Coaching Corner: What is your ceiling made of?
By Coach Marilou Butcher Roth
Currently I am facilitating a book study with my agents, reading the book "The Big Leap" by Gay Hendricks. This has been one of my favorite go to books for myself and my clients for years, as Gay explores what keeps us from being the success that we desire in our life. He speaks to what he calls "the upper-limit problem," or as we lovingly referred to it during our apprenticeship with Gay and Katie Hendricks, an "ULP."
In Gay's words, you are "upper-limiting when you're doing something that is crimping your flow of positive energy." Or, in my words, it's when you are going along, everything is moving beautifully, and then something happens. The somethings vary, but the theme is still the same -- where you had a wonderful feeling, you now hit a ceiling of sorts. And it usually hurts, either literally or emotionally. Let me convey one of my most memorable ULP stories:
The day of my 50th birthday was well thought out and planned -- it would include a massage and a nail appointment, finishing with a lovely dinner with my husband. The day was truly incredible, more than I could have imagined. I received so many loving calls from family and friends and also a lovely meeting with our kitchen designer to finalize plans for our long-awaited new kitchen. As I left this meeting to head to my nail appointment, I jumped into my car, which was in the garage, humming a happy tune, and just as quickly as you can imagine, I backed right into my husband's car which was parked in the driveway. Smash!!! Oh no! How can this be happening??? This day was going so great!!!!
Now, you may not have a car story, but I have no doubt that if you try, you can go into the darkest corners of your memory and come up with your own tale of upper limit woe! Remember, we do not do these things consciously. We do not declare that "dammit, things are just going too great, I think I will screw things up for myself." It's just not the way it works!
Here are a few ways that Gay indicates that we may bring ourselves down: Worry, criticism and blame (of others or yourself), deflecting, squabbling, getting sick or hurt, and integrity breaches. No doubt, you can come up with some others on your own.
This week, pay attention to when you may be creating your own upper-limit problem. Or, if you want more information on this, perhaps you go a step farther and buy the book! Either way, bringing attention to how you limit yourself can only be a positive step for you and your success!
Marilou Butcher Roth
Marilou Butcher Roth is the owner of The MBR Group, a coaching and training company working primarily with REALTORS who have a desire to work and live from a more inspired place. She is also the Broker/Owner of Group REALTORS in Cincinnati.
Marilou is a member of the Ohio REALTORS Board of Directors and past chairman of the organization’s Communications Committee.
