Because that’s when my fail point is triggered.
A fail point is that moment when you know you will NOT be able to bring your best self, your fully-aware, uncompromised, un-impaired self to the situation or event.
I have three such fail points:
- Late at night if I feel quite tired (after 11.30pm)
- If I haven’t slept properly over a few days
- If I have a head cold or suffering from allergies.
When I suffer from one or all of the above, I know:
- I will be more emotionally charged.
- I will be more abrupt.
- I will be less tolerant of people being…people.
- I will make poor decisions eg eating the whole box of chocolates.
- I will struggle to write coherently.
- I will come up with insanely wacky ideas that will make me question my judgement by morning.
Fortunately, as soon as I see my fail points on the horizon, I take mitigation actions.
- I reschedule important meetings.
- I advise others that I may not be my best self in the moment.
- I monitor my thoughts extra carefully – and avoid going down rabbit holes.
- I delay decision-making.
- I try not to send emails, or even write posts and comments on LinkedIn post midnight.
- Most times, this system works really well for me. It doesn’t work when I fool myself into thinking, nah, that LinkedIn post needs my comment – people will love it!
So, what’s your fail point, folks? And what’s your system to mitigate this?
#selfdevelopment #selfawareness #leadership
