Until it’s not. It motivates, energises and pressures you to get things done. Things turn sour when you lose control of it. Uncontrolled stress leads to burnout. Being burnt out is not something you want to experience. We won’t be talking about the telltale signs of burnout since this post is about knowing your limitations to avoid getting to that point.
Personal growth can come from pushing your limits. Pushing yourself beyond what you can handle happens when you don’t know your limitations.
Physical ability
One of the two main types of limitations is related to your physiology. Physical abilities include your power, speed, cardiovascular, respiratory and stamina.
Mental capacity
The other type is related to your mind. Your mental ability includes your awareness, memory, emotion, comprehension and reasoning.
Both physical and mental capacities play a pivotal role in dictating how long and hard you can play, work and rest.
How to know your limitations
Self-awareness is the key in knowing your limitations. How you are thinking, behaving and feeling is what you need to be aware of. Below are simple ways that you can practice and improve self-awareness:
- Meditation;
- Journaling;
- Goal setting;
- Fear setting;
- Self-reflection;
- Personality test;
- Soliciting feedback from your family, friends, colleagues and boss; and
- Being honest with yourself.
My experience
I never cared for self-awareness, let alone, self-anything. My mentality was work hard, work harder. It wasn’t until in my 30s when I had a mental breakdown that I understood how critical self-awareness is for my physical and mental well-being. Only after episodes of panic attacks and nights of binge drinking to avoid the pain which led to my mental breakdown that I realised it was not a way to live.
With five of us in our family, we always find ourselves dealing with someone sick or not feeling well. We take the time each day to ask each other how we are feeling. When one of us starts to veer, we make the effort to medicate and take precautionary steps such as going to sleep early or allowing for a sleep in.
What now?
- Look at what’s going well in your life. What are you doing well? What are your skill sets?
- Also look at what’s not going well. And what you want to improve on. Leverage your skill sets to improve.
- Remember, don’t focus on your weaknesses. Our time is limited as is.