Peak Performance: Elevate Your Game, Avoid Burnout, and Thrive with the New Science of Success

by Brad Stulberg

The high school running phenom never ran a step faster than he did that summer day at the Prefontaine Classic. And the young-gun consultant didn’t go on to run for office or make partner at an esteemed firm. As a matter of fact, he left the White House and hasn’t received a promotion since. Both runner and consultant shined extremely bright, only to see their performance plateau, their health suffer, and their satisfaction wane.

We met a couple years after we had both burnt out, and as we shared our stories over a few beers, we realized they were quite similar. At the time, we were both beginning our second lives: Steve as a performance scientist and budding coach of endurance athletes, and Brad as an emerging writer. Both of us were embarking on new journeys, and we couldn’t help but wonder: Could we reach the highest levels of performance without repeating our previous failings?

Whether in school, the office, the artist’s studio, or the arena, at some point most of us have experienced a desire to take our game to the next level. And that’s a good thing. The process of setting a goal on the outer boundaries of what we think is possible, and then systematically pursuing it, is one of the most fulfilling parts about being human. It’s also a good thing that we want to take our game to the next level because, more than ever, we have no other choice.

Though it may seem like a dire one, Chatterjee’s prediction is not unique. Another expert who agrees with him is Erik Parens, a behavioral scientist at the ethics think tank The Hastings Center. He says that the epidemic of stimulant use in America is simply a symptom of modern life: on your game 24/7, tethered to your email, needing to perform better today than you did yesterday. But that doesn’t mean this lifestyle, nor the stimulant use required to support it, is a good thing. As we’ll soon learn, drugs or no drugs, performing in this nonstop manner without sufficient rest is suboptimal at best and dangerous at worse. A culture that pushes people to break the law and cheat just to stay in the game, let alone get ahead, is not a good one—nor is it sustainable.

Kastor says she realized early on that simply working hard wouldn’t do. She’s even called her workouts the easy part. What sets her apart, the magic that has allowed her to run so fast and so far for the past 25 years, is how she recovers: the 10 to 12 hours of sleep she gets each night; her meticulous approach to diet; her weekly massage and stretching sessions. In other words, it’s all the things she does when she isn’t training that allows her to do what she does when she is. Stress demands rest, and rest supports stress. Kastor has mastered the inputs, and understands how much stress she can tolerate and how much rest she requires. Thus, the output—a lifetime of growth and excellence—isn’t all that surprising.

Less known than his work on flow, but equally insightful, is Csikszentmihalyi’s study of creativity. Over the course of 50 years, he conducted hundreds of interviews with field-altering geniuses from diverse domains. He spoke with groundbreaking inventors, innovative artists, Nobel Prize–winning scientists, and Pulitzer Prize–winning writers. Just as Seiler found that world-class endurance athletes migrate toward a similar style of work, Csikszentmihalyi found that the same held true for creative geniuses: the brightest minds spend their time either pursuing an activity with ferocious intensity, or engaging in complete restoration and recovery.

PERFORMANCE PRACTICES •Alternate between cycles of stress and rest in your most important pursuits. •Insert short breaks throughout your work over the course of a day. •Strategically time your “off-days,” long weekends, and vacations to follow periods of heavy stress. •Determine when your work regularly starts to suffer. When you find that point, insert a recovery break just prior to it.

It seems we have a single reservoir of brainpower for all acts of cognition and self-control, even those that are unrelated. When people are asked to suppress their emotions when under duress—for example, not showing frustration or sadness while watching a tragic film—they subsequently struggle on a wide range of unrelated tasks, such as resisting tempting foods or storing items in working memory. The phenomenon doesn’t stop there. Even physical challenges (e.g., performing a wall sit) can be impaired by exerting your mental muscle beforehand. Research shows that even if their bodies are fresh, the physical performance of people who are mentally fatigued suffers. Put differently, the boundaries between mental and physical fatigue are not nearly as defined as we think.

The good news is that just like the body, by stressing and allowing the mind to recover it also becomes stronger. Scientists have discovered that the more we resist temptation, think deeply, or focus intensely, the better we become at doing so. A new line of research contests that willpower in particular is not as limited as scientists once thought, and suggests that by successfully completing smaller productive changes we can build the strength to complete larger ones in the future. Either way, whether it is the result of willpower, ego-depletion, or some other mechanism, we cannot continuously use our mind (at least not effectively) without at some point experiencing fatigue. And we cannot take on more sizeable psychological challenges without first building strength through smaller ones. All of this takes us back to where we started: stress + rest = growth.

PERFORMANCE PRACTICES •Remember that “stress is stress”: fatigue on one task spills over into the next, even if the two are completely unrelated. •Only take on a few challenges at once. Otherwise you’ll literally run out of energy. •Tweak your environment to support your goals. This is especially important at times when you know you’ll be depleted. It’s incredible how much our surroundings impact our behavior, especially when we are fatigued. fatigue—be it to resist temptation, make tough decisions, or work on challenging cognitive tasks—it, too, won’t function very well. This fatigue might lead you to eat cookies, give up on solving a tough intellectual problem, or even prematurely give in during physical challenges. In the worst case, you might even cheat on your significant other.

Josh Waitzkin first discovered chess in New York City’s Washington Square Park when he was 6 years old. He set out to the park intent on playing on the monkey bars but when he arrived, Waitzkin was captivated by the fast-paced games of chess being played by adults across the way. The checkered board and the pieces that moved across it were a miniature world that Waitzkin would soon throw himself into and, eventually, master.

Selye and those who would build upon his work started stressing humans and observed the same phenomenon that they saw in rats. But they also noticed something else. Over time, humans and rats alike seemed to adapt to each unique stressor, building up increased resistance. Certain stressors could even produce desirable effects, strengthening the specific part of the body that was under duress. They learned that stress isn’t just harmful; it can also serve as a stimulus for growth and adaptation.

These complaints have merit. Drilling specific, testable facts in preparation for rigid, standardized tests doesn’t promote learning. Rather, science shows that learning demands open-ended exploration that allows students to reach beyond their individual limits. In a series of studies involving middle school and high school math classes, students who were forced to struggle on complex problems before receiving help from teachers outperformed students who received immediate assistance. The authors of these studies summarized their findings in a simple yet elegant statement: Skills come from struggle.

Another study, titled “Why Do Only Some Events Cause Learning During Human Tutoring?”, found the answer was straightforward: because most tutors swoop in with answers and support far too early. In surveying different university-level physics tutoring systems, the researchers discovered that “regardless of the tutorial explanations employed, when students were not at an impasse, learning was uncommon.” The most effective tutoring systems, on the other hand, all shared one thing: They delayed instruction until students reached the point of failure. Growth comes at the point of resistance. Skills come from struggle.

Nic Lamb is one of the best big-wave surfers in the world. He rides waves that are as tall as four-story buildings. Though his performances on the water seem magical, they are grounded in a meticulous approach to training and a bulletproof mindset that he cultivates day in and day out. When Brad interviewed Lamb for Outside magazine, he was especially interested to learn how Lamb prepares himself to face the strongest swells. Lamb’s secret lies in making himself uncomfortable. “During training, I seek out and try to ride waves that scare me,” Lamb said. “It’s only when you step outside your comfort zone that you grow. Being uncomfortable is the path to personal development and growth. It is the opposite of complacency.”

What Waitzkin, students who learn successfully, and Lamb practice is something known as “productive failure.” There is broad scientific consensus that the most profound learning occurs when we experience this sort of failure. Rather than simply answering a specific question, it is beneficial to be challenged and even to fail. Failure provides an opportunity to analyze a problem from different angles, pushing us to understand its deep underlying structure and to hone the transferrable skill of problem-solving itself. Sure, immediate assistance can be highly satisfying. But when we succumb to the impulse for instant resolution, we miss out on a special kind of deep learning that only a challenge can spawn.

Nobel Prize–winning psychologist Daniel Kahneman, PhD, states that the human mind is divided into two types of thinking: System 1 and System 2. System 1 operates automatically and quickly. It is often driven by instinct and intuition. System 2, on the other hand, is more thoughtful and analytical and addresses effortful mental activities. System 1 is our default mode of thinking, because it requires less energy. When we are on autopilot, System 1 is at work and our current mental model of the world dominates. It’s only when we activate System 2, by really working hard and struggling to figure something out, that we have the best chance of examining new information critically and integrating it into our web of knowledge. True learning requires System 2.

PERFORMANCE PRACTICES •Stress stimulates growth. •As the chess prodigy turned martial arts champion Josh Waitzkin says, “growth comes at the point of resistance.” •Developing a new capability requires effort: Skills come from struggle. •When you struggle, System 2 is activated and true development is underway; myelin is accumulating and neural connections are strengthening. •Fail productively: Only seek out support after you’ve allowed yourself to struggle.

Just-manageable challenges manifest when you take on something that makes you feel a little out of control but not quite anxious or overly aroused.2 When the task at hand is a bit beyond your skills you’re in the sweet spot. Any less of a challenge and you’d feel like “I’ve got this in the bag.” It’d be too easy and not stressful enough to serve as a stimulus for growth. Any more of a challenge, however, and the unnerving feeling of your heartbeat pounding in your ears would make it hard to focus. What you’re after is the sweet spot: when the challenge at hand is on the outer edge of, or perhaps just beyond, your current skills.

The workouts that Steve designs for his world-class distance runners such as Sara Hall are prime examples of just-manageable challenges. Prior to finishing near the top of the field in the 2016 World Half Marathon Championships, Hall completed a 15-mile tempo run at a staggering 5:30 per mile pace, ever so slightly faster than she ever had before. These workouts are designed to stretch limits, pushing runners beyond their current abilities. As a result, it’s not uncommon for Steve’s athletes to show up to practice a bit nervous. Some may even question whether they will be able to complete the workout. While armchair sports psychologists might say this kind of doubt and uncertainty is a negative, Steve has a different take. A little doubt and uncertainty is actually a good thing: It signals that a growth opportunity has emerged.

Consider the activities you engage in on an average day. Where do they fall on Csikszentmihalyi’s diagram? Are you pursuing growth in a healthy, sustainable way? We aren’t suggesting that you spend all of your time immersed in just-manageable challenges. Doing so is probably not very practical. Plus, you still need to recover in between bouts of stress for the effort to be beneficial. What we are suggesting, however, is that for the capabilities you wish to grow—whether they be financial modeling, portrait painting, distance running, or anything in between—you should regularly seek out just-manageable challenges: activities that take you out of your comfort zone and force you to push at the point of resistance for growth.

PERFORMANCE PRACTICES •Think of a skill/capability that you want to grow. •Assess your current ability to perform this skill/capability. •Actively seek out challenges that just barely exceed your ability. •If you feel fully in control, make the next challenge a bit harder. •If you feel anxious or so aroused that you can’t focus, dial things down a notch.

In the early 1990s, a behavioral scientist named K. Anders Ericsson, PhD, set out to investigate how people become experts. At the time, prevailing wisdom held that experience was the key. That is, the more time someone spent practicing something, the better they would become at doing that task. Eventually, Ericsson reasoned, an accumulation of experience—perhaps with a little help from the right DNA—culminated in expertise. But not long after Ericsson began his project, an entirely different story emerged.

Ericsson and his research team went on to conduct additional studies on athletes, artists, and intellectuals. They found the same thing every time: It isn’t experience that sets top performers apart but the amount of deliberate practice they put in. Although Ericsson would become associated with the Malcolm Gladwell–popularized 10,000-hour rule—the notion that anyone can become an expert at anything by practicing for 10,000 hours—his actual findings represent something quite different. Expertise is not about a certain number of hours practiced. Rather, it’s about the type of work that fills those hours. Practice doesn’t make perfect. Perfect practice makes perfect.

So what exactly makes perfect practice? Ericsson found that top performers actively seek out just-manageable challenges, setting goals for practice sessions that just barely exceed their current capabilities. But that is only half the story. What really differentiates deliberate practice is deep concentration.

He compartmentalizes his day down to the hour. Each compartment has a concrete objective. These objectives range from, for example: write 500 words for a paper; learn enough about a company to make an investment decision; have a free-flowing conversation with an interesting person; keep his heart rate at 80 percent of its maximum in a fitness class; influence a decision maker in a highly political meeting; enjoy dinner with his wife and kids. This type of compartmentalization ensures he follows his governing rule: “Do only one thing at a time.” Dr. Bob’s secret to doing so much is doing so little. He is the ultimate single-tasker.

We love multitasking because when we do multiple things at once, we feel more productive and experience greater emotional satisfaction. An internal voice in our subconscious mind says, “Look at everything I am accomplishing. Look at all of the boxes I am checking off my list.” In a society that encourages and rewards “optimization” and “multiple processes,” we can’t help but want to “optimize” ourselves. Unfortunately, our brains don’t work like computers. For 99 percent of us,1 effective multitasking is nothing more than effective delusional thinking.

PERFORMANCE PRACTICES Apply the components of perfect practice each time you set out to do meaningful work: •Define a purpose and concrete objectives for each working session. •Ask yourself: What do I want to learn or get done? •Focus and concentrate deeply, even if doing so isn’t always enjoyable. •Single-task: The next time you feel like multitasking, remind yourself that research shows it’s not effective. Keep in mind Dr. Bob’s secret: “Do only one thing at a time.” •Remember that quality trumps quantity.

PERFORMANCE PRACTICES •Identify what interrupts your deep focus. Common intruders, many of which are enabled by smartphones, include: Text messages Social media The internet Television •Remove distractors: Remember that only out of sight truly leads to out of mind.

In his years of studying experts, Ericsson found that top performers across all fields are unable to sustain intense work and deep concentration for more than 2 hours. Outside of rare, short-term situations, once this threshold is passed, neither the body nor the mind can sustain the workload. Great performers, Ericsson found, generally work in chunks of 60 to 90 minutes separated by short breaks.

While the exact work-to-rest ratio depends on the demands of the job and individual preferences, the overall theme is clear: alternating between blocks of 50 to 90 minutes of intense work and recovery breaks of 7 to 20 minutes enables people to sustain the physical, cognitive, and emotional energy required for peak performance. This ebb and flow runs counter to the all-too-common constant grind of either perpetually working in an “inbetween zone” of moderately hard work or working at the utmost intensity nonstop. Neither of these more traditional approaches is ideal. The former leads to under-performance. The latter leads to physical, cognitive, and emotional fatigue and, eventually, burnout.

•Divide your work into chunks of 50 to 90 minutes (this may vary by task). Start even smaller if you find yourself struggling to maintain attention. •As you develop “fitness” in whatever it is you are doing, you’ll likely find that you can work longer and harder. •For most activities and most situations, 2 hours should be the uppermost limit for a working block.

A 2010 study found that the small portion of Americans who view stress as facilitative have a 43 percent lower chance of premature death than those who view stress as destructive. The obvious explanation, or course, is that the people with a positive outlook toward stress developed that mindset because they didn’t experience stress very often. That is, if you’re never feeling stressed, then of course you would think that stress isn’t so bad. But when the researchers compared the total number of stressful events that each group experienced, they were shocked to discover that the number was virtually the same. Researchers controlled for just about every variable besides mindset and still saw significant mortality differences. Could something as simple as one’s attitude about stress truly contribute to extending life?

Some individuals learn to assess stressors as challenges rather than threats. This outlook, which researchers call a “challenge response,” is characterized by viewing stress as something productive, and, much like we’ve written, as a stimulus for growth. In the midst of stress, those who demonstrate a challenge response proactively focus on what they can control. With this outlook, negative emotions like fear and anxiety decrease. This response better enables these individuals to manage and even thrive under stress. But that’s not all. Just like our mindset about milkshakes changes our deep biological profile, so, too, does our mindset about stress.

Additional research, published in the Journal of Experimental Psychology, shows that instead of trying to calm yourself down, “reappraising pre-performance anxiety as excitement” is often advantageous. When you try to suppress pre-event nerves, you are inherently telling yourself that something is wrong. Not only does this make the situation worse, but it also takes emotional and physical energy to fight off the feeling of anxiety—energy that could be better spent on the task at hand. Fortunately, according to the authors of this paper, simply telling yourself “I am excited” shifts your demeanor from what they call a threat mindset (stressed out and apprehensive) to an opportunity mindset (revved up and ready to go).

“Compared to those who attempt to calm down,” the authors conclude, “individuals who reappraise their anxious arousal as excitement perform better.”

We explored how stress, when it is at the right dose, serves as a powerful stimulus for growth; how skills come from struggle and productive failure; and the value of actively seeking out just-manageable challenges. We also learned how to stress ourselves: in blocks that last under 2 hours, with deep focus, deliberate practice, and with our digital devices out of the picture. Finally, we saw how our mindset affects not only how we perceive stress, but also how we respond to it.

PERFORMANCE PRACTICES •Remember the power of mindset: How you view something fundamentally changes how your body responds to it. •In situations when you feel the sensation of stress, remind yourself this is your body’s natural way of preparing for a challenge; take a deep breath and channel the heightened arousal and sharper perception toward the task at hand. •Challenge yourself to view stress productively, and even to welcome it. You’ll not only perform better, you’ll also improve your health.

In the early days of Google, employee #107, Chade-Meng Tan, observed that while he and his colleagues had no problem “turning it on,” they struggled mightily to “turn it off.” Taking short breaks, let alone disconnecting from work in the evenings and on weekends, was impossible. Even if early Googlers wanted to rest, the pace and thrill of their work made it hard to do. Google was growing fast, but Tan had the wisdom to realize that this style of work—stress without rest—was unsustainable.

The calm conversation goes something like this: “This is starting to hurt now. It should. I’m running hard. But I am separate from this pain. It is going to be okay.” Just like the expert meditators, Steve’s best runners choose how they respond to the stress of a workout. Their amygdalas are not hijacked. Although not all of Steve’s elite runners meditate, they’ve all developed a strong mindful muscle through the years of deep, solitary focus that being an elite runner demands. Steve hasn’t scanned their brains, but we’d wager that if he did, he’d find their prefrontal cortexes are bursting with gray matter.

PERFORMANCE PRACTICES •Grow your mindful muscle. The best way to do so is by practicing mindfulness meditation: Choose a time when other distractions are minimized, such as first thing in the morning, after brushing your teeth, or before going to bed. Sit in a comfortable position, ideally in a quiet space. Set a timer so you aren’t distracted by thoughts about the passage of time. Begin breathing deeply, in and out through your nose. Allow your breath to settle back into its natural rhythm and focus on nothing but the sensation of breathing, noticing the rise and fall of your abdomen with each breath; if thoughts arise, notice them, but then let them go. Direct your focus back to the sensation of the breath. Start with just 1 minute and gradually increase duration, adding 30 to 45 seconds every few days. •Frequency trumps duration. It’s best to meditate daily, even if that means keeping individual sessions short. •Apply your growing mindfulness abilities in everyday life. •Have “calm conversations” during stressful periods. •Realize when you want to “turn it off” and then choose to leave stress behind. Pausing to take a few deep breaths helps to activate the prefrontal cortex, your brain’s command and control center.

Although Goss was never a serious athlete, he was following the art of periodization: stressing his mind and then letting it recover only to find new ideas, to grow. Goss isn’t the only game-changer who experienced unprecedented success when he stepped away. Next, we’ll turn to the story of another great performer, this time a serious athlete, whose courage to rest yielded a different kind of breakthrough. It’s the story of a runner named Roger Bannister.

Think of what follows as a menu of “rest” options from which you can strategically choose.

In a study cleverly titled Give Your Ideas Some Legs: The Positive Effect of Walking on Creative Thinking, researchers from Stanford University examined the effects of a short walking break. They instructed subjects to take short walking breaks outdoors, indoors, or not at all. Following their walk, they assessed participants’ creativity. They asked them to generate as many nontraditional uses as possible for common items. For example, a tire could be used as a floatation device, as a basketball hoop, or as a swing. (This is called a Guilford’s Alternate Uses Test and is a commonly used method for measuring creativity.) Those who took as brief as a 6-minute walk outdoors increased creativity by more than 60 percent versus those who had remained seated at their desks.

Although you can use social recovery throughout the day, it’s only effective if the environment is relaxed. Going to coffee with a colleague only to discuss work won’t do you much good. That’s why we recommend this strategy for the end of your workday. But that doesn’t mean it’s easy. When we are feeling stressed, often our natural inclination is to retreat inward and wall ourselves off from the outside world. In the worst cases, the stress lingers and grows and we put ourselves at risk for a vicious cycle of rumination: Just ask an athlete who finished an intense training session and isn’t feeling so good about it; an artist who got nothing done at the studio; or a businessperson who had a rough day at the office. Even though we may not always want to be sociable, the benefits of surrounding ourselves with friends and kicking back are enormous, especially following demanding situations.

PERFORMANCE PRACTICES •Have the courage to take breaks throughout the day, especially when you are stuck or feeling unbearable stress; the more intense the work, the more frequent the breaks. •Take a walk lasting at least 6 minutes to increase creativity and decrease the ill effects of sitting. If you can, walk outdoors, but even taking a few laps around the office provides big benefits. •Put yourself in the way of beauty. Being in nature, or even just looking at pictures of nature, helps with the transition from stress to rest and promotes creative thinking. •Meditate. Begin with a few mindful breaths, focusing only on the breath. Then, consider shifting to open-monitoring meditation, scanning your body and shifting your awareness to all of its sensations. •Hang out with friends! At the end of hard work—be it with your body or your mind—surrounding yourself with friends in a laid-back environment fundamentally alters your biology from stress to rest.

We grow in our sleep.

When we take short naps, the part of our brain that is always on when we are awake has the opportunity to take a break. Much like a fatigued muscle rejuvenates during a short breather, so, too, does this part of our brain. In a critical review on the efficacy of napping, sleep scientists found that a 10-minute nap yields the greatest benefits, though most experts say anything under 30 minutes is effective. Even if you don’t actually experience the sensation of falling asleep, simply closing your eyes can help switch your active brain off, allowing it to recover. Staying asleep for more than 30 minutes, however, can be counterproductive. This is because with longer naps we run the risk of waking up feeling even groggier and more sluggish than before we fell asleep.

PERFORMANCE PRACTICES •Sleep is productive. •Aim for at least 7 to 9 hours of sleep per night. For those doing intense physical activity, 10 hours is not too much. •The best way to figure out the right amount of sleep for you is to spend 10 to 14 days going to sleep when you are tired and waking up without an alarm clock. Take the average sleep time. That’s what you need. •For a better night’s sleep, follow these tips, consolidated from the world’s leading researchers: Ensure you expose yourself to natural (i.e., non-electric) light throughout the day. This will help you maintain a healthy circadian rhythm. Exercise. Vigorous physical activity makes us tired. When we are tired, we sleep. But don’t exercise too close to bedtime. Limit caffeine intake, and phase it out completely 5 to 6 hours prior to your bedtime. Only use your bed for sleep and sex. Not for eating, watching television, working on your laptop, or anything else. The one exception is reading a paper book prior to bed. Don’t drink alcohol close to bedtime. Although alcohol can hasten the onset of sleep, it often disrupts the later and more important stages. Limit blue light exposure in the evening. Don’t start working on hard, stressful activities—be them mental or physical—after dinner. If you struggle with a racing mind, try inserting a brief mindfulness meditation session prior to bed. When you feel yourself getting drowsy, don’t fight it. Whatever you are doing can wait until the morning. Keep your room as...

strategically insert longer periods of rest to follow longer periods of stress.