Triathletes right now are sliding into the off season, squeezing out the last few races they can find, hunting out the last few “Medal Mondays” before the season comes to a close, the open water swims cease and for many, thoughts turn to next season and what needs to be done over winter to get there…which seems like the opportune moment to talk about the lesser spotted element of performance mindset; knowing when to simmer down and “turn it off”.
In a world that incessantly demands more, achieving peak performance seems to be the golden ticket. Be it in the entrepreneurial realm or on the athletic field, the spotlight often shines on the illustrious moment where individuals “turn it on” and surpass expectations, smash goals and generally gloat about how marvellous they are all over social media. However, a more nuanced understanding of performance reveals a less highlighted, yet equally significant counterpart—the ability to “turn it off.”
The notion of “turning it on” encapsulates that pinnacle moment where entrepreneurs seal deals or athletes break records and PBs. Yet, sustainable high-performance is not merely about those crescendos, but involves a rhythm, a balance between exertion and relaxation, engagement and disengagement.
While we all focus hard on peaking at the exact right moment, we also need to understand why knowing when to relax and let the reins go loose for a while, is important.
1. Recovery is Where Growth Happens
Whichever angle you look at it from, the pressure cooker of performance isn’t where growth happens. The “performance” itself is an outcome. It’s the work that happens when you’re not actively “performing” which helps you to really shine in that moment, whether it’s at that key presentation at work, or hunting a new PB on the race course. In the athletic world, we know all too well that training is simply the stimulus for getting stronger – the actual gains happen when the system is stressed, then allowed to repair and recover. The “stimulus” of training simply says “you need to prepare to do this again, so come back stronger… But this applies to any element of life. You cannot live in the performance zone forever. And for me, performance isn’t simply one event, it’s a more holistic look at how we break and bend you to heal better and more suited to the challenge ahead of you, again and again. It’s the RECOVERY and the ability to shut OFF, not turn ON which is more valuable to gains in the longer term.
2. Avoiding shiny object syndrome
We all know what it’s like to feel that burning passion of starting something new and exciting. We want to know all there is to know, how we can get better, how we can continue to push and learn and develop every time we engage with our new project or past time. But what if we’re missing out on the low-hanging fruit? What if our performance mindset and our constant striving to do better, get better, do more, grow faster, is sucking us away from why we started? Sometimes, approaching new tasks and past-times simply with the goal of enjoying them or of giving something good to someone – maybe ourselves! – can be all we need to think about. Quite often, in the infant stages of something new, we learn passively, simply by spending time in that situation. Overthinking it quickly leads us to get bored as we realise we’re ploughing a lot of mental energy into something that we actually want to continue over the long-term, but lose because we were so ruthlessly focused on results, we forgot to enjoy the process. And now the shiny object got dull…
3. Enhanced Creativity and Problem-Solving
In the same way that athletes bodies recovery physically from training in the downtime and get stronger, taking time away from something mentally challenging actually helps our minds to process our thoughts and experiences and more often than not, leads to “a-ha” moments of clarity, with new ideas and problem solving abilities we wouldn’t otherwise have. Those moments where you get bogged down with a task or stuck in a “groundhog day” scenario, simply changing things up and taking a break, can be all you need to do to suddenly shout “Eureka! Why didn’t I see it before?!”. The mind needs clarity and down time as much as the physical body does – after all, your brain is just an organ, like your heart, lungs and muscles!
4. Improved Decision Making
Decision fatigue is a concept I am all too familiar with – as are a lot of the healthcare workers I work with. In a job where your entire day consists of split second decisions and their knock on implications, without even realising how many decisions you’re making, suddenly, the decision about what to have for dinner becomes paralysing. A simple question you simply can’t answer because you’ve run out of capacity for the day. Building in down time to allow your mind to recover from the decisions you’re making all day, or simply planning your day to minimise the decisions you’re going to have to make (like meal planning, time blocking and setting “worry time”) is sometimes all the reset you need. Knowing when to take responsibility and when to let it go is key in avoiding the dreaded decision fatigue.
5. Building Resilience
When you’re always “switched on”, it can be really hard to embrace setbacks, move with the tide and be flexible to the current changing circumstances you have. When you’re stuck in an “I must perform” mindset, it’s really hard to forgive yourself! It’s also really hard not to catastrophise and to move away from all-or-nothing thinking as you simply look at the world as pass/fail. Instead, letting your mind wander a little, be looser and more fluid when you’re further away from your “performance” goal, is key to allowing yourself to make mistakes, accept that you’re human and move on. And in the long-run, this will benefit you massively, whether it’s being able to deal with the next setback that comes along, or simply not wasting your precious time and energy on negative, destructive thought patterns.
6. Enhanced Enjoyment and Fulfillment
At the end of the day, whatever your performance goal is – whether it’s the next step on your career ladder or it’s completing a new distance in your sport, remember why you set it. Fulfilment. Enjoyment. Freedom. Personal accomplishment. It’s about you, your experiences, your enjoyment, your results, nobody else. If you’re embarking on something new and challenging, don’t set it up to be something you loathe for a very long time, because you simply won’t get it done. Allowing yourself to experience the enjoyment of novelty, creativity, challenge and being present in the moment, requires you to “turn it off” for a lot of the time and “turn it on” when the pressure is appropriate.
Performance isn’t about putting the pedal to the floor 24/7. It’s about understanding that whatever your goal, however big and scary, you will run out of fuel very quickly if you don’t plan the petrol stops, the layovers, the breaks. If you don’t understand how to use the gears, the cruise control, the brakes, then the speed is worth nothing and will quickly have you in a very deep and dark hole…