Successful projects have teams that ensure these activities are carried out with the highest degree of quality and these teams have individuals who fulfill the four functional disciplines required on projects. What are these functional disciplines? They are project management, business analysis, product development, and change management. Each of these disciplines has a formal knowledge base that is comprised of standardized roles and responsibilities, terminology, skills, and processes. Some of them even have trade associations and professional certifications.

During the life of a project, the individual that assume the role for each of these functional disciplines has different responsibilities during every phase of a project. Some phases require full time involvement and others none at all, depending on the discipline.

While medium to large size projects have the budget to warrant full time professionals during the life of the project, small sized projects do not have that luxury. Often the team members for smaller projects have to take on one or more of the functional roles for all the disciplines in order to achieve project success.

The Four Functional Disciplines

Let’s look in detail at the functional disciplines present on all projects. You will notice that there is some overlap between a few of them. This is not a duplication of effort; they are specialized contributions from different perspectives.

1. Project Management

Projects management is predicting, with as much certainty as is possible or required, the project’s scope, time, and cost at completion, and then embracing reality and influencing activities to meet those predictions.

The role of a project manager is broad and encompasses many aspects. Project Managers provide leadership and motivation, maintain focus and commitment, coordinate team member activities, and use resources efficiently and effectively. This ensures that the planning they perform, the activities they delegate, and the course corrections they make move the project closer to the negotiated end point.

The benefits of project management include: products delivered closer to the predicted scope, time, and cost; more trust in client relationships; better ability to make strategic decisions at the organizational level; cleaner management of stakeholder expectations; less unnecessary chaos for all team members; and increased productivity.

2. Business Analysis

Business analysis is acquiring knowledge of an organization’s structure, policies, and operations; identifying areas needing improvement; and recommending solutions that enable the organization to achieve its goals.

Business analysts must understand the business goals and objectives, as well as the background, of the organization. Their role is to identify cost saving opportunities, increase efficiencies, and decrease errors and issues. They have to be able to identify with business users at various levels to gather and validate information. In addition, business analysts need to identify the impact of a solution inside and outside of their organization.

Business analysis allows for higher quality description of what is needed, better results from end deliverables, and more efficient work during product development. It also ensures greater communication between the business unit and the product development team.

3. Product Development

Product development is creating products, tangible or intangible, with new or different characteristics that offer new or additional benefits to internal or external customers.

Domain experts are the individuals who fulfill the role of the product developers. Every project’s end deliverable requires a different set of domain experts based on the unique nature of the end deliverables. These experts have to have the domain knowledge to advise the project manager when needed, develop their portion of the product as specified, and integrate their work with the work of the other domain experts.

The benefits of product development are short and sweet. Products are developed in a much more efficient way and at a higher level of quality. This results in a shorter development cycle.

4. Change Management

Change Management is effectively supporting the implementation of a change within an organization so as to minimize stress and ensure its sustainability.

The change manager’s role is to ensure acceptance, adoption, and sustainment of the required behaviors for the product or service to have the desired impact on the organization. Change managers ensure the overall change is clear, resistance is identified, and the change strategies are developed and effectively implemented. Often change managers have communication, learning, and reward specialists available on an as needed basis throughout the change.

Change management shortens and diminishes the dip in performance that results from a change. It also sustains the change, making it less likely that things will revert back to the status quo.

For most organizations, if they focus a little attention on the project management role, they are happy. The other roles remain totally ignored or underdeveloped. As a result they live with partial project success. This is a shame as there are tons of resources available to help organizations recognize and develop these other disciplines. Doing so does not necessarily mean adding more staff. Sometimes existing staff can learn the new skills and play dual roles on project teams. The cost of project failures is too great to not invest in acquiring these functional disciplines. Your help is just a Google search away.

All organizations deliver value that lies on a continuum from low to high. The best organizations deliver high value consistently because they market and sell in addition to delivering their value. The act of them marketing and selling their value actually improves the value they deliver. Here’s how:

• Organizations that market their value intimately know the value they deliver and position it to differentiate themselves from other similar organizations. They actively communicate that value to their existing customers and prospective ones too. This is not to be boastful but to encourage others to take full advantage of it.
• Organizations that sell their value cherish their customers and realize customers have a choice and need to be sold over and over again. They engage their customers and strengthen the relationship with them, seeking a long-term partnership.

Conversely organizations that do not market and sell their value handicap their organization and limit the amount of value they provide their customers. They have a lesser understanding of their value and therefore put little attention into refining it. They appear hidden to other organizations and are often perceived as irrelevant. Customers are taken for granted and the needs of the organization’s staff are considered ahead of the customers. These organizations view each interaction with a customer as a transaction they have to endure.

For external businesses that deliver low value, the free market tends to correct the situation by running them out of business. However, Internal organizations are not subjected to the free market and stay around because they are needed, but their management is a prime target for change when discontent from others flairs to unacceptable levels.

So what can you do if you find yourself managing an organization that delivers marginal perceived value? Begin to market and sell your value. Here are a few things that will get you headed in the right direction.

• Work with key people in your organization to develop a detailed description of the value your organization provides.
• Identify your customers and ask them to articulate the product or service they desire from you and at what level of quality. Then ask them what the cost is of working with you. It could be money as there may be internal funds that are exchanged or it could be emotional energy expended in the process of conducting business. Ask them if they are getting the value they expect.
• The above two items need to match. If they don’t then your organization needs to change the value they deliver. This should be a continuous process for producing greater value.
• Communicate the value back to your customers and prospective customers too. Encourage them to take advantage of your organization.
• Communicate to your organization that customers come first and that everyone’s job security depends on the organizations ability to delight the customer when they encounter them.
• Establish liaisons within your organization and have them contact, via phone or in person, a customer and learn about their job needs and personal lives. The goal here is to establish and build a relationship with the customer.
• Reach out to customers that have not used your products or services in a while and ask them if they are in need of them.

These things will make many people uncomfortable as it will force them to get outside of themselves and view things from someone else’s perspective. It will strike fear in them because they will see just how vulnerable they are in delivering marginal or low value. Lastly, it will cause them to change and that is hard for everyone.

For organizational leaders, this transformation is going to take some time. Reputations change slowly and require many interactions to reverse people’s views. You need to keep the pressure on your organization and lead by example at every level and be patient with your customers because they didn’t form their perspectives overnight. Good luck!

The primary reason of sabotage is due to our resistance to being vulnerable.  When we are vulnerable we are transparent and truthful about our plight. There is no doubt that we are down and in need. People can clearly see it and empathize with our predicament.

However, most of us fight to hide our need; feeling we will be seen as weak if we do. It is very humbling to be truly vulnerable because we put ourselves in the position of being ridiculed and judged a failure; or, so we think. The reality is, the more vulnerable we are the more others will come to our aid. If we minimize or hide our need in an attempt to not look bad it stirs up the predator spirit in others and motivates them to reveal just how bad off we really are. When the need is finally uncovered it is never followed by a desire to help. It ends at the discovery.

If we are vulnerable and bear our souls we end up receiving mercy and assistance. Very few people can ignore someone in need when they are truly vulnerable. The only reason someone will ignore those in need  is if they are habitually in need and seem to be continuing the same actions or behavior that causes them to be in need.

The next time you find yourself in desperate situation and realize the only way you can get out if it is with help from others do the following:

• Find a person to support you. They should not be the ones who can help you get out of you predicament but can help you move through the process of getting help from the right person(s).
• Totally embrace your situation. Strip away every bit of denial and clearly acknowledge your plight. Do not identify excuses or place blame on anyone. If it is true you should point out your mistakes that contributed to your situation. Identify the points of pain and the most likely sources of help.
• Meet with those sources of help and be as truthful and venerable as you can be. Paint the picture of your situation so clearly that they have no choice but to empathize with you. Have a humble demeanor and recognize that they have a choice to help you. Then ask for help.

Following this advice may be the hardest, most and humiliating experience of your life; but, it will be better than not getting the help you need and having to endure the circumstances.

It is true that for sports teams, and special operations military units, to succeed they need every member to put the team first and their own interest last. The reason this is so necessary is because the results expected from these teams is extremely high. Every member is highly accountable for their role and behavior; plus, their performance evaluation is very objective and specific.

In business, teams run the gamut. Groups, project teams, and departments are much more loosely associated, encouraging individuals to work together within a system to achieve their organizational objectives. While leaders would like to think their organizations are very results oriented the reality is they are more politically oriented. Personal and positional power are sought after ahead of organizational results. Team members are less accountable for their individual roles and behavior; and assessment of their performance is much more subjective.

Because of this business teams have a lot of I’s in them. Every member has a choice of how they want to express their individualism. This is not necessarily a bad thing as you will see. It is just a reality business leaders have to live with. In any given situation, individuals team members can choose to have the mindset that “everything is about me” or they can choose to make it “all about the team.” Let’s look at these mindsets in more detail.

It’s all about me

Individuals who choose this path feel entitled and can be heard saying things like “I want, I deserve, and I expect.” There is immediacy to these requests with the expectation that their needs should be fulfilled now and not in the future. They are highly concerned with making sure others recognize their role and its importance to the organization. Also, they often choose to operate outside the team’s norms because they feel they are special and deserve special treatment.

It’s all about the team

Individuals who choose this path are connected with the team’s results and need to be for success. They recognize the importance of their role to the team and hope their contribution will result in rewards for them in the future. They see the importance of operating within the team’s norms, producing a synergy that is greater than the team’s individual efforts.

In most organizations, people operate predominantly from the “It’s all about the team” mindset. Everyone knows the benefit of this and would love to work in an organization filled with people of this mindset but, the reality is that at times people choose to make it “all about me”. When this does happen it is an indicator of four possible situations:

1. The business environment is overly engaged in political maneuvering instead of organizational results. All good behavior in organizations stems from a strong focus on organizational results. Sure there is political maneuvering in all organizations but it needs to be kept in check with leadership concentrating on results.
2. The person is stuck in a personal development phase. This is a sign of the times. Younger employees come from a family and social environment that told them they were the center of the universe and deserved everything right now. Management needs to council individuals in this situation and explain how it is bad for the organization and they need to change their mindset if they want to survive in the working world.
3. Performance assessment and compensation are unjust. If a person performs well and is a good team player, but they are being taken advantage of and not compensated appropriately then they will develop resentment. This resentment will then be acted out when they are asked to give more now in hopes of something later.
4. The employee is not a fit for the organization. Infrequently this is the case and it is best to part ways with people who fall into this category.

There is no way around it; our business environments are not like sports teams or special operations military units. Because of that we are going to have employees who have the freedom to choose the mindset of “it’s all about me.” Use these situations to uncover underlying deficiencies and resolve them for greater organizational success.

It is normal for organizations to develop processes for serving customers so they can be more efficient in their efforts and consistent in their quality. These processes are usually developed with the customer in mind but they always aid the organization more than the customer. In addition, like all process they only address the majority of the potential situations, not all of them.

A common problem for service oriented organizations is that their people engage and serve their processes and not their customers. The processes become an insulator between the customer and the organization. People in the organization view a customer’s issue as just one of many that they have to deal with. But on the other hand, the customer views their issue as one of a kind and very unique to them. This sets the stage for a frustrated customer. They do not feel as though they are being engaged properly and they experience little empathy from the organization. If the customer’s issue is truly unique there ins’t enough engagement on the organizations part to recognize it; the organization assumes it is just one of the same issues they deal with every day. It is not hard to see how this leads to a bad customer experience.

To avoid this, organizations must instill in their people a heightened desire to see all issues from the customer’s perspective. They must use process to ensure consistent quality but be prepared to deviate from them to engage a customer’s unique issue even if it is inefficient to do so. Lastly, organizations need to make sure their people realize that every opportunity they get to serve the customer is an opportunity to increase the customer’s desire to work with their organization. This is the surest way to achieve job security.

Serve your customers and not your processes.

Before we can answer this question, first we need to establish some generalities. The number of projects that can be managed simultaneously by one person depends on the nature of the projects and how much time is required to properly manage them. The key phrase here is “properly manage.” Projects that are managed properly have scope, time, and cost baselines appropriately established during the planning phase. They are also executed and controlled to completion so they finish as close as possible to the initial baseline. In general, more projects can be managed simultaneously when they are smaller in size (3-6 months with a team size of 2-5 people) than when they are larger in size (12-18 months in duration with a team size of 25 or more people). Also, more projects can be managed at one time when they are familiar and routine in nature to an organization than when they are highly unique, one of a kind. Plus technology, standards, and processes have allowed us to be more efficient at managing projects thus allowing more simultaneous projects.

Now back to the question. What is the criterion for determining when someone is managing too many projects at one time?  The first thing you will notice is that the project manager becomes less of a manager of their projects and more of a status reporter. Basically, they are along for the ride and have little ability to influence the direction of their projects. They finish when they finish. The second thing you will notice is the projects with the stronger sponsor or stakeholder base gets more attention than the rest and thus completed sooner regardless of the project’s strategic priority. You don’t need to be a rocket scientist to know that this is a very inefficient way for an organization to produce a product.

This is when organizations deceive themselves by believing they are doing more with less. Lets look at this situation from a different perspective. Let’s say Sharon is a project manager and has ten projects ready to be launched. Her director, Tim, thinks each project should take three months to complete. Tim can launch all ten projects at one time and tell Sharon he wants them completed in four months knowing there will be some inefficiency due to the chaos of running ten projects at one time as well as resource limitations. Or, Tim can launch five projects, wait for them to finish and then launch the remaining five projects.

If managing five projects at one time is optimal, then there is a good chance that launching five projects and then another five after those are finished will result in all ten being completed in six months, with half of them three months earlier. There is also a good chance that launching all ten at once will result in all ten being completed in a greater period of time, say eight months. To date there has not been any study to confirm this but given the above premise and logic the probability is high.

So far we have focused on management’s responsibility for controlling the volume of projects launched and how many are assigned to a single project manager at one time. But, what can you do as a project manager if you think you are managing too many projects?

1. Verify your beliefs by comparing yourself to other project managers in your organization. Being sure to compare apples to apples and making sure your projects are the same as the project manager’s you are comparing yourself to. This is a little reality check you should go through before you move to the next step.
2. Prioritize your projects, ranking those with the most visibility and perceived importance the highest.
3. Determine what is the optimal number of projects you should be managing to ensure appropriate planning and strong execution and control. This will result in projects being completed closer to the initial predictions.
4. Give 75% of your time and effort to the optimal number of projects with the highest priority.
5. Give the remaining projects assigned to you least priorities your last 25% of time and effort. This will result in the higher priority projects being managed better and finishing sooner with greater quality. The remaining projects will finish substantially later but since they have less visibility you will receive less grief, especially compared to the accolades you got for finishing the top priority projects sooner. Overall your performance will be better than your peers, giving you more justification for following this advice.
6. As projects are completed and new ones added continue the prioritization scheme, allocating time and effort as directed.

There are project managers who will say that their management expects strong results on all their projects and not just the ones they, as projects managers, determine as being higher priority. If you are one of these project managers and you truly do have too many projects at one time, your management is creating an environment of chaos with projects being completed inefficiently without much management. Following the above step will cause you to stand out and force management to review the volume of projects and how they launch them. Of course the flip side is true. If your performance doesn’t stand out by following the above steps it could be because you do not have too many projects at one time given your peers are able to produce strong results under the same conditions.

If nothing changes . . . nothing changes. If you are burnt out and totally spent with too many projects on your plate give it a try. You may find yourself refreshed and receiving pats on your back for a job well done.

Meetings in of themselves are not a bad thing. They are an effective tool because they provide a rich medium for communicating information. There is nothing like a face-to-face setting, be it one-on-one or in large groups, for conveying to attendees all the substance and emotion related to a topic. Meetings are also an efficient means for interacting, collaborating, and reaching consensus. The bantering back and forth between participants deepens their understanding of the topic making way for shared understanding and future action.

So when does such an effective tool get hijacked and become a burden to individuals and organizations? There is no one data point that can tell you this, but there are three specific trends that can be observed to give you a hunch.

1. Who is initiating the meetings?
2. Are the majority of meetings held one-on-one or with more than two people?
3. What is the primary purpose of the meetings? (Providing status, resolving issues, obtaining approval, validating or giving feedback on actions, etc.)

If you watch these three trends closely you will notice two types of individuals initiating most of the meetings: those who want to make all the decisions and those who don’t like to make any decisions. These are the culprits who drive the meeting count up in organizations. Let’s look at them closer.

Decision Makers
Individuals who want to make all the decisions don’t trust others to make a decision as well as they can. They also don’t trust others to do a job as well as they can. As a result, they are very uncomfortable with giving others autonomy.  They are driven to be in the know about everything and not letting anything proceed in a direction other than where they want it to go. For them, meetings are an efficient means for obtaining information and controlling the decisions and actions of others. Most of their meetings are one-on-one with their subordinates. The second largest group of meetings is one-on-one with their peers.

Non-Decision Makers
Individuals who don’t like making decisions are the polar opposite. They don’t trust their ability to make a decision or do a job as well as others can. They are very uncomfortable with any sort of autonomy. They seek security in numbers, abdicating their responsibility and accountability, trying to distribute it to others. Meetings are an efficient means for them to allow others to make their decisions and validate their actions. The majority of their meetings are with their peers and management.

Organizational culture can play a big role in the abusive use of meetings too. People who would not normally exhibit the above characteristics can be heavily influenced by an organization’s culture.  Cultures that reward individual heroism and value it more than team results bring out the controlling nature in people. Also, cultures that publicly crucify individuals who make mistakes cause people to seek safety and avoid getting in harm’s way.

The only people who can change culture and individual behavior are organizational leaders. If the culture is contributing to too many meetings they must work on changing it. If the culture is neutral and only a few individuals are abusing meetings leaders can correct the behavior of the individuals. They need to tell controlling employees to stop having status meetings and rely more on email or reports. They need to tell the scared employees to stop bugging people with meetings and make decisions on their own.

Organizational leaders can also shock the system by not allowing meetings for extended periods of time. This allows people who normally have to attend meetings to gain some power and rebel against the excessiveness. After the extended period leaders can ask individuals to send in reports of what broke as a result of not being able to have meetings. This can generate a real dose of reality and reset habits.

There is a lot of good that gets accomplished in meetings. This should not be denied. It is only the abusive situations leaders should look to correct. Their goal should be to trade the effort wasted in unnecessary meetings for individual productivity.

Any ideas for what to do with those unused conference rooms?

Some schedules can be as sound as your best friend’s promises and others fairy tale in nature; but the reality is you’ll never know just from looking at them. You have to dig a little deeper to discover the truth. Throughout the life cycle of a project there are four factors present in all schedules with integrity. The likelihood of the project’s events following the schedule depends on the degree in which these four factors are present.

1. Responsible Chunking of Work: Most schedules that get distributed are summary in nature. They show the key milestones for project phases, external dependencies, and major deliverables. For these dates to be met, multiple tasks need to be completed on time. If a task list that drives theses milestones is not present then there is little evidence that the milestone dates will be met. If, on the other hand, a task list is present then the next area in question is how detailed the tasks are. If the tasks are about a week or less in duration this is a good sign. If they are multiple weeks in duration this is a bad sign and can lead to missed deadlines.
2. Pure Estimates: By nature most estimates are guesses, susceptible to chance. There is no such thing as exact estimates, but there is such a thing as pure estimates. Pure estimates do not have any pessimistic padding in them nor do they have any optimistic efficiency. Judgments in this area are very subjective. Probing questions can be used to understand how tasks were estimated and for determining how pure the estimates are.
3. Definitive Precedence Logic: All tasks have dependencies before them and after them. For any one task something has to be completed before it can start and something can’t start until the previous task is completed. This is formally called precedence logic. There are variations of this logic that can require two tasks to start at the same time and in another case two tasks to finish at the same time. Usually, when the project is planned these dependencies are definitive, but sometimes as a project progresses and milestones begin to slip the dependencies artificially change in an attempt to get the project back on track. For example tasks that were scheduled in series when planning the project get altered so they are scheduled to be completed in parallel even though they had to be scheduled in series initially. This is a break from reality and signals a high probability that what is represented in the schedule will not happen.
4. Balanced Resource Loading: When work on a project begins there is a weekly ebb and flow of some things being completed early and other things being completed late. After a while most of the planned start dates for tasks have shifted a few days/weeks prior to or after their start date. This often leads to individuals who originally only had two tasks to finish in one week now having three or more. Obviously we are limited to 24 hour days thus the likelihood of that person completing all the work that is assigned to them within that week is slim at best. Resources should not be overloaded as to exceed their work availability in any one week. Doing so will lead to work in the future being delayed, diminishing the integrity of the schedule.

Next time someone hands you a schedule don’t be naive and take it at face value; especially if you are really dependent on things being completed as the schedule says they will be. Ask a few questions, peak under the hood a little, and get a much better idea of the schedules level of integrity.

After many years of work we became masters at our jobs and found ourselves only getting better as we experienced new situations and interacted with our peers.  Now, learning only comes through frequent experiences and reflection with our peers. The experiences are always present as work-life never stands still, yet reflecting on them is both optional and a must for learning. Reflection requires us to stop, review, analyze, and draw conclusions. It’s not extremely hard to do but it takes discipline to step away from day-to-day activities and cycle through the recent experiences to glean some lessons learned.

Organizational leaders have a more difficult learning challenge than others. Their experiences involve the “big picture” perspective and systematic thinking. Feedback on their performance is not immediate or readily available. As a result, their reflection needs more time and seclusion to tweeze out the lessons learned and needed adjustments.

Compounding this problem is the fact that leaders find it very difficult to create this precious time to reflect. Countless daily issues and the stigma that secluded reflection is not real work are the main culprits in this situation. But, given that a leader’s most powerful influence on an organization’s success is making sure they’re heading in the right direction and doing the right things in the future, they certainly have a strong enough reason to create the required time and seclusion to reflect.

Ok, so let’s say you are able to carve out the time and find a secluded place away from disruptions. How can you make sure you get the most out of your time? Follow these simple steps:

1. Review what you have experienced over the last several months and what keeps you up at night. Keep the “big picture” in mind here.
2. Select an issue to ruminate on. This means you have to put some prioritization on your issues and only pick one.
3. List all associated points of data. Don’t allow yourself to interject misinformation or partially validated information.
4. Describe your judgments. Detail what you consider good or bad about the data and what pre-defined positions you’re holding tightly.
5. Identify the root contributors. Look for the systemic influences that are at play.
6. Draw a conclusion. Paint a big picture summary and make some decisions.
7. State the lessons learned. These are the key points you will tuck away in your subconscious to draw upon later in similar scenarios.

After you have gone through this reflection process on several occasions you’ll find yourself craving these times and valuing the benefits you derive. You’ll also learn you can reflect in less secluded environments. Long drives and flights are great times to reflect. Arriving a day early or staying a day late on business trips are prime times for reflection too.

If all experiences were once-in-a-lifetime occurrences then taking time to reflect and learn would be wasteful. But the fact is, history repeats itself and many of our experiences return in new situations. Decisions made and actions taken by leaders have large dollar values associated with them. Being able to learn from experiences and perform better in similar future situations can save a company money, and more importantly, your career.

While this comparison may be reasonable it is not really fair. This is because our friend’s and peer’s lives are not just like ours even though it may seem as such on the surface. Under the surface all of us have very different circumstances that need to be considered.

We all have a finite amount of emotional stamina. It aids us in two ways: It keeps us resilient to handle life’s demands and gives us the discipline to chase our desires.

Resilience is needed so we do not become incapacitated by:

• stress of raising a family or work responsibilities
• pain from illness or injury
• loss of a friendship or loved one
• sleep deprivation

Discipline is needed so we can grow by:

• persuing our life goals
• building personal relationships
• dieting to lose weight
• learning something new
• exercising to stay fit
• getting to the bottom of your “to do” list

The emotional energy needed for resilience always takes priority over the energy for discipline. This is a primitive trait instilled in us to ensure our survival. If we have emotional energy left over from maintaining our resilience then we have the option of using it to be disciplined in areas we want to grow in. If all of our emotional energy is used up on resilience we will struggle to be disciplined in anything related to growth. This scenario is almost always never considered when we fail to be disciplined.

Mary found this to be true when she compared herself to her neighbor, Trish. Every morning Mary watched Trish leave her house for a 45 min run. Now and then Mary would beat herself up about how undisciplined she was and vow to start running the next morning. Then the next morning she would wake up early and run. She would stay disciplined for about a week and then return to sleeping in and not running. When Mary would beat herself up she never considered the stress she endured at work as an air traffic controller and that her husband had a bad snoring habit that made getting to sleep very hard. She just thought she should be able to do it because Trish could do it. If she knew more about Trish she would have learned how little stress Trish endured at work as a receptionist and that she went to bed before her husband and got nine hours of sleep a night.

For those who want to have more discipline and growth in their lives, even though they are tapped out on the resilience side of things need to be a little more strategic. Either you can try to be more disciplined and see what sticks or you need to find a way to reduce the amount of energy committed to resilience. This would mean waiting until the stress at work lessens, the grieving from a lost loved one runs its course, or for your bad knee to heal.

Another thing to consider when evaluating our emotional stamina is our capacity. The amount of emotional stamina we have access to varies based on how we use it over time. If we push the limits it grows. If we don’t push the limits it diminishes. For example, those with a lower need for resilience are more susceptible to a reduction in emotional stamina; whereas, those who need all the emotional stamina they can to be resilient, and still take on some discipline, will find their capacity expanding.

That is why in general, young working parents raising kids have much more emotional stamina than singles their own age. Elderly workers have much more than their retired counterparts. Parents with late teen kids, young singles, and retired individuals need to be mindful of their emotional stamina. Because the amount of emotional energy needed for resilience is less in their lives they need to increase the amount of discipline they require of themselves. This will keep their emotional stamina high and ready for when some life event requires more resilience of them.

If you want to be able to stick with things better in the future you need to understand and manage your emotional energy. Don’t be reluctant to give yourself a break when you are in a period of high resilience and push yourself to be more disciplined when you are not. Help others with this too. You will find yourself with less completion and more support when sticking with it.