It's a bit a weird period of time right now. If you look back, you can still remember the holidays and New Year's eve as if it was yesterday. At the other hand, things are all running back as if they never stopped. This is the weird 10% mark.
(yes, almost 10% of 2018 is already over!)
It's like starting a hike. After 10% of the trail the excitement of getting started fades away, but there's still a very long route (90%) in front of you.
You're too far to go back, and it's still too long to start counting down.
So how are you going to keep up?
Read along to find out!
The attentive readers of my blog have probably noticed it. It's been 6 weeks since my last blog arrived in your mailbox...and there's a good reason for that!
In my twenties, I was pretty deep into competitive athletics. Once a year we had a ritual to completely stop our trainings and competition. For about 4 to 6 weeks we didn't do anything of our normal running exercises and drills.
Of course we stayed active, but with completely other things: cycling, squash, swimming, basketball,...
It was called active recuperation.
The goal of it was simple: refuel your body for the next season.
On a physical level this is very straightforward: if you train less or use different muscles, then your body can recuperate. But is was more then that. It was also aiming on mental and emotional recuperation. We could just play for a few weeks, no pressure, no performance. It was there to make us hungry again for the next season. Hungry enough to put back in all the effort that we could to train with all the discipline that is required to perform at the highest level.
Now I applied the same principle for my blogging: 6 weeks of non-blogging!
To give me some rest, to make me hungry again!
Top sport coaches, like Paul Van Den Bosch, say the exact same thing:
one of the most important roles of a coach working with top performers is to slow them down!
In that way you can stay fresh and you can be at your best once you need to be!
Now I know that there is a big difference between sports and business. In sports you have seasons, training time and performance time. In business you don't have that, you always need to perform at our highest level (or at least that's what we think).
Well, I challenge you!
Where could you build in some "seasons" in you business?
When is your peak performance time, and when could you be "off-season"?
There are probably many good reasons you can come up with why you can't build in "seasons" in your professional performance. But if you're feeling tired of the things you're doing, if you're looking back at your New Year's resolutions and you notice that 2018 is actually not very different from 2017, if at this 10% mark you feel taken over by routines again, or if your creativity is very limited, then it's exactly the right time to immediately stop with those things that you do most, and allow yourself a 4 to 6 weeks "off-season" period in that area!
You don't need to take vacation, you can stay active, it's just that one thing you stop doing.
Perhaps you can switch one task for 4 to 6 weeks with a co-worker?
Perhaps you can delegate a certain activity to someone else for 4 to 6 weeks?
Perhaps you can just postpone specific things for 4 to 6 weeks?
If you do so, you will be surprised by the effect of the mental, emotional and physical recuperation you give yourself!
So go ahead, look for those things that seem very hard to maintain for another 90% of the year, and give yourself a 4 to 6 weeks break from those things.
Strategic stopping is one of the best performance boosters there is, so make use of it right now!
And if it sounds very scary to stop doing something you've been doing for so long, or if you don't know how to postpone, stop, switch or delegate it, then please feel free to reach out to me. I would love to slow you down!
(just choose for a free (re-)connect session so we can have a chat about your situation)
Written by
Dennis Fredrickx, the Business Booster
Dennis helps Ambitious Leaders to reach more in an easier way.
.jpg)
