Zones of Being

Gay Hendricks [1] explains in his book The Big Leap [2], there are 4 zones, any human being would operate, while doing their daily activities. He further explains that, while most of us would operate in Zones of Competence or Excellence or Incompetence, we seldomly recognize our Zone of Genius.  

I will be explaining these Zones pictorially taking the example of riding bicycle

 

Zone of Incompetence

This Zone contains activities you do not do well and ones you do not enjoy doing like riding the tricycle as given in image above. Some of these activities could drain your energy. You may find these activities boring, irritating and prone to make more errors.

There are other people in your team or group who can do these better and efficiently than you. Therefore it is better that you find ways to delegate these to another person or a system. 

Learning new new skills or hobby also will be take time and create outcomes with more errors but does not fall into this category, unless you do not like to perform them.

Zone of Competence

This Zone contains activities you can do with less errors and with moderate efficiency but you do not like to do them. There are others in your team or group who are better than you on these activities, like the professional bicycle racers given in above image.

 

You are not excellent in doing activities but you are fully capable of completing them. Also, you are not adding much value by taking them. 

 

These are activities you will not like to have on your plate but it doesn’t upset you to do them. Therefore, you should find ways delegate these to people or systems that can perform them better or add more value than you doing them.

Zone of Excellence

This Zone contains activities that you are really good at doing. They can be things that come naturally or you worked hard and long to become successful at these activities. 

Doing these activities brings you success and rewards, but they are draining. Like the professional bicycle racer who is winning few races but not that happy of the achievements, they do not bring high satisfaction and still leave you feeling like something is missing.

 

Zone of Genius 

This Zone contains activities you love doing and no one in your team,group or community can perform them like you. This is similar to activity given in above image is of a bicycle mechanic who is specializing on repairing bicycles while the rider is in a race. While doing these activities your presence is exceptionally felt to others. 

Also, these activities bring you highest satisfaction to the time spent, even when this time is small as few minutes. You loose time when doing these activities. These activities give you energy, restore and fulfill you.

These activities related to the Genius Zone can be found by tracking and listing the tasks done by you for few weeks and find ones where you loose track of time.  

 [1] -- About Katie and Gay Hendricks

 [2] -- The Big Leap: Conquer Your Hidden Fear and Take Life to the Next Level