Having Zero Tolerance For The Nonsense In Your Life?

I can so relate! I mean, the struggle is real people. So much going on and being empathetic, I can literally feel the pain of everyone around me. So much pain. Who needs additional nonsense in their life? Not me.

And I hate to break it to you, but we still got to own what happens next. In my humble opinion at least. Care to explore this topic a little further? Are you ready to acknowledge, that you are not always right? No? Even better! Keep reading, this might get interesting then. And who knows? Maybe we will find out there is not just one “right” and learn something new. Let us start with the term “nonsense” and what it actually means.

Well, I do know I am not always right, yet I still can’t stand nonsense and am not always doing well in dealing with it. But I do know, there is a limit to how far I can allow myself to go and when to stop (not always, but for the most part). See, I have always been a “no-nonsense” person. For me that meant to be (at times very) direct, to mostly skip sugar coding and to focus on what I feel I need to do, to get things done, care for people around me and just simply live my life and my values. It’s a “what you see is what you get and I also do not like games, politics or grudges” kind of attitude.

Lately though, I feel my tolerance for “nonsense” is gravitating towards zero more often than not. I am sure the tragedies and ironies that come with life and especially life in a global pandemic can have that effect on people. Especially on empathetic people (and people leader). The struggles are real.

Someone described how that felt for them with “their emotional bucket being full”. Makes for an interesting image if you visualize this combined with all the “cr**” that probably goes into that bucket together with the emotions, pain, sorrows and so on…

Having zero or low tolerance for “nonsense”, can be a temporary thing as much as it can be a life motto. And anything in between really. But no matter which one it is, we still have to deal with it. Responsibly. Nonsense is a pretty broad term anyways. From the small annoyance to the unbearable injustice. What nonsense means to us is likely completely different from person to person and changes all the time, too. Depending on our overall form, state of mind, physical and mental health. You get the gist of it.

In short, our nonsense can be someone else’s “normal”. Also, and I said that before, we have to consider that we might be wrong. I am wrong more often than I care to count. It’s human. I do not care to count, but when I am lucky enough to realize that I am wrong, I totally care to apologize and do better. We would be surprised what many people consider as normal and fine or acceptable, tolerable etc. Actually, I don’t think I would be surprised. I have seen a lot and my imagination can go places.

For example I have seen many posts on LinkedIn and other Social Media from people that claimed to be free now as they do not tolerate any nonsense in their life anymore.

Congratulations! And you are still having a functioning social and most important professional life? I highly doubt it! Because there really is a big difference between us feeling like we can’t tolerate any more nonsense in our lives (as in “I just can’t take it anymore”) vs. us actually being able to eliminate ALL nonsense FROM our lives. We wish. Or do we?

Thankfully most of us are more resilient than we think. And if you ever worked in Corporate America, you will know that you will get to test it. A lot. And that’s no ones fault, really. Again, one person’s nonsense is another person’s (or group’s) normal. They in return might consider things we are doing, saying, etc. as utter nonsense themselves. Shocking! But true.

So yes we can of course be direct and we can try to limit the nonsense we are exposing ourselves to. But ultimately having a strategy how to deal with it, while also taking care of ourselves, might be our best bet. Yes, that is possible, I wouldn’t be here to write this, if it was not. But how does it work? Does that mean we have to ignore all nonsense in our life?

I don’t think we have to. I personally am not, when it’s mostly impacting myself or it’s absolutely worth taking a risk to challenge or change it. Let me share a personal example from my life as a writer / blogger. A coaching session with my great coach Tiff (you can find her on LinkedIn here, I highly recommend her), triggered me to think about holding back when writing my blog posts. We had a conversation about a rather difficult topic recently and, touching a little bit on psychology, she asked this “sneaky” question of “what is it, that you are not saying?”. And opened a can of worms in the process. A good one though. It made me think about all the things I was actually not saying.

While I was always a no(t much)-nonsense person, I still have taken out some of the edges from my posts. I have been showing vulnerability, yet I softened the language to not be too “raw”. Of course I talked about my struggles or my pain, but never made it too painful to read about them. After our session, that changed. The floodgates were opened and there was no holding back anymore. Good for me! Just makes for real authentic content, that I feel much more aligned with.

Because for too long I was catering to what I thought to be “appropriate”. Not anymore. But that can change again, as my tolerance for or my definition of nonsense continues to change. So in my blogs I am raw and direct. I am going where it hurts if I feel I have to. And since it’s my blog and my personal stories, I can go with that flow.

I am however totally clear and aware, I can’t be that raw or direct or go as deep in my work environment. Not without offending someone. And that someone could be someone dear to me or someone I could not care less about (those are pretty rare to be honest, I usually do care). On top of offending someone, I will likely also impact my team and ultimately risk results and outcomes, too.

Again, I might consider it nonsense, someone else might feel it’s useful or necessary. And we might both be right. Or both be wrong. Because nonsense is such a personal and subjective “feeling”. So am I pleading for more tolerance for nonsense? That would not work, now would it? We could try, but we would not be true to ourselves. So rather than changing our tolerance, we can change our attitude about it. Make it work for us AND others by finding our way of coping. Acknowledging it’s a stretch for our tolerance is a good first step.

What’s next?

If it’s too bad and we really can’t accept it? Let’s try to influence. We do not have to necessarily call it out for the nonsense we think it is, instead we can try to steer things into a different direction. With care. Always with care (one of my top values). You can still call it out to someone you can trust like a friend, a coach etc. Or, like me, write about it.

But at work as in life we must choose our “battles” wisely. We won’t always be able to change the narrative or influence and achieve change. We will have to live with things the way they are. All we can do is control our reaction to it. And if we are concerned that our reaction might be as direct or raw as my blog posts, find someone to be our checks and balances.

I recently for example wrote a blog post that could easily cross lines I did not want to cross, simply because of the difficult topic. So after I wrote it, I sent it to friends, my coach and their partner (who does not know me) and asked them to be my checks and balances. I want to be true to myself but I do not want to cross certain lines either in my personal blog. You can find it here, if you are now curios. And what about the work environment?

When replying to an email we consider to be utter nonsense, yet that’s not the appropriate answer, we can hit “reply”, delete all recipients (IMPORTANT) and write the answer we feel like writing. And then another one and another one until our answer feels appropriate given the recipient, our relationship, the circumstances etc. You get it. That way we had our outlet. We said that what we felt needed to be said. We also made sure the answer we actually send won’t on top of our frustration hurt our reputation as well. Worst case we can have someone read what we wrote before we send it, just in case.

What if we have to join in a call we do not want to attend and it almost physically pains us to listen? We don’t have to. Presence might be mandatory, but active listening and participating can’t. So we can show up and stay true to ourselves. We should not judge what others are saying. We also do not have to listen if it’s too much to take in and not necessary to get our work done.

I have been in so many calls that were hard for me to stay on and also keep my mouth shut. All of us have. I totally can’t stand when leaders are talking poorly about the colleagues in their team. Or, in recent months, are sharing their team’s personal tragedies to highlight what a great leader they are or how awesome their team is performing despite everything that’s happening. Just to collect credits with Senior Leaders. I CAN’T EVEN!

But I also can’t just jump in and say “guys, what the f* see let’s cut the cr**, please”. Or it would quickly become famous last words. It’s just not my place. I don’t have to participate. To drive change, I can choose to influence and not go rogue. Even though in some of these situations going rogue might definitely sound more appealing.

As if that sentence would have ended with a “please”...😂

Instead I will simply stop listening, do multi-tasking, excuse myself when I can or plan for a looooooong walk or some play time with the dog afterwards. Coping mechanisms. Not tolerating, but accommodating. Aligning my attitude with the situation. Without going against my beliefs or values. Emphasis on “my”.

Not everyone’s leadership style aligns with mine. In fact, everyone who thinks it’s sufficient to have just one leadership style yet a team that has more than one colleague in it, is not on my same page. I personally think you need to lead every individual based on their needs, not based on your style. But that’s my opinion and approach. Also “pressure” is not one of the acceptable leadership styles either. To me.

But it literally happens every day in probably all companies around the globe. It does in ours, too. And I am imagining myself sending emails like “sorry, but it really is nonsense that you sent this follow up for the hundreds time as it will not change the situation even a little bit”. Or “if you would leave us alone and let us do our job, we would maybe have time to actually drive those results you are looking for”? Would I send those? Hell no. I can use my technique explained above, but I should definitelye make sure to not accidently send it. Why?

Because it is not the appropriate reply. As much as it might feel like it should, it just isn’t. It’s disrespectful. And on top it won’t change a thing. Other than maybe my status of employment or at the very least my relationship with the recipient(s) of these emails.

Instead I am trying to absorb the pressure myself. And am working hard on not letting it get to me really either. I will continue to do my job the way I would have without the pressure. I am basically ignoring it while pretending I am not. Not everything needs to be said or commented on. It really doesn’t.

When things get tough, we usually see a decline in our tolerance for what we perceive to be nonsense. At least that is how it is for me. Hormones can have a similar effect (to any man reading this: no you cannot comment on this one, at all!). I know myself well and am aware of what’s going to impact my tolerance for nonsense and when that is likely going to hit.

In those moments I need to be able to rely on my coping mechanisms. Yes, I can cut out nonsense as much as I can control. But I also have to either be very self-reflected or have someone close to me keep me on my toes for those instances, where cutting it out would not be a good idea for many different reasons. One being hurting myself in the process.

How about you?

Take care of yourself!

Nannette