Are you someone who struggles to stay on task during your work day, getting bored when you have to work on the same thing for too long? If so, you may be a low scorer in Endurance. Let’s take a look at the behavioral traits of someone with a low score in endurance and what you can do to best encourage their growth.
Low Endurance
Meet Kyle. Everyday Kyle wakes up, his routine is different and he loves that. He’s not someone who wakes up at the same time, showers, has their coffee and begins their work day, striving to cross things off his to-do list. In fact, he’s the opposite. Instead of focusing on the project he’s supposed to finish, he gets distracted and wants to do something different that he’s excited about, whether it’s taking the dog for a walk or going to get a beer with his friends. He’s always looking for opportunities to change up his routine and approaches life with a light hearted, humorous air, not worrying about the many projects or commitments he’s made or left unfinished. He’s signed up for numerous groups and fitness classes that he was once excited about but after attending a few, he loses interest and doesn’t go back, welcoming whatever new experience comes his way.
Kyle is a good example of someone with a low score in Endurance. He:
Becomes bored easily
Prefers a more leisurely, informal and casual approach to life and its endless variety
Welcomes interruptions in daily routines
Can change directions quickly, walk away from a task when necessary, or as conditions change, without a lot of stress or hassle
Tends to be informal and leisurely
Takes pleasure in new experiences
Tends to be changeable, and easily distracted
Often starts projects they do not finish and is quickly bored with routine
Responds to humor
Prefers immediate gratification of needs
Tips for Managing Low Scorers
Although low scorers in Endurance can provide a chill, easy-going presence in the office, their easily distracted and leisurely approach can be frustrating to higher strung employees and deadlines can suffer.
Here are some tips for managing someone with a low Endurance score:
Externally imposed and enforced deadlines are critical for low scorers in endurance. As one of Murphy’s laws states, “the amount of time given to a project, is directly related to how long the project will take to complete.” In other words, left on their own, they may take MUCH longer to complete tasks than is really necessary so giving them a deadline is essential.
The challenge with the low scorer in Endurance centers upon managing distractions. Encourage them to work for a set period of time on a task (15 minutes, for example), then switch to something else or do something fun to combat boredom, breaking tasks into small pieces.
Encourage them to make a timeline or write out specific steps toward their goal/project. Similar to the previous suggestion, adding structure to their plans can really help a low scorer in endurance. So many words a day, so much time per week promised to this activity, and so on. When they start checking those small items off their to-do list their brain gets a chemical reward that encourages them to keep building on those tiny successes. Accomplishments beget accomplishments, and studies show that incremental progress can be a strong motivator.
Encourage them to become aware of their pattern of starting things and leaving them unfinished.A way to recognize a possible pattern is to list every past project they can recall. Every fitness class, resolution, language, book, or plan they have started. Encourage them to write down why they started this activity, and when and why they stopped. Can they determine any commonalities?
