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

by Brad Stulberg

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.

In the world of exercise science, this cycle of stress and rest is often referred to as periodization.

Immersion: total engagement in their work with deep, unremitting focus 2.Incubation: a period of rest and recovery when they are not at all thinking about their work 3.Insight: the occurrence of “aha” or “eureka” moments—the emergence of new ideas and growth in their thinking

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.

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.

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.”

“productive failure.” There is broad scientific consensus that the most profound learning occurs when we experience this sort of failure.

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.

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.

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

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.

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.

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.

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.

Telling someone they can keep their cell phone within arm’s reach but cannot check it is not much different than telling a drug addict he can keep a loaded syringe in plain sight but may not use it.

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.

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.

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.

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.

PERFORMANCE PRACTICES •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.

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.

In 1942, the average American slept 7.9 hours every night. Today, that number is down to 6.8 hours.

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 dark as possible. If feasible, consider black-out blinds. Keep your smartphone OUT of the bedroom entirely. Not on silent. Out. •Try taking a nap of 10 to 30 minutes to help restore energy and focus if you hit a mid-afternoon lull.

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.

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.

PERFORMANCE PRACTICES •Create “a place of your own” in which you do your most important work. •Surround yourself with objects that invite your desired behaviors. •Consistently work in that same place, using the same materials. •Over time, your environment will enhance your productivity on a deep neurological level.

PERFORMANCE PRACTICES •Link key behaviors to specific cues and/or routines. •Be consistent and frequent; execute the same cue/routine every time prior to the behavior to which it is paired. •If possible, link key activities to the same context (e.g., time of day, physical environment, etc.). •If your pursuit requires variable settings, develop portable cues/routines that can be executed anywhere (e.g., a deep-breathing routine, self-talk, etc.). •Consistency is king. The best routine means nothing if you don’t regularly practice it.

1When Billingslea makes a “mistake,” no one else notices, not even other members of the band. Still, he told us that a mistake can really throw him off, which is ironic since no one but he would notice he is “off.” It is this relentless pursuit and expectation of personal excellence that epitomizes so many great performers.

PERFORMANCE PRACTICES •Become a minimalist to be a maximalist. •Reflect on all the decisions that you make throughout a day. •Identify ones that are unimportant, that don’t really matter to you. •Automate as many of the decisions that don’t really matter as you can. Common examples include decisions about: Clothing What to eat at meals When to complete daily activities (e.g., always exercise at the same time of the day so you literally don’t need to think about it) Whether to attend social gatherings (It’s not always a good idea, but during important periods of work, many great performers adopt a strict policy of saying no to social events.) •In addition to eliminating as many decisions as possible, don’t devote brainpower to gossip, politics, or worrying about what others think of you. (Unless, of course, your core mission is to be an elected official—then these things are, in fact, critically important.) •In addition to reflecting upon daily decisions, think about the second- and third-order effects (e.g., commute time, financial pressures, etc.) of larger life decisions, like where to live.

PERFORMANCE PRACTICES •Determine your chronotype using the previous tools and suggestions. •Design your day accordingly—be very intentional about when you schedule certain activities, matching the demands of the activity with your energy level. Protect the time during which you are most alert and use it for your most important work. Schedule less demanding tasks during periods in which you are less alert. Don’t fight fatigue! Rather, use this time for recovery and to generate creative ideas that you can act on during your next cycle of high energy and focus. •Work in alignment with your chronotype—it not only maximizes performance, but it also helps to ensure an appropriate balance between stress and rest.

“Culture eats strategy for breakfast.”

PERFORMANCE PRACTICES •Recognize the enormous power of the people with whom you surround yourself. •Positive energy, motivation, and drive are all contagious. Do what you can to cultivate your own village of support, to surround yourself with a culture of performance. •Remember that by being positive and showing motivation, you are not only helping yourself, but you are also helping everyone else in your life. •Unfortunately, negativity and pessimism are also contagious. Don’t put up with too much of either. A chain is only as strong as its weakest link.

PERFORMANCE PRACTICES •Our “ego” or “self” or “central governor” serves as a protective mechanism that holds us back from reaching our true limits. •When faced with great challenges, our ego is biologically programmed to shut us down, telling us to turn in the other direction. •By focusing on a self-transcending purpose, or a reason for doing something beyond our “self,” we can override our ego and break through our self-imposed limits. •To the extent you can, link your activities to a greater purpose (more on how to do this in Chapter 9). This way, when you are faced with formidable challenges and your mind is telling you to quit, you can ask yourself why you are undertaking them. If the answer is “for someone or something greater than myself,” you’ll be more likely to push onward. •Thinking less about your “self” is one of the best ways to improve yourself.

“A man who becomes conscious of the responsibility he bears toward a human being who affectionately waits for him, or to an unfinished work, will never be able to throw away his life.”

PERFORMANCE PRACTICES •We are constantly balancing perception of effort, or how hard something feels, with motivation. •If we want to endure more effort, which often leads to better performance, we may need to increase our motivation. •The best way to increase motivation is to link our work to a greater purpose or cause. •Not only will focusing on activities that help others make the world a better place, it will also make you a better performer. •Especially when we are feeling tired or worn out, we should think about why we are doing what we are doing.

PERFORMANCE PRACTICES •Find opportunities to give back in the context of your work; these can be more intensive, such as coaching and mentoring, or less intensive, such as posting sincere advice in online forums. •The only criteria is that your “giving” is closely linked to your work and that you give without the expectation of getting anything back. •While “giving” is especially powerful for preventing and reversing burnout, you should still aim to avoid burnout by supporting stress with appropriate rest.