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

by Brad Stulberg

Data shows the use of antidepressants by Americans has risen by 400 percent in the past decade and anxiety is at an all-time high.

triggered by the environment we live in,

artificial intelligence is increasingly exerting pressure on human performance.

Tufekci, PhD, a professor at the University of North Carolina who studies the social impacts of technology, writes, “The machines are getting smarter, and they’re coming for more and more jobs.”

Stephen Hawking, serial inventor Elon Musk, Google’s director of research Peter Norvig, and others cosigned an open letter calling for researchers to take special care in developing new artificial intelligence. Hawking told the BBC, “The primitive forms of artificial intelligence we already have proved very useful. But I think the development of full artificial intelligence could spell the end of the human race.”

neuro Bliss—a drink that promises to reduce stress and enhance brain and body function. It sells for over $2 a bottle. While the company’s website says, “In a fast-paced world, neuro

drinks help to level the playing field,” we’ve yet to see any science that backs up this claim. Yet neuro Bliss continues to be a popular-selling drink.

People are desperate for an edge—any edge—even if there is no science to suggest that such an “edge” exists. Unfortunately, this kind of desperation is often the first step down a dangerous path into the world of exp...

hammer home key points and help you reflect on how you can apply them to your own life.

The key to strengthening your biceps—and, as we’ll learn, any muscle, be it physical, cognitive, or emotional—is balancing the right amount of stress with the right amount of rest. Stress + rest = growth. This equation holds true regardless of what it is that you are trying to grow.

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.

Scientists have discovered that the more we resist temptation, think deeply, or focus intensely, the better we become at doing so.

Stress can be positive, triggering desirable adaptations in the body; or stress can be negative, causing grave damage and harm. The effects of stress depend almost entirely on the dose.

Growth comes at the point of resistance; we learn by pushing ourselves to the outer reaches of our abilities.

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.

“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.”

Lamb embraces the challenge, seeing failure not as a setback but an opportunity to grow.

A little doubt and uncertainty is actually a good thing: It signals that a growth opportunity has emerged.

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.

Grade level and subject have been changed to protect the identities of these teachers. 2Brad first heard the term “just-manageable change” from his undergraduate school professor, Richard Price, PhD, at the University of Michigan.

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.

As Ericsson continued digging up little-known studies, he continued to find surprising results. The number of years a psychologist had under his belt, for example, had no correlation to how successful he was at treating patients. Other research showed that many physicians actually got worse at making diagnoses from radiographic scans as they gained more experience.

In every field that’s been studied (from wine tasting to financial investing), when it came to differentiating top performers, experience was not the critical variable.

In some cases, it was nearly impossible for Ericsson to distinguish between the performances of novices and long-time veterans. Regardless of what angle he examined it from, Ericsson found experien...

So, Ericsson wondered, if not experience, then what is it that mak...

The best violinists spent significantly more time intensely focused on mastering a specific goal, and remained totally present when doing so. They eliminated all distractions. They rarely, if ever, merely went through the motions. The best violinists were practicing, as Ericsson and his team coined it, far more “deliberately” than everyone else.

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.

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.

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.

Across the board, when great performers are doing serious work their bodies and minds are 100 percent there. They are fully engaged in the moment.

By doing one thing at a time and devoting his full concentration to that one thing, Dr. Bob is able to do many things well—from writing and influencing health care policy, to investing in companies, to being a good husband and father.

“It’s not that I can’t multitask,” he says. “But when I do multitask everything suffers. So I just don’t multitask. Ever.”

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.

engaging in a task with singular focus is how we grow from stress.

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.

the best solution for preventing smartphone distraction is to remove it from the picture altogether. It turns out there is a lot of truth in the expression “out of sight, out of mind.”

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.

Great performers, Ericsson found, generally work in chunks of 60 to 90 minutes separated by short breaks.

PERFORMANCE PRACTICES •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.

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. 1Studies show that a little over 1 percent of the population can effectively multitask. Odds are you aren’t in that 1 percent. That’s just how odds work.

meditate, you are strengthening your mindful muscle. It’s a simple practice: •Sit in a comfortable position, ideally in a quiet space. •Breathe deeply for a few breaths, in and out through your nose. •Allow your breath to settle back into its natural rhythm and focus on only the sensations of breathing, noticing the rise and fall of your abdomen with each breath; if thoughts arise, notice them, but then direct your focus back to the rhythm and sensation of your breath. •Set a timer so you don’t have to think about time. Start with just 1 minute and gradually increase the duration.

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.

When you are working on a strenuous mental task and hit an impasse, stop working. •Step away from whatever it is you are doing for at least 5 minutes. •The more stressful the task, the longer your break should be. •For really draining tasks, consider stepping away until the next morning. •During your breaks, if you aren’t sleeping (more on this soon), perform activities that demand little to no effortful thinking. Though we’ll explore in great detail how to fill your breaks in Chapter 5, some examples include: Listening to music Going on a short walk Sitting in nature Taking a shower Doing the dishes •You may have an “aha” moment of insight during your break. If you do, great. Even if you don’t have an “aha” moment during your break, your subconscious mind is still at work. When you return to whatever it is you were doing, you’ll be more likely to make progress.

what separates the best from the rest. The answer, he told us, is the rest.

We learned that we do our best work in cycles of intense effort followed by short breaks.

PERFORMANCE PRACTICES •Have the courage to takes 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.

Sleep is one of the most productive things we can do. We don’t grow when we’re in the gym or when we’re immersed in our work: We grow in our sleep.