You're the leader of a mission-driven business. That suggests that you are driven, driven to buck the system, driven to make a difference, driven to create something new. The result is long hours on your personal computer, in your office, in your business.
You think you can go on, driven by this invisible fuel called “Inspiration” and yet, at times , you find that inspiration is lacking. You are not alone. No, you can’t live on inspiration alone.
You see, we’ve learned so much from the discipline of sports performance. It does not appear so long back that researchers discovered that ‘Interval” coaching was THE way to condition an athlete to top performance. Interval training meant that each day in an athlete’s life looks different. Some days are targeting sprints and short bursts of energy; the day after, the sportsman would work in long, even stretches while on even other days the athlete would take it easy, calling it an “active recovery” day.
What analysts found was that coaching as hard as possible every day meant a drop in performance over time. Yes, you heard right, coaching hard and long every day was DECREASING performance.
Are you able to see what I'm getting at? Yes? We, athletic workers, wishing and aiming towards highest creativity, highest impact, and tolerable revenue, work hard Every day. Ok, maybe you are in the minority and have worked out the easy way to take great care of yourself. Most of us, though, work conscientiously and long as much as we can possibly keep up.
Primarily based on the analysis of Interval Coaching, it is smart that on long term we get tired; we lose our drive; we stray away from our purpose, and forget our purpose.
Hence what about the idea of building your business based primarily on the ideas of interval training? Could you schedule your weekly calendar so that on Monday you take almost all of your calls and have a day of full, deep interaction. Then on Tuesday, could you schedule more quiet, reflective projects with little interplay with the outside? Wed. could be the day for an open day of creative time; nothing booked, but have a note pad handy for whatever comes up, and so on.
If you read this and felt fast relief, you are good to go to your calendar at the moment and indicate certain days as “sprinter” days, “long distance” days, “active rest” days and even “off” days. Yes, off means, no electronics, none. It implies reconnecting with nature, with the outside, with the arena of wood and water and organic material. We are living in an environment where invention creates earnings. If you can’t access your inspiration, you can not revolutionize, no income, little impact, no difference.
What do you really think? Will you make a promise right now to have a look at your week a bit differently and give your grey matter, body and soul a break? I'm hoping so. We need you, the world needs you but we don't need to have a knackered you, we need a completely electrified, high-performing, spiritually fit YOU!
Christiane Holbrook works alongside mission driven entrepreneurs to help them build business productivity. See how you may be more profitable by taking this productivity test