Are you giving up on yourself and others too quickly – keeping yourself from accomplishing all you are capable of? If so, I’d like to help you change that self-defeating behavior.

We all know that if you’re responsible for getting a young adult or teenager to clean their room, study, stop a destructive behavior, or set the table, you need to ask or tell them repeatedly.

When it comes to adults, however, we expect that one time of asking or telling them (or ourselves) is sufficient. Man, that would be nice, but I don’t believe it works that way.

We don’t hit some demarcation line called adulthood – and in an instant – changing and disciplining our behavior becomes easy. Yet, I find people who believe it should be, and get frustrated when it isn’t.

• Managers complain they repeatedly need to tell experienced employees to do their jobs – and shouldn’t have to say it more than once.
• People say they’ve told a friend who’s engaged in a destructive behavior just how destructive it is – many times – and telling them once should have been enough.
• Entrepreneurs attempt to start a business multiple times, still aren’t successful, and believe the effort they expended ought to have been enough.

Saying those words leads to one emotion – frustration. Frustration that you didn’t get the results you expected. The problem isn’t that you set an expectation of what you thought it should take, it’s that you chose to get frustrated and give up. I know it’s tempting to respond that way, but it’s keeping you from reaching your potential.

Whether you were realistic and justified, or idealistic to expect what you did, the reality is that you or they did not meet your expectation. How do you respond when that happens? I suggest you accept the reality of what is, move past the paralysis of frustration as quickly as you can, and ask yourself two questions. Am I required to put more time and energy into this situation, and is the potential result worth the additional time and effort?

• An answer of no to both suggests you let it go, and the frustration should leave.
• If the frustration persists, you may have underestimated the importance of this – so reconsider your answers to the two questions.
• An answer of yes to either suggests you (re)design how to get different results.

Will you use a different approach or strategy? Get more information or ask for someone’s help?

Whatever you choose to do, I believe the more important it is to you, the more whatever it takes is the only appropriate time and effort limit!

• You say, “I tried five times.” I say, “Maybe for you, it’s going to take eight times.”
• You say, “I already spent 16 hours on this.” I say, “Maybe you need 25 hours.”

At times, the only person keeping you from success is you, by the limits you set!

Albert Einstein said, “It’s not that I’m so smart, it’s just that I stay with problems longer.”

Do you have the skills and desire to go further, to do more and accomplish more than you have to this point? Be patient and persistent with yourself and others – and remove the limits.

You are capable of more than you think.

That’s my perspective, what’s yours? Leave us a comment or question below and don’t miss the video on this topic on YouTube!