How many times have you arrived at the office and had a million things to do? You were exhausted from the day’s work before and even the day before that. You spend 30 minutes psyching yourself up, only to realize that an hour later you are exhausted and need another break. When you come back from the break, you psych yourself up again, just to repeat this process continuously throughout the day. Finally, you become relieved when the clock strikes 5 and you get to leave.
This is what I call the burnout cycle and it is the quickest way for you to feel burned out the entire day, and eventually burned out of your career. Imagine taking an F12 Berlinetta Ferrari and doing burnouts with it the entire day, your beautiful sports car would not last very long. At the rate you are going neither will you.
How do we avoid the burnout cycle?
The same way there is an optimal speed that the Ferrari runs at, you have an optimal speed. This optimal speed is where you can be productive and get everything done that you need to at work and still have energy when you leave the office.
Discover your own optimal speed where you can work productively throughout the entire day. It’s probably right around 70-80% of your capacity.
By working at this optimal speed you will find the following benefits:
You will be happier – While working at your optimal speed, you will not be frantically trying to get things done. This reduces the stress that you feel when you are forcing yourself to do a million things. When you reduce this stress, it actually gives you more energy to apply to your daily tasks and helps you enjoy the process
You will be creative – Working at our optimal speed gives our mind freedom to operate. As our mind has this freedom it allows us to be more creative in the projects that we are working on. This allows us to come up with new concepts and ideas that can add additional value to our work projects.
You will do your best work – When we feel that freedom and creative space, we do much better work. Imagine if an artist tried to paint as fast as most of us try to work. In most cases he wouldn’t be able to do his best work. Thank goodness those artists don’t rush and they do amazing work. As you do your best work you will have much better job security.
You will have more opportunities – As you do your best work, and your boss begins to see that you are doing your best work, you will have more opportunity. In the work force with all the competition it is important to do your best work so that you can be noticed in the giant crowd. As they begin to see you standing out, you will be looked at more for promotions.
You will be more productive – When you don’t feel like you have to look like you’re productive, you will actually be productive. You are able to focus on actually getting things done and put all of your focus on that instead of having to run around frantically. Remember your boss cares about results, not appearances.
You will make more money- Let’s be honest, most people work just so they can make a nice check so that they can do what they really want to do instead. Those that work at an optimal speed will make more money because they will get the results that others cannot.
The bottom line: Remember your body and mind together is worth well more than a nice sports car. It is important that you run them at an optimal speed so that you can continue to work for many years in your chosen field or endeavor. Remember that those that give 100% all the time, need a lot more recovery time than those consistently give 70-80%. So be different and stop giving it your all.
I hope this article has been helpful. I would enjoy any feedback on other ways that we can help our life run longer and fuller at an optimum speed. Feel free to contact me as well, with any other questions I can answer for you.