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October 14 - December 4, 2017
vacations. But to the extent that you can, we encourage you to be thoughtful about when you take your breaks. Research shows that breaks lasting 7 to 10 days have positive effects on motivation, well-being, and health that last up to a month. Other studies have shown that a week-long vacation can diminish or even completely eliminate burnout. But here’s the catch: If the conditions that led to burnout in the first place aren’t resolved, the symptoms of burnout inevitably return just a few weeks later. This is an important insight. It means that contrary to common belief, extended breaks are
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PERFORMANCE PRACTICES •Regardless of the work you do, take at least 1 off-day every week. •Time your off-days strategically to follow periods of accumulated stress. •The more stress, the more rest that is needed. •To the extent that you can, time your vacations strategically to follow longer periods of stress. •On both single off-days and extended vacations, truly disconnect from work. Unplug both physically and mentally and engage in activities that you find relaxing and restorative.
The irony is that resting hard often takes more guts than working hard. Just ask an author like Stephen King (“For me, not working is the real work”) or a runner like Deena Kastor (“My workouts are the easy part”). Feelings of guilt and anxiety creep in when we step away from our work, especially if we perceive that our competition is still going at it. Perhaps
Whether it’s a writer preparing to draft a story, an athlete prepping for competition, or a businessperson heading into a high-stakes presentation, great performers never just hope they’ll be on top of their game. Rather, they actively create the specific conditions that will elicit their personal best, priming themselves for performance.
The time during warmup is much better spent ushering in the physical and psychological zone he hopes to enter.
When Tan first walks into a meeting, he quickly glances around and makes a silent comment to himself about each individual in the room. Unlike the stereotypical corporate operative, Tan isn’t sizing everyone up in preparation for white-collar battle. Rather, he’s taking a brief moment to say something nice about each person, even if he hasn’t yet met them. Melissa is wonderful to work with . . . Jim is a great marketing manager . . . That lady with red hair looks like she is filled with positive energy . . . In doing so, Tan is overriding a common instinctive reaction of seeing each person as
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Equally as important as conjuring a positive mood is avoiding a negative one. In the interest of upping your performance, try to avoid people, places, and things that may put you in a negative mood.
PERFORMANCE PRACTICES •Reflect upon the activities in your life that are most important to you. •Determine what state of mind and/or body they demand. •Prime yourself for performance by readying your mind and/or body prior to key activities. •Test and refine various priming techniques, eventually developing customized routines. •Be consistent: Use the same routine each and every time you engage in the activity to which it is linked (more on the importance of consistency in a bit). •Remember the impact of mood on performance; positivity goes a long way.
Ecological psychology suggests that the objects that surround us are not static; rather, they influence and invite specific behaviors.
What this does mean, however, is that you should identify and strive to cut out all the superficial things in your life. You should be fully intentional with how you spend your most precious resource of all: time. A day in the life
Rather, each individual figured out when they were most alert and focused, and designed their day accordingly.
It turns out the determining factor as to whether the 30 cadets within a squadron improved was the motivation of the least fit person in the group. If the least fit person was motivated to improve, then his enthusiasm spread and everyone improved. If, on the other hand, the least fit person was apathetic or, worse, negative, he dragged everyone down. Just like diseases easily spread through tight-knit groups, so does motivation. And it’s quite contagious.
The best performers are not consistently great, but they are great at being consistent.
Other research suggests that purpose reduces burnout and even helps with adherence to challenging health behaviors like dieting or quitting smoking. All of this makes sense. In situations that feel scary or overwhelming, our brain—our central governor, our ego, our “self”—automatically tries to protect us from failure. It shuts us down and tells us to turn in the other direction. Even if failure doesn’t mean physical injury, our ego doesn’t like emotional injury, either—it doesn’t want to risk getting embarrassed, so it ushers us down the safe route. It’s only when we transcend our “self” that
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When perception of effort is greater than motivation, we slow down or ease up until the two are balanced. It
Self-talk is especially helpful in situations when our bodies and/or minds are telling us to quit, but we want to keep going.
Don’t devote brain power to gossip, politics, or worrying about what others think of you.
Maria Konnikova, “The Work We Do While We Sleep,” The New Yorker, July 8, 2015, http://www.newyorker.com/science/maria-konnikova/why-we-sleep.