What Personal Constraints Are Critically Impacting Your Role?

IN THIS VIDEO:
00:16 Personal Constraints Are Role Specific
00:40 Why You Don’t Want Me To Be Your Accountant
01:05 When Behaviors Become Constraints
02:42 How To Create A Plan to Overcome What’s Holding You Back

In my previous videos, we discussed the first three laws in the Five Laws of Personal Constraints. If you haven’t watched them yet, go to my previous blogs to watch it now.

Here’s Law Four: Personal Constraints Are Role Specific

This can sound like a contradiction to Law Three, but it isn’t. Law Three states that our constraints play themselves out in every area of our lives, while Law Four chimes in to clarify that our constraints might play themselves out more in one area than in another.

I was born with dyscalcula, a math learning disability. Can you imagine what would happen if I were an accountant?

My struggle with numbers would not make me a good hire for that job. I’d probably plunge the company into bankruptcy and land the entire management team in prison. While behaviors tend to leak into every compartment of life, paradoxically, they become constraints only when they get in the way of attaining specific goals.

The impact of our constraints can vary depending on what role or context we are in. Behavior that restricts us in one area might be an asset in another. A junior-high-school teacher, for example, will have a lot more trouble with a high level of aggression when he’s teaching an elementary class than when he’s coaching football after school, although his aggression will need to be managed in every area of life. Being methodically analytical probably helps a physician in private practice but can be a hindrance for someone in a fast-moving sales or marketing position and an irritation in relationships, where majoring in minor issues can wear thin pretty fast.

A junior-high-school teacher, for example, will have a lot more trouble with a high level of aggression when he’s teaching an elementary class than when he’s coaching football after school, although his aggression will need to be managed in every area of life. Being methodically analytical probably helps a physician in private practice but can be a hindrance for someone in a fast-moving sales or marketing position and an irritation in relationships, where majoring in minor issues can wear thin pretty fast.

Being methodically analytical probably helps a physician in private practice but can be a hindrance for someone in a fast-moving sales or marketing position and an irritation in relationships, where majoring in minor issues can wear thin pretty fast.

Having low aggression doesn’t work for a race-car driver, and having low self-confidence doesn’t work for a heart surgeon. I don’t want to have a teacher who is low nurturing, nor do I want to have an accountant who thrives on creativity. Our personal constraints are role specific—pure and simple.

To understand our constraints fully, we must consider them in terms of the various roles we play in life. We need to evaluate each constraint in context and determine whether it is keeping us from performing our best in a given position or situation.

So, let me ask you, what personal constraints are critically impacting your role? Do you know?

If you don’t know, will you consider taking Leadership Multiplier for a “test drive?”