THEDOWNSIDE OF SUCCESS&THEUPSIDE OF BOUNDARIES

Success is important. Success is worth pursuing. Career success is often measured by title, authority, recognition and income.

Presidents are seen as more successful than vice presidents. Being in charge of 100 people is seen as more successful than being in charge of 10 people. Receiving a national award is seen as being more successful than recognition in your office. Making $250,000 a year is considered more successful than making $80,000 a year.

People invest an enormous amount of time and energy in working to be successful. It’s a good thing to be successful, to be seen as successful and to have the resources to do what you want in your life for yourself and other people.

The Downside Of Success

However, as you become more successful because of your well-honed talent and hard work, there are traps you can easily fall into.

TRAP ONE: PEOPLE STOP BEING HONEST WITH YOU.

When you’re 23 years old, six months into your new job, and you get drunk at a company party, the boss will call you in the next day and tell you to stop acting like a knucklehead, or you will be fired.

When you’re 45 years old, the COO of the company and you get drunk at every company party, perhaps no one will say a word to you because they don’t want to put their jobs on the line.

TRAP TWO: THE BOUNDARIES ON WHAT IS APPROPRIATE BEHAVIOR BECOME HAZIER.

As you keep pushing the envelope, and no one says anything to you, you start to think more and more obnoxious words and behavior are okay.

I have seen a senior executive in a room with several associates, and the executive makes bizarre, perverse statements using very vulgar language. The associates just roll their eyes when the executive can’t see them. No one points out to the executive how ridiculous he or she is acting.

TRAP THREE: YOU IGNORE MULTIPLE WARNING SIGNS.

Even if no one tells you to change your words or your behaviors, there are almost always warning signs you could have picked up on. You can feel the next day that you said something or did something wrong. You can see it in people’s non-verbal cues. They are sending messages to you. You might lose a good employee or a good customer because of something you said or did.

by DAN COUGHLIN

When you are in this trap, you just continue on saying what you’ve been saying and doing what you’ve been doing without paying attention to any of the warning signs.

TRAP FOUR: YOU THINK YOUR TALENT AND SUCCESS JUSTIFY ALL KINDS OF BEHAVIOR.

If you ever hear yourself or hear other people saying things like, “His/her talent is so great that we can’t afford to ever lose him or her no matter what he/she does,” then WAKE UP. Those words are dangerous. They open the door to terrible thoughts and behaviors.

I know of people who are tremendously successful, but every single time they drink, they get very drunk. No matter how many times they must be carried home, they still put their career in danger because of their willingness to justify their drinking with their tremendous business talent.

Their big title or their big talent becomes a trap, until one day their behavior is so far over the line the company has no choice but to fire them or something worse happens.

The Upside Of Boundaries

The way to avoid these traps is to truly value having boundaries in your life.

VALUE ONE OF BOUNDARIES: YOU CAN SEE WHEN IT’S TIME TO MAKE AN ADJUSTMENT.

If you have a sense of the standard of behavior you want to maintain, then it becomes clear when you are missing that mark. My hunch is most of us have made mistakes in what we have said or done at some point. I certainly know I have said and done things where it very quickly became clear I needed to adjust my future words and actions.

Pay attention to what is happening right around you or internally. Take those indicators seriously and make the necessary changes for your own sake. They might not hurt you today, but they will eventually catch up to you.

We must be able to see when it’s time to make an adjustment. It’s dangerous to kid ourselves that we’re always talking about somebody else’s wrong behaviors or wrong words. We must be honest with ourselves about what boundaries we want to live within in terms of our words and our actions, and then we need to make adjustments to get back within our clear boundaries.

VALUE TWO OF BOUNDARIES: WITHIN CLEARLY DEFINED BOUNDARIES, YOU HAVE TREMENDOUS FREEDOM.

Once you start to realize your boundaries, you start to realize how much freedom you have within those boundaries. In a democracy, you have tons of freedom to do and say what you want to do. However, there are still laws that you have to operate within.

The same is true in our lives. When we know the boundaries we need to stay within, we realize that we’re still left with an enormous amount of freedom in terms of what we can choose to do or say. It’s when we ignore the boundaries that we start to lose our freedom.

VALUE THREE OF BOUNDARIES: YOU CAN SUSTAIN GREAT PERFORMANCE AND RESULTS FOR THE LONG TERM.

Boundaries truly don’t hold us back. They allow us to keep going strong for the long-term. Thomas Kinkade was like a volcanic eruption of talent. From 1987-2012, he produced an unbelievable number of great paintings. However, with no boundaries in place, he eventually lost his wife, his family, his work and his life by the age of 54.

VALUE FOUR OF BOUNDARIES: YOU CAN SLEEP BETTER AT NIGHT.

Operating within boundaries means you are acting with integrity. You are doing what you believe is the right thing to do. And that is the recipe for getting a good night’s sleep. Acting with integrity really is the best pillow. n

Since 1998, DAN COUGHLIN has worked with seriousminded leaders and executives to consistently deliver excellence. He provides executive coaching, leadership and executive development group coaching programs and seminars to improve leadership and management performance. His topics are personal effectiveness, interpersonal effectiveness, leadership, teamwork and management. Visit his free Business Performance Idea Center at www.thecoughlincompany.com.