The Mind-Parasite Cleanse

What if I told you that there are things living in your mind that are sapping your focus and sucking away your energy? What are they? According to Dusan Djukich, the author of Straight Line Leadership, “tolerations” act as parasites of the mind. Here’s how he defines them: “Tolerations are the things that you’re putting up with that you actually have the ability to resolve and yet you still choose to ignore. Tolerations are things that literally suck and drain your attention and your energy.” 

Djukich says that tolerating things and coping with them are different. Things that you cope with are things that you think you can’t change. Some of these are actually unchangeable, like the death of a loved one or an incurable disease; others are only perceived as such. Either way, you just cope. Things that you tolerate are things that you know deep inside you do have the ability to change. This is why they drain you. 

So how do we cleanse ourselves of these mind-parasites? Djukich recommends the following process: write out a list of all of your tolerations in your personal and in your business life. Next, explore the downsides of keeping each toleration around. What is the cost of inaction? Then, explore the upside of confronting each toleration. How would your life benefit from addressing the toleration head on? Finally, you write out a list of the actions required to address each toleration and for each action you decide if you will do, drop, or delegate the required steps. 

He uses the following example to illustrate: 

If I look out the window from my home office and see that the swimming pool has not been attended to and is turning to an unsettling shade of pale green, I can apply my three options. 1) I can go DO something now, like spend a couple of hours cleaning it, going to the pool supply store, putting in chlorine, etc. That’s always an option. Or, 2) I can just DROP it as a concern. As a toleration, I can choose to have it be a total non-issue for me and cope with the consequences (smell, mosquitoes, new forms of reptilian life, health inspectors, etc.). Or, 3) I can DELEGATE it and give the job to the local pool service company and probably be done with it.

This week, I invite you to do a mind-parasite cleanse on one or more of your tolerations by asking:

What am I tolerating? What are the costs of keeping this toleration around? For this month? For this year? For a lifetime? What are the benefits of confronting this toleration head on? This month? This year? Over a lifetime? What are my next required actions to confront this toleration? Which of these will I do, drop, or delegate and by when? 

God bless,
Dan