ACTivity/ Breaking Your Limit
Photo by Getty Images on Unsplash+
Jakarta, 24 January 2024 — Breaking your limit happens when you dive into a bigger challenge.
Story
It happened last week. In a leadership challenge Zoom call, the emcee started with an ice-breaker activity by asking the participants to share examples of when they had broken their limits by doing something for the first time. What did they remember about how that felt, he asked. And then, leading by example, he explained that this was his first time to step into the emcee role and that he felt both excited and apprehensive about it.
I was impressed by three things. First, how he took the challenge of serving as emcee for the first time. Second, how he shared both his commitment and his vulnerability. Third, how he turned the moment of his own challenge into an opportunity for fellow leaders to share when and how they had broken their limits by doing something for the first time.
On reflection, it would have been easy for the emcee to let the opportunity pass. In fact, that’s what we see all too often when leaders decide to not dive into a challenge because they think that—in some way—they don’t have what it takes. A deficit of confidence might hold them back from diving into a challenge. In my role as coach, I often encounter this when clients hesitate because something in their subconscious is holding them back.
Challenge
Why is breaking your limits such a big challenge? In my experience, we all suffer from entertaining self-limiting beliefs that results in self-limiting decisions and practices. It’s part of being human, as our mind is always working hard to keep us safe inside our comfort zone. What coaches typically do is to help their clients become aware of these beliefs and practices, after which they can go ahead to break their limits and replace their self-limiting beliefs with empowering visions.
In The Big Leap, professor Gay Hendricks, a psychologist, describes cases where people inexplicably started to sabotage their own success by displaying a career-derailing behavior just when they were running into their ‘upper limit.’ This is a widespread problem, he explained. Shining a light on the upper limit that we have unconsciously created is a big step forward.
One of the three ways I like to describe leadership is that leadership is playing a bigger game. With the photo accompanying this post, we can see that bigger game as deciding to jump from a higher platform to perform a more challenging exercise during the dive. It’s the decision to jump—to go for it—that marks the point where you break your limit.
Question
In our coaching work, I have heard many different stories from leaders who wanted to take a dive into a new challenge for their work and life. For some, it was about preparing for an executive role. For others, it was about navigating a career shift or bringing their team to top performance. And many more, including about leadership teams wanting to change the culture in their business, and expert professionals wanting to become commercially smart by starting a thought leaders practice.
Some of these challenges can be tackled in one-to-one coaching programs such as Leader in Transition, Move to Excellence, or Perform for Purpose (for executives). Others are best tackled by a team of leaders getting coaching on the specific challenges they are facing in their business. Additionally, leaders who want to master 12 effective leadership behaviors and grow leaders around them at work can form a Collab to join our Trusted Leaders challenge in the Grow3Leaders community of practice.
Each of these three tracks will allow you to break your limits if you are committed. My question for you this week is what limit you want to break? It’s your decision to choose and jump that matters.
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