REWRITING THE DEFINITION OF HIGH PERFORMANCE
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Recharge to sustain your
best self
Have you ever been in a state of flow? This state of being is a recognised psychological state in which ideas bloom effortlessly, you feel a sense of spaciousness, time seems to warp and expand, and the work you create sparkles. What’s activated? Thinking, feeling and sensing intelligence – all at play, together. We call this your EQ bliss zone.
Welcome to a modern high-performance state. If it’s been a while since you’ve experienced it, it’s time to make moves and bring it back into your everyday life - it’s time to evolve your high-performance skills.
Too often, we get caught in the trap of going full speed ahead. Unconsciously, we choose ‘faster’ as the only option for getting the to-do list done. If that’s you, have you noticed your ability to get good work done start to slip?
Let’s use the analogy of driving a car. Just as we don’t drive 100km down every street, we also need to pay attention to the urge to get to ‘any outcome’ on every task or deliverable.
If you feel like your productivity isn’t quite what it used to be, great! It’s a clear sign that you need to add a few new ways of being productive to your toolkit. Fifth gear does not have to be your only option.
When you learn to take your foot off the pedal and make time for your thinking and body to recharge, you can activate high-performance mode – and that has major dividends for your productivity.
What does your high-performance look like now?
The first step to finding your high-performance rhythm is to get really familiar with what high-performance looks (and feels) like for you. This will help you shift the notion that productivity is all about action and repetition on high gear.
Think about how it feels to do your best work and the kind of results you create when you’re in this state of flow. When is it most likely to kick in? Does it occur at certain times of the day? Certain times of the month? What about seasons? It might arise naturally when you do a certain type of work – for example, when you’re presenting, writing or in design, perhaps when developing a business strategy.
Reflect now - check in with your internal rules and ways of thinking, too. Ask yourself what was going on in and around you the last time you felt like you were performing at your best. Did you have a great night’s sleep? Did you exercise that morning? Were you still on a high from your weekend? What time of day was it? All these variables are important keys that will help you to unlock a higher performance mode.
Recharge your best self
Ever heard the phrase, ‘nothing works, unless you do’? It holds especially true when we talk about sustainable high performance.
If you’re stuck in fifth gear, hurtling along at 100km per hour all day every day, you’ll find yourself hitting burnout before you know it.
Just like your phone or laptop (or your planet-friendly hybrid car!), you need to recharge regularly to perform optimally. Think about this for a moment – what feeling do you experience when your phone or laptop gives you the ‘10% battery left’ message? Panic? Speed up your fingers on the keyboard? Go running for a charger? Our phones and laptops usually get docked and charged each day so they can start running on 100% again. How often do you do that for yourself? Or are you constantly running on 10% battery?
When the outside world is reactive and constantly changing, stepping back and recharging needs to happen more often for us as humans as well. Your systems belong on autopilot, not you.
Rather than launching from one project or deadline to the next and feeling exhausted between each sprint, paying attention to when you need to recharge – and knowing what rhythm, rituals and routines work personally for you – is crucial to activating and sustaining your high-performance mode.
In our Sustainable PACE online program, we’re redefining high performance. By definition sustainable is the ability to perform over long periods of time in an optimal state and is one of the first shifts we help our foundhers implement. Get clarity on where your time is going, and learn to recharge you. Our first step is supporting you to find the small, everyday recharge routines, from movement to intentional learning to a sensory switch-off ritual to allow cognitive rest.
Typically, these small practices have an immediate and noticeable impact on performance –and it’s learning to value your boundaries and protecting these rituals and prioritising them in the daily schedule that can become the biggest hurdle to overcome. We provide performance coaching in PACE that supports you to work on that, too.
Here’s a few of the small shifts with big impact our PACE participants experienced in week two that’s helped them recognise the deep value of recharging:
“You are worthy of performing at your best.” – Penny
“I matter enough to create small spaces in my day/week to be my best” – Ruth
“This morning routine stuff works! Felt really focused and calmer today after following all five steps this morning.” – Jen
Your recharge sweet spot
Are you ready to switch gears and find your own sustainable performance rhythm? Try experimenting with your own mix of recharging rituals to discover what boosts your battery.
At foundher, we love a daily combination of movement, meditation, learning, gratitude and conscious planning in the morning, and a restful wind-down routine at night. But, everyone is different, so what recharges, energises and replenishes you will be unique.
Start to notice and think how you could start your morning in a way that sets you up for a high-performance day.
We’re all about creating a sustainable high performance rhythm – one that connects who you are being and what you are doing. We believe going faster is not the answer. And we suspect your mind and body are giving you signals that say so too. When you take the time to listen to your body’s need to rest and reboot, not only will you begin to realise exactly what you need to do your best work, you’ll be able to activate those ingredients more often. It’s time to plan yourself into your life, not out of it. We want you to find her, again.
And when high performance becomes your default mode, you can really be somebody who does something about that.
If you want to set a new foundational state for your own sustainable high-performance productivity rhythm for good, take a look at our online PACE program.