Know Your Window

The leaders I coach have to engage in challenging conversations all the time. For them, checking in with their window of tolerance—and understanding others’ windows of tolerance—is vital for managing burnout.

The idea of the “window of tolerance” was coined by psychiatrist Daniel Siegel and deepened by psychologist Stephen Porges. It's a metaphor that helps us understand why we respond to stressful situations as we do.

Imagine a scale of one to ten, with a ten representing a situation where you feel so activated you want to flip out and a one representing a situation where you feel so overwhelmed you just want to give up.

At the top end—somewhere between eight and ten—we’re in a fight-or-flight response, running on adrenaline. We start acting out (or in) because we’re so focused on surviving we’re not as thinking clearly or as sensitive to the needs of others as we should be.

At the bottom end—maybe between one and three—we’re in a freeze response. We’re feeling so overwhelmed we’re shutting down and checking out. Like a turtle pulling its head inside its shell, we’re no longer present and able to participate as well as we need to.

At the middle—anywhere between four and seven—we’re in our window of tolerance. Even though we’re talking about difficult things, we’re feeling safe and connected with others. Because of this, we can keep focused on the problem we need to address, what others need, and what we need to help us all see things through.

For challenging conversations to go well, we need to make sure we can keep within our zone of tolerance—and that others can, too.

To do that, we need to negotiate three variables: The nature of the problem we’re talking about, our own window of tolerance, and our partner’s window of tolerance. And to make things more complex, those three variables aren’t static.

Whether or not we can keep in our windows of tolerance depends on when and how we're engaging our topic, our current stress levels, how tired or hungry we are, and how wide our window is to begin with. If we grew up in adversity or have been dealing with chronic stress for too long, our windows can narrow, making it harder to navigate stress well.

So when we are anticipating a challenging conversation, we need to check in with ourselves and others first.

That means we can’t just launch into a challenging meeting. We need to consider whether everyone around the table has the resources to tackle the topic at hand. And if we don’t, we need to give ourselves the resources so we can have the conversation we need to have.

Sometimes, this means waiting until our heads are clear and rested before we talk. But other times, it means taking steps to make sure we stay within our window while taking care not to push others out of theirs.

Want to learn how? Book your free Discovery Session here.