For years, I’ve been integrating movement into my daily routine. Beyond a need to manage various health conditions, workouts help with my mental acuity, energy levels, and emotional regulation.
A few months ago, a friend and I were enjoying a morning working out. I’ve been doing heart rate training for years and it’s something he was just getting interested in. He wants to improve his heart health and I encouraged him to do hill climbs on the treadmill. It has immediate feedback, and you can see how much you are pushing yourself.
When we were finished, I asked him how it went. He was proud when he said he kept his heart rate at 100% (max heart rate). If it dropped at all, he would increase his speed or incline to drive it back up.
WHAAAAATTTT!?!?!?!?
I was horrified and realized we should have had a bit more of a class before he jumped into this whole heart rate business.
Top performance doesn’t come from constant 100% effort
In my (kind of bossy yet caring) way, I explained that we want to strengthen our muscles, including the heart, over time. Pushing it to the max for long periods of time, with no rest, is a quick way to hurt ourselves. By balancing hard pushes with moments of rest, we will gradually increase our power, resistance, speed, etc without having to work as hard.
That’s the goal – improving our strength and endurance. Taking on more with less effort. Not making our hearts explode because we’re pushing endlessly at 100%.
I don’t believe any athlete will argue with me about the need to rest. To have consistent performance at something less than our max, with periodic pushes to build ourselves up. That 100% performance all the time is a path to injury.
Later that day, I was (ironically) taking a needed mental break from work. I realized that while we might all agree on how to build our physical strength, our mental strength is rarely seen the same way.
There’s an expectation – whether explicitly stated or implicitly implied and internalized – that we will perform “at our best” all the time at work. That we’ll give 100%. Every. Single. Day.
This is as much a formula for disaster as pushing our bodies that way. It leads to mental exhaustion, stagnation, and burnout.
Plan for the surge
I had the epiphany because work had been one long surge to that point. Our manager talked about “there will be relief on the other side of this push.” The team had been pushing pretty much non-stop for two years. There was no relief on the horizon.
He and I had been having (endless) conversations about the need to integrate lulls into our schedule because the constant pushes are taking a toll. By the end of the year, he acknowledged he had it wrong and we needed to make a change.
I recalled reading an article or two about how performance athletes operate at about 80-85% of their ability on the daily. In practice. In workouts. Even on race day. Those that push hard from the start slow down at the end. High-performance athletes start out at 80-85% and are consistent until the end. If they are not ahead, they can push at the end to win. They keep their reserves for when it matters.
That surge is our 100% (maybe even 105-110%). It’s what helps us push over the line and get to done. Tap into whatever mental strength we have left to finish that challenging project or hit a deadline.
If we have been operating at 100% consistently the entire time, it becomes a lot more difficult to find the strength for that last push. Instead, if we have been operating at a sustainable pace, less than our top performance, we have reserves we can use to surge when needed. And that surge will be high-quality delivery, not what’s left when we are exhausted and dragging.
Case study: Mindful surges to avoid overwhelm
At one point in 2022, I was performing seven roles. Was I doing it perfectly? No. Of course not. But I was doing well enough that things were getting done and the organization was able to operate without all the headcount we needed.
How was I able to do that?
Two factors. One is experience. I’ve been doing this kind of work for three decades. I know how to sort through the noise to the meaningful work that needs to get done. The other is that I can selectively surge.
I didn’t take on all seven roles at once. At the beginning of the year, I was already doing three. When I was asked to take on a fourth, I deprioritized less critical work on the other three jobs and surged (over 100% of my capacity) on the new role to get onboarded.
I spent extra time learning the team, data product, etc. Once I was acclimated, my performance level went back to let’s say 85%. I was able to get back to baseline performance.
As each subsequent request came in, I surged, learned, acclimated, and rebaselined. My overall capacity finally achieved 100% (let’s be honest…by the time I got to 7, I was likely over 100%).
Throughout this process, I was very vocal with my manager when I needed help. We had prioritization conversations when I couldn’t determine what was most important. Took deliberate actions to get people on board so I could get back to the two roles I was hired for. It took about 8 months, but I finally got there.
Building up our strength and stamina
When we start a new role, or take on additional responsibilities, it is a lot easier to learn and acclimate when we have capacity available to us. What feels difficult early will feel easier as we absorb information and add to our experience.
I’ve seen first-time leaders thrown into the deep end of the swimming pool with no floaties. Moving from individual contributor to leader takes a lot of learning. We learn best when we are uncomfortable. Pushing our brains a bit to stretch our thinking.
The brain is a muscle. Like our heart, it needs regular workouts, with periodic pushes, to expand capacity and performance. When we overload, we risk not absorbing new information. If someone is learning a new team, a new product, and the new expectations of being a leader, they would benefit from a clear onboarding plan. One that balances effort and surges.
When in a new role (leader or not), how we onboard can make all the difference between someone feeling as if they are on the road to success or failure.
Successful onboarding looks like scaffolding. A path to get from here to whatever level of knowledge and performance is desired. We may have some gaps that look a little wide or heights that are a little higher than we are used to, but not insurmountable. We also have support to help us. Knowing we have someone to lend a hand makes us more likely to take risks and attempt those jumps that look just a little too wide.
Alternatively, the road to failure looks like a massive chasm. If we push ourselves to overperform in an effort to cross it, we risk plummeting into the abyss below.
Want to outperform? Underperform first.
There’s a classic story about the turtle and the hare. One races ahead, burning all his energy and never finishes the race. The other is slow and steady and ends up winning.
I’d argue that we can be the turtle most of the time, and then be the hare when we need an extra push.
I got into the habit of monitoring my energy levels throughout the day. Paying close attention to the quality of my work, concentration, mental acuity, etc. It’s no surprise that when I take mid-day breaks, the quality of my work in the afternoon improves. When I push non-stop all day, every day, it’s not just my work that suffers.
Mental and physical rest allow me to make quality decisions, model patience and compassion for myself and others, and show up as an empathetic leader (vs a frustrated and exhausted one).
I’ve started intentionally backing off more during times of stress and pressure to surge. Not because work doesn’t deserve my best performance, but because if I’m surging constantly I’m never giving my best work. So I back off a bit where I can, selectively push, and then go back to baseline. Ironically, by doing less, I’m delivering more.
Balancing rest and surges build capacity and strength, which is the goal of any athlete. Retaining our energy and pushing ourselves selectively means we can better deliver when surge capacity is needed.
No one can deliver 100% or more all the time. Eventually, we will fall down in the form of exhaustion and burnout. Let’s do a better job of explicitly targeting 80-85% performance for us and our teams. When we want to build capabilities, or there’s a critical surge needed, we can selectively push to 100%.
Let’s deliver more by intentionally doing less.
One Response
Thank you Kristen Hendrix. Very helpful/insightful article.