Know Your Limits
I had a challenging workout yesterday, and when I stood up to make my lunch, I had LOL (little old lady) syndrome. I had trouble standing up straight. I had trouble taking real steps instead of shuffling my feet, my sides hurt from kettle bell side bends, even my feet ached. I did a few turns around the kitchen while I made lunch, shaking off the aches, and drank a ton of water. I had a dance class last night last night and went to bed early.
This morning, I decided against a workout, knowing I have a talk tonight and that I would need to take out the garbage and recycling this morning. I do not want to yawn through my own talk tonight! A hot shower helped my muscles, which were still a bit sore this morning. I just returned from taking out the garbage and recycling. I didn’t realize it would take me almost 30 minutes to do so. For me, that’s a small workout.
Knowing your own limits is still something I’m working on. Clearly, I don’t know mine :-), although I am making better choices. Since Mark is out of town (which is why I took out the garbage), I couldn’t ask him for help. And, with a physical condition, my limits change daily, sometimes minute by minute, which is why I need to see the reality of my situation all the time. For me, those limits include a lot of water to drink and enough sleep. Otherwise, I turn into a LOL ahead of my time. Right now, I’m still a little middle-aged lady, a LML, working on knowing her limits.
At work, you have other options. On agile teams, you have burnup charts, which show you your limits. If you have a manufacturing process, you would use a control chart to show your limits.
What personal data do you have that shows you your limits? Do you work data such as velocity or burnup charts? Do you have other data? In a sense, your life is like a process that needs to stay in certain limits to stay healthy. Do you know what those limits are?
One thought on “Know Your Limits”
Leave a Reply
This site uses Akismet to reduce spam. Learn how your comment data is processed.
As a type 1 diabetic I have a direct measure of when I cross work/life/health borders: my blood sugar measurements. If I have a week of stress at work and trade off my sleep and exercise for work, then my blood sugar rises out of my target zone — unless I dramatically increase my insulin doses.
If I maintain a sane balance of work/life/health and keep my exercise regimen where it needs to be then my blood sugar metrics remain where they need to be. My personal limits are failing to run at least four times per week; better to run five or six.
This is a perfect example of long-term impacts when exceeding one’s limits. It’s also a perfect example of me not pushing back hard enough when I get close to those limits…