Knowing Your Limits
Knowing Your Limits
Common sense and success belong to me. Insight and strength are mine.
Proverbs 8:14
A study in corporate America has something to teach couples. It compared executives who floundered and those who succeeded. Both groups had weaknesses, of course, but the critical difference was that those who did not succeed failed to learn from their mistakes and accurately assess and accept their shortcomings.a The unsuccessful executives ignored their faults, often rebuffing those who tried to point them out.
In a similar study of several hundred managers from twelve different organizations, Daniel Goleman, author of Emotional Intelligence, found that “accuracy in self-assessment was a hallmark of superior performance.” It’s not that top performers have no limits, he says, but “they are aware of their limits.”b
So what’s the lesson for couples? It’s this: When a couple lacks an accurate assessment of their problems, they never figure out how to progress beyond them. You can see this phenomenon on almost any day in the offices of most marriage counselors. Sure, couples know they are struggling, but many don’t see the real problem.
Every couple has deficits. But these struggling couples don’t know what theirs are. “We just don’t know how to communicate,” they might say. In a sense this may be true, but their real deficit is that they don’t know how to make time for meaningful communication, or they may keep their feelings boxed up, or any number of things. Communication breakdowns are only a symptom of their real problem. And if they could identify their real trouble, they could do something about it.
Successful couples, on the other hand, learn from their mistakes by accurately assessing their shortcomings. They don’t ignore their challenges, and they don’t deny their limits. They face challenges head-on, looking for practical solutions to build the most God-honoring relationship possible. And when they run into personal limitations, they get help.
Accuracy is twin brother to honesty.
—Charles Simmons
a 120
b 121
From the book
