A to Z of Luck : T is for Toleration - busting

Here's another installment of my project to provide an antidote to the pessimism we find all around us, by exploring the ways that we can make our own luck.

This time: T is for Toleration busting

One of the first things I learned when I started my coach training with Jim Vuocolo and Coach U was the concept of Tolerations.

What’s a toleration? They are the small irritations, energy drainers, things we put up with large and small which irritate us. They may be so small that we barely notice them, or so big that we can’t help it.

The key that sticks in your lock, the bad habit, the dead plant in the driveway, the corrosive colleague, the negative news on TV.

We may train ourselves to put up with them, even “not really notice” them any more. But large or small, tolerations drain our energy, create discomfort, and cause us to work harder. Eliminate them and life sails more smoothly and efficiently.

The first step: make a list: Write down the tolerations that come to mind when you think of work, home, and all other aspects of your life. As you think of more items later, add them to your list. Nothing is too trivial.

Your list may include situations, your beliefs and behaviours, other people's behaviours, unmet needs, broken objects, incomplete projects, problems, lack of equipment, your car, etc. It may be that you have never set up your printer defaults correctly, so you have to constantly change the settings.

You may or may not choose to do anything about the tolerations on your list right now. However, just becoming aware of the things you are tolerating, will bring them to the forefront where you will naturally start handling, eliminating, fixing, and resolving them.

As you develop a habit of dealing with things as they arise, you’ll create fewer tolerations and feel more powerful and assertive about dealing with them.

Diamond Buttons on Denim Jeans : form not following function

A flatmate had a cookbook written in the 50s, or early 60s, entitled "The I Hate To Cook Book" for women who lived in Suburbia (think the wives in Mad Men). It had a lot of recipes which included a tin of soup, as I recall, and lots of tips to satisfy a husband and children. For example: if you are short of time set the table first. The children, seeing the table set, will assume dinner is almost ready.

It was very vividly written, and highly pragmatic. The writer mocked recipes which suggested that you do fancy things like toast slivered almonds to put on carrots destined for the family dinner table. She denouced this as "sewing diamond buttons on denim jeans".

Clearly, this was in pre ghetto-fabulous days, but that metaphor came back to me when I received a few photos recently of construction where it wasn't so much a case of form not following function, as the function not coming into the equation at all.

Thanks to Andy Meldrum for the following pictures. If anyone knows the location or original photographer, please let me know.