The pressure to work harder to succeed has created a culture for many that is difficult to sustain. What’s more, being connected and on tap longer may be causing our personal wellbeing and family life to suffer.
Super-achieving goals and habits may actually be undermining your performance. When is it healthy and when is it counterproductive to keep the work accelerator on for such sustained bursts?
High achievers that push the boundaries will argue that being that way has brought them untold rewards. They know they often overdo it, people tell them to slow down – but the results are there for all to see. Why break a winning streak?
Just stop for a minute and think about yourself. Are you:
If it’s yes to any or all of the above, you’re verging on extremism and at some point when you least expect it, extremes are going to undermine your performance. You might argue about the word extremism – so think of it as an accelerator pedal stuck on WORK HARDER.
Humans are capable of achieving tremendous things, it’s true, but breaking imaginary Guinness World Records is no recipe for longevity.
Research by Yale has found stressful events can reduce the brain’s gray matter in areas regulating emotion, self-control and blood pressure. And this reduced functioning will likely impact future stressful events. The problem is the pre-frontal cortex is impacted and this is essential for planning, decision-making, thinking, learning and remembering.
People need to find healthy ways to manage stress, and healthy ways to work, especially if they are driven to achieve.
What’s the hurry? Who’s really dictating these extremes in your life?
It’s you, isn’t it?
If you’re racing along, trying to exceed your personal best (whether at work or elsewhere), will everything be shot to pieces if you ease up a little? Probably not, but if you’re doubtful or have shareholders riding your coattails, you can ease your frenetic pace without stopping outright.
If you work flat out all the time when do you recharge and how can you build up extra momentum for when it’s really needed? Constantly taking things to the max is sooner or later going to impact – badly – on your body, your mental or emotional health and the lives of those who care about you. We witness tragic testimony to this nearly every day in the news.
There’s plenty of evidence that supports the importance of pacing yourself, for example, when exercising. So, why not see the analogy in other parts of your life? We are not merely built for speed; we are built for survival.
That means:
