Creating an environment for creativity & focus

I’ve just been away for the week to write my sixth book.  After six I’ve experimented with a number of techniques and have found a focused retreat the quickest and most effective way of getting the words on a page (albeit a very rough first draft!)  People have asked me, how do you know you’ll be creative on that week though and be able to write?

The answer is I don’t.  But I do know how to set my environment up to make that more likely to happen.  For me that’s no social media or calls.  No emails or internet (I leave gaps to insert the research I find later or already have filed away).  It’s a change of scenery that’s not my own house or office so nothing else needs doing other than writing.  I have all the supplies I need and I shut myself away, alone in a beautiful cottage by the beach if possible and, often rural.

And on the days when I don’t feel the creative muse.  I go for a walk or make some food or sit outside in the sun to mix things up and flick the creative switch on.  The most important thing for me is creating the space and not having the distractions, without that I know I’m much less creative.

We know we need space in the brain to innovate and space to focus to do our best work.  This is top of mind for me as I reap the rewards of a 10 day silent retreat over the Christmas break.  No talking, no distractions and my phone turned off and locked in a draw.  Whilst it had it’s challenges the space and focus and ideas and creativity that followed has made it worth it.

Interruption Science is the study of the effect of disruptions on job performance especially for those working in an office environment.  According to a University of California-Irvine study, regaining our initial momentum following an interruption can take, on average, upwards of 20 minutes.  It makes it more difficult to get anything done and actually means we are taking longer to get tasks completed by not giving them our full attention and trying to multi task. 

An experiment conducted at the University of London found that we lose as many as 10 IQ points when we allow our work to be interrupted.  That’s the equivalent to missing a whole night's sleep and more than double the 4-point fall seen after smoking marijuana.  Even short interruptions are thought to have a negative impact, for example silencing the phone or checking the screen to see who’s calling.  That’s even when you decide not to answer because you don’t want distracting.  A study by Michigan state University, in which 300 people performed a sequence-based procedure on a computer, found that interruptions of about three seconds doubled the error rate.

Author Pico Iyer talks of interruption science in his book The Art of Stillness, Iyer says, “it takes 25 minutes to recover from things like a phone call yet such interruptions come every 11 minutes so we never really catch up with ourselves”. 

A number of my clients this year are focusing on their relationships with social media and distractions as part of their new year rituals.  In a bid to get more time back in their life, less noise, less overwhelm and information overload.  Afterall it’s not just the amount of information our device exposes us to it’s the way this information can make us feel too!

One of the quickest wins for getting us more focus and time is our relationship to social media and a devices in general.  Afterall they are made to distract us and once they’ve got our attention designed to make sure we waste as much time scrolling as possible.

If you’re looking to reduce your information overload and the distractions from your device or social media here are a few things I’m doing and others have found useful too.

·       Set times you’ll not use your device:  Not before 9am or after 9pm as an example.  This gives your brain a chance to wake up and stops it interrupting our sleep at the other end of the day. 

·       Or perhaps certain places: No phone in the bedroom or at dinner table might work for you. 

·       Detox times once a month on a Sunday, switch it off or put it in a draw for a few hours. 

·       Remove the Facebook app from your phone (just check once a day from your laptop)

·       Monitor the screen time app: do you know what your stats?  Which apps are sucking the most time from you and what are you getting in return?  What’s an achievable number to aim for?

Would love to hear other tips you’ve tried and how you create space to get the best from your brain.

One simple way to get better at self-care

One of the things so many of my clients struggle with is putting themselves first.  It’s not that we don’t know what we need to do to stave off burnout and look after ourselves better.  Magazines have been telling us this stuff for decades.  It’s that we feel we don’t have time and that’s because we don’t make time.  There’s always something or someone else we deem more important than our own self-care.  We’re last on our own list and we simply don’t prioritise this.

Working with a recent client I asked her to name all the reasons self care was important beyond the fact it’s good for us!  Eventually we landed on the ‘aha’ it’s role modelling for the kids.  I want my children to look after themselves so I have to show that it’s important.  This was a game changer for her.  A motivator for self care that has meant she’s now doing this for her kids not just herself.  It’s an opportunity to change their future and ensure they look after themselves by the example she sets them.

Putting you first allows you to give to others, it allows you to perform at your peak and it makes you a better person to be around.  So not just good for you but good for everybody, especially those we love.

If we started looking at this as a necessary part of doing our job (which it is), we’d struggle less to prioritise it.  If we continue to look at this as an indulgence or a treat that we feel guilty for allowing ourselves then it’ll always be last on the list or ‘bumped’ for the things we deem more important (which sadly for most women that’s everything but ourselves).

So what are you motivators for self-care, what are the reasons you can think of that make this is must do activity to make time for?  Once we’ve stumbled on that we’ll find it much easier to make time for it and make sure it happens and there’s less guilt attached too!

the power and impact of creating space

I’ve always loved learning from other cultures and ancient wisdom in particular.  We tend to see these things come back into fashion and pitched to our western world as the new solution and yet it’s never really that new.  Yoga was ancient wisdom well before lululemon found it.  Monks were meditating well before mindfulness become fashionable and our Maori ancestors were well versed in our connection to the land and living in harmony with whenua before climate change was on the agenda.

In particular though I’ve always marvelled at how ancient cultures all over the world have valued space and time to think.  Whether it’s monks in caves, pilgrimages or aboriginal walk abouts there are many examples of people prioritsing space and solitude - getting away from it all and just being.  It’s also a practice that cultivates deep connection to something bigger and in many ancient cultures is a practice considered to make you wiser!

I couldn’t agree more and it’s the foundational practice that has enabled me to innovate, problem solve, get perspective and gain greater clarity which is why I’m a passionate advocate.

However in our busy modern lives we’ve deprioritised space and quiet in favour of busyness, noise and doing.  We live in a world of information overload, fast living and full schedules where we think we can get more done and yet the quality and value of what we’re doing has been suffering for years.  I believe the answer lies in cultivating this space and quiet.  As Ram Dass said “the quieter you become, the more you can hear”

This thinking space is so critical.  It’s where we innovate, it’s how we think strategically, it’s how we process our thoughts and calm our minds, it’s also how we focus and gain clarity to make decisions and solve problems.  Not to mention the impact it has on overwhelm, stress and our emotional regulation.

The practice of being by ourselves and getting some quiet space helps improve our focus and concentration and tap into a different part of the brain.  Yet it’s a practice we’ve become uncomfortable doing and under valued for too long.  It’s not easy to sit with our own thoughts these days but it’s possible the most impactful thing you can do.

I don’t all mean we need to find a cave to meditate in.  It’s making the most of our moments, the purposeful pauses throughout our day.  Detaching from our devices for a few hours.  Spending some time in nature.  Being by ourselves and not watching, reading or listening to anything.  Being present in your surroundings.  Journalling.  Going for a walk or a swim.  Finding space to think and be without consuming. 

I believe it’s where we create the most value and impact both in life and in work when we give the brain space to think.  It’s where our best ideas come from and where we gain clarity and focus.  Yet so often we prioritise doing over being.  Being busy and getting things done believing this is how productivity works. 

I’d encourage you to seek the difference between quality and quantity, consider how you add impact and value above hours worked and busy distractions.  Where can you carve out time and space in your schedule to think?

Christmas overwhelm quiz & top tips to beat end of year burnout

As a kid I was blissfully unaware of the work Mum put into Christmas.  Not just presents and cards but all the social organising and family gatherings, food shopping and event planning.  This was after a year of working full time and how she spent her precious ‘Christmas break’.

I remember opening a present one Christmas morning and Dad saying “that’s nice who got you that?”, the tag said with love from Mum and Dad. “You did” I said.

We talk a lot about the mental load or the invisible load and I think women are great at making this look so easy it often appears invisible.  Families don’t see the workload that goes into making Christmas great, not to mention the careful balance of all the family dynamics and relationships across a festive period marinated in booze! 

And of course we can’t complain.  It’s for the kids, it’s the joy of Christmas and all the other stories we tell ourselves or we’ve grown up being told.  This reoccurring theme of sacrificing ourselves for the good of the family, being last on our own list and the one who has to think about and organise everything surfaces at Christmas too.

Add to that work pressures, end of year burnout and it really is vital we get a break during the summer break.  Yet Christmas often feels like the opposite or adds to the pressure and guilt of taking time for ourselves.

With burnout now being more common in women than men, this year I’ve developed this handy Christmas load quiz to help you check in on your festive overwhelm and develop some strategies to help find the joy again.

Up to 5 ticks

Keep an eye on how this might creep up, prioritise time for you and ensure you’re a sustainable resource.  Leave work at work and make sure this break really is a break for you.  Check out the free resources on the website to help.

5-10 ticks

It’s getting to the point of overwhelm and you need a break so make sure you prioritise it.  It’ll make you a better person and stop this getting any worse.  Taking the bins out and mowing the lawn just doesn’t cut it anymore, your partner needs to step up too and share the load.  Check out the tips below and why not invest in some summer reading and get your copy of Burnout to Brilliance

More than 10 ticks

Quite simply that’s enough!  It’s an unequal distribution of work both in the office and at home that’s going to lead you to burn out.  Consider if you may benefit from setting better boundaries, or if they (colleagues and partners) could step up. This is often a sign that the relationship (both at work and at home) is unequal and unfair

It’s something we can all take responsibility for and there is light at the end of the tunnel.  Rather than waiting for permission to find time for you or putting it off again see this as a non negotiable for your health and a burnout intervention because if you don’t take steps now that’s what it will become.

Check out the tips below and if you need some help developing practical strategies to bring this to life why not download the Burnout to Brilliance online course.  If you feel like this has gone to far already and you’re struggling with burnout out find help and support available for free in NZ here

7 top tips to survive the Christmas overload:

·      What’s one thing you can do for you that feels achievable?

·      Be organised and make a plan

·      Don’t compare your Christmas to anyone elses

·      Set yourself realistic expectations and know that there will always be things out of your control

·      Sit down with your partner and make a list of all that needs doing and agree how it’ll be split

·      Delegate - allow others to help and take responsibility without feeling like you’ve failed

·      Also allow them to do a less than perfect job of whatever you’ve delegated and know it’s a small price to pay for giving you more time and space

Being ready when we're not ready

I recently completed the Routeburn track in Queenstown and it’s got me reflecting on being ready when we’re not actually ready. If I’m honest it was my wife’s idea, I just went along with the plan and didn’t really think about it until the week before! I’m not really a walker, in fact I have no anterior cruciate ligament following a rupture playing soccer so it’s not ideal – it’s a challenge!  I also meant to do way more training than I did, I’m not as fit as I know I should and definitely not used to carrying a pack up a mountain.  I was worried as I should have been but it got me thinking about being ready when we’re not ready as is so often the case when we take on a challenge.

It’s about being ready even when we don’t feel ready.  Even if ideally more could be done or we could have had more time, money, experience or whatever else we’re telling ourselves.  Start where you are and bridge the gaps where you can – employ some mitigating strategies.  Once you’ve made the start it’s often too late to go back so we have to make it work, we figure it out.  We ride the wave and overcome the challenges, in fact this is so often how we learn. 

So what did I learn having now overcome that challenge?

Preparation is key: setting my intentions, knowing what I needed and taking some mitigation strategies to account for my gaps (in fitness in this case)!  Packing all the things you’ll need for a journey like this is the best way to start.

It’s important to look back to see how far you’ve come, this helps motivate us to keep moving forward even when it’s hard.  And yes it gets hard.  Some days the track is covered in snow, it’s steep and grueling and you wonder what you’re doing.  Other days it’s sunny and flat and seems a breeze.  It always seemed hardest first thing, before we’d warmed up and before we’d really got into our stride – just like any new journey and challenge.  It get’s easier the more you do it.

Each step is progress, just keep putting one foot infront of the other.  No matter how small the step it’s a step in the right direction and one step closer to the finish line.

Take rest and use support where you can.  It was the first time I’ve used walking poles but leaning on them was a life line – they also doubled well as crutches on my more tired days!

The huts were a welcome rest and shelter as was the encouragement from others along the track coming from the others direction ‘not far now’.  It’s key to get encouragement and advice from those ahead of us or who have travelled where we’re heading.

As we learn and travel further down the path we shed things along the way – in my case it was unfortunately toe nails!

So what are you worrying about not being ready for? How can some mitigating strategies and support help you take that step out of your comfort zone and make a go of it anyway?

Plan A and B, making self care doable

I ruptured my cruciate ligament playing soccer many years ago and since then surgeries and physio have been part of my rehab.  At a recent review the physio gave me just 2 exercises.  She said, I don’t give people anymore because they simply don’t do them.  It got me thinking about setting realistic expectations and setting ourselves up for success.  She’d made it achievable and it worked, I remembered what they were and I’ve been doing them!

So often as high achievers we want to do it all and do it all perfectly and if we can’t we feel we’ve failed.  But what if we just focused on the basics, made it more achievable.  Especially where self-care is concerned.

Some days I have time to do yoga, meditate, go for a walk and prepare nutritious food.  Other days the only thing I can do is go to bed early and drink plenty of water.

There’s this concept one of my mentors Matt mentioned to me recently.  He has a plan A and and plan B for his morning self-care routine.  Plan A is always our preference and yet it’s the hardest to stick to when times get busy.  If we can’t do plan A we often end up doing nothing and then feel bad.  What if there was a plan B to fall back on?  A mini, doable version of Plan A for those busy days.

If I’ve got the time my Plan A is a yoga class, meditation before I leave the house, a walk with the dog at lunchtime and bed before 10pm.  On the days I’m up early for a flight, speaking at a conference and then at the conference party that night the plan B becomes a meditation app on the flight and some stretches before bed.

Plan B is like a mini, less time consuming version of plan A so ideal for those times we get busy and feel like we don’t have time for self-care.  And most importantly a way of still ensuring we can do the stuff that matters, recharge our batteries and take care of ourselves.

I believe in the 80:20 rule (if we do this stuff 80% of the time, the 20% we miss because life gets busy is inconsequential).  I also like James Clear’s 1% improvement theory and the way little things compound over time.  If all we get to do is a week of Plan B because it’s busy it’s still better than nothing and will have a positive impact on our health and wellbeing.

So what’s your plan A and plan B version of self-care for your own sustainability?

If you need support recharging and ensuring you’re a sustainable resource why not join me on retreat?

Having the burnout conversation at work

A question I’m often asked at my workshops and events is how do we have the burnout conversation at work.  Particularly difficult if you’re in a culture where busyness is worn like a bade of honour and long hours are the norm.

My advice in this space is to be the change you want to see, like Ghandi said.  Find the way you work best and get the best from yourself.  Sometimes the only thing we can control is our own behaviour rather than that of others and if enough of us did this we’d start to see a shift.  All our organisations are collections of individuals so if each individual becomes this change the culture will take care of itself. 

I know that’s easier said than done though especially if you’re not in a position of authority or find yourself in a toxic culture of overwork. 

Strangely the intention is often the same, despite the difference ways of going about it, often we’re all meaning the same thing – success, productivity and effectiveness.  It’s a misguided myth (that’s sadly still held by many) that the more we work the more we’ll achieve.  As I discuss in my workshops though, it’s not about quantity but quality.  It’s not about how many hours we work but the impact we have and value we add.  This can’t be effective and of quality if we’re tired, busy brained, unable to focus and overwhelmed.  At this point quantity is our undoing not a pathway to success.

If you are a senior leader or influencer then you have an even better chance of making change, setting an example and role modelling in this space.

If not I’ve found it has more impact framing this conversation as a performance one rather than a wellbeing one even though it’s obviously both.  If we’re in a culture where stress is seen as a badge of honour it can be hard to have a conversation if it feels like we’re asking to do less.  But it’s this concept of less being more.  Less but better.  If we talk about performance and how we get the best out of each other it’s a much easier conversation to have.

It's quality over quantity and impact and value rather than hours at the laptop with a tired brain!  Regardless of culture we all want impact and value we just have to turn this towards quality rather than a quantity focus.

I’ve noticed that we all have the same aim.  Getting the best out of ourselves and our people.  It’s what we all want: to come to work and do our best and it’s what our leaders want, even those who go about it the wrong way by working us to death!  They just want us to deliver our best and achieve their KPIS.  We’re talking about the same aim, the same intention.  Ironically those broken cultures of stress and burnout think they’re driving for more when in fact they just drive us away (or into the ground).  So let’s talk about how we get the best from ourselves and do our best work.

Productivity is about quality and effectiveness not the quantity of hours we’re doing.  My experience has taught me that the more hours we’re doing the less quality we’re likely to be putting out.

It’s often our pursuit of quantity and more and better that lands us at burnout so changing the focus to quality and effectiveness means we make a bigger impact, add more value and we’re sustainable.

If you’d like to support your workplace to have better conversations about burnout and learn practical tools and strategies to go from burnout to brilliance check out my popular workshops.

Saying no to this means saying yes to everything else

At my recent retreat we were talking about boundaries and how, particularly for women, saying no can be difficult.  We feel guilty or selfish, like we’re letting people down.  In addition we’ve often been brought up to be obliging and put the needs of others before ourselves.  It can lead to us burning out, feeling resentful and being last on our own list.

For those who’ve burned out you know that we’re no good to anyone and can’t give to anybody else if we don’t first look after ourselves.  It’s the concept of putting on your own oxygen mask on first or not trying to pour from an empty cup that we hear so often as analogies in this space.

We get told a lot that we just need to learn to say no and set better boundaries but that doesn’t stop the feeling of guilt or pressure (and expectation) we get externally to break our own boundaries for the sake of others.

For many saying no is easier said than done and only once we’ve made the mindset shift can we say no and set boundaries with ease, without the guilt and with the knowledge that it’s best for everyone.

And it’s this simple question that gets us there.  It’s not what I’m saying no to but what saying no actually means because in reality when we say no to one thing we are saying yes to everything else.

·       Saying no to working late is saying yes to my family.

·       Saying no to other people’s emergencies means I’m saying yes to the important deadlines I have on my own schedule

·       Saying no to an extra project because I’m overloaded means I’m saying yes to my health, energy and the quality of what I’m delivering.

·       Saying no to a party after a full week of work means I’m saying yes to myself and avoiding burnout.

So it’s not what I’m saying no to, it’s what I’m saying yes to by setting boundaries.  When we focus on what we’re saying yes to the boundaries become much easier to put in place.  We’re leading with our priorities and focusing on what’s important.  Reframing the no from a negative into a positive.

It can be quite impactful in terms of giving us permission to say no by focusing on what we’re actually saying yes to.  Remember; when I say no to this I’m saying yes to everything else.

Who is the HR for HR?

Burnout is something we’re talking a lot about at the moment and according to this Forbes article 98% of HR professionals are burnt out.

It’s been a tough time of late and nowhere more so than in the HR and People & Culture teams across our organisations. Often charged with supporting our organisations through change and uncertainty we’ve also had a global pandemic, staff shortages, increased turnover, recruitment challenges, a talent shortage and the great resignation - to name just a few!

It’s no wonder our People teams are feeling a little burned out. Yet as often is the question, who is the HR for HR?

As a previous HR practitioner I’m passionate about using my knowledge to support our People teams. We play such a pivotal role in the organsiation and yet we’re often last on the list when it comes to the development and change support we’ve busy organising for everyone else! It’s why I’ve created this special HR focused version of my popular Burnout to Brilliance workshop, designed to help teams:

• Acknowledge the recent challenges and share experiences

• Understand the signs of burnout in yourself and others

• Learn how to navigate and respond to signs of burnout

• Burnout proof yourself and ensure you're a sustainable resource

• Overcome overwhelm and build resilience

• Improve productivity and effectiveness

• Learn strategies to cultivate a more calm, clearer mind.

• Creating space to think and innovate

• Manage distractions to increase focus and concentration

• Understand the difference between busy and productive

• Learn high performance habits

Quantity does not always mean quality and being busy does not mean we’re productive, in fact the opposite is often true. 

The reality is that workload is high, that won’t change.  We also live in a world where uncertainty and change is the norm and there’s more pressure than ever placed on the mental health of our workforce.

Busy is fashionable, we wear it like a badge of honour but it doesn’t lead to high performance.  This is a must have workshop to ensure you’re getting the best from your team and to help them thrive.

This starts by changing the way we relate to busyness, how we define productivity and ensuring we understand how to be effective as well as keeping up with the workload.

If you’d like to support your team to be at their best, this programme will help reenergise and sustain attendees to unleash their potential and go from burnout to brilliance.

• Understand the difference between busy and productive

• Work smarter not harder and master the habits of high performance

• Understand the neuroscience behind thinking patterns and rewire the brain

• Learn strategies to cultivate a more calm, clearer mind.

• Keep calm amid the chaos and give yourself space to thrive, even in the tough times

• Be your best without burning out in the process

• Overcome overwhelm and build resilience

• Improve productivity and effectiveness

Master the art of slowing down to speed up, understand the power of the mind and how to use it to stay focused, calm and effective. Know the difference between busy and productive and ensure you are a sustainable resource.

This workshop has been specifically built for HR teams and is delivered by a former HR professional. During this programme, participants learn what it is resilient people do, build their own plan to overcome challenges and uncertainty and deliver on their potential.

My goal is for everyone to be their best, without burning out in the process.

Get in touch to book or organise a chat direct with me

Improving not proving: the constant learning journey

Today I’m thinking about our growth and development, it’s an area I’ve worked in for year and a passion I’ve always had. I believe we can be both improving and learning as well as being amazing and brilliant – all at once.  It’s this concept that Buddhists talk of in the beginner’s mind.  Approaching everything with a curiosity that we’re here to learn even if we’ve done it before because the reality is we’re always learning, there’s always growth.

Ako is a traditional Māori practice that means both 'to learn' and 'to teach' and I think that sums it up perfectly.

Even as teachers we’re always learning and I love this concept of continuous learning, that we never know it all and that life itself is a constant navigation of learning and often teaching others at the same time we’re learning ourselves.

They say the best way to learn something is to teach it and I’ve certainly found that when embarking on book projects.  Teaching this stuff to others helps immerse myself in it in a way that furthers my own learning and understanding in a new way.  We so often learn by teaching and yet at the same time are also still learning whilst we teach!

We can put so much pressure on ourselves to know all the answers or be the expert and it can be uncomfortable to sit in this place of learning, of not knowing.  But it’s this open and curious mind that keeps us developing and growing and helps us achieve our potential.

We’ve all come so far, just in the last year but especially the last ten.  What will that be like in the next ten?  The opportunity is endless with this notion of being both the teacher and learner all at once.

It’s this concept of improving ourselves rather than trying to prove ourselves.  That we’re learning and growing not trying to validate or prove we’re good enough.

If you’re looking for support on the leadership journey why not check out our monthly membership here

Reconnecting with yourself this MHAW

The theme for this years mental health awareness week is reconnecting.  As we speak I’m reconnecting with family and friends in my country of birth, England.  There’s been so much disruption and uncertainty over the last couple of years there’s a lot we lost connection with.  Our social lives, routines, the ways of work we were used to, the things we perhaps took for granted as well as our own health in some cases.  Habits we lost as life changed or bad habits we gained in a bid to support ourselves through the new normal.  It feels like a good time to take stock and reconnect.

Time to reconnect with the people, hobbies, routines and life we value and the things we know help us thrive.  I think one of the most important connections we have is the one with ourselves and many of us feel disconnected from who we are after the last couple of years.  It’s not just the pandemic either, the evolution of social media and our online world means we’ve become increasingly disconnected from ourselves.

In a world where we’re so connected online we have lost the real connections that matter much of the time.  It is true that sometimes we must disconnect first (from our virtual worlds) so we can reconnect (with ourselves and the real world).

Including nature 😊 When was the last time you went outside, took a walk, went to the beach?  For no reason other than to be in nature?  Without your phone or anyone else?

The connection we get from being in nature utilises all the senses and brings clarity and focus, which is why sometimes when I’m struggling for inspiration in the office or can’t solve a complex problem, it helps to take a stroll to clear my mind.

UK charity Mind suggest that time in nature is beneficial for those with depression, as it enhances mood and self-esteem and reduces anger, confusion, and tension.  It has also been shown to lower blood pressure, reduce pain, and strengthen the immune system.

I am an advocate for ensuring we have an opportunity to disconnect so that we can reconnect.  As the saying goes there’s no wifi in the forest but you’ll get a better connection.

Maybe turn your work device off over the weekend, have a TV-free night each week, resolve not to check Facebook every day, or even better, take a technology detox break, maybe when you go on your annual vacation, and see what it does for you.

Sometimes we need to disconnect so we can reconnect with our real selves and not give way to the many distractions in our lives. This brings the clarity we need to make good decisions and to listen to what we want and how we feel about the things that really matter.

Ever since I trained with buddhist monks and nuns I’ve been aware there is an ability to cultivate this connection within.  It’s a place inside yourself where you can go when times get tough, when you need a break, to recentre, to gain perspective.  It's a place that always bring calm and peace.  This is reconnecting with ourselves.
  
As humans we’re very good at wanting to be anywhere other than where we are.  What we often overlook is that that place exists within us and is accessible anytime we just need to cultivate it.

That means getting still, being comfortable not ‘doing’ and reducing our busyness to find moments of pause in our lives, to still our minds.  To listen to what’s really going on within.  The stuff that’s often easier to numb or ignore with our constant doing!  Doing nothing should be the easier skill to master yet often it’s one of the hardest.  It’s also one of the most beneficial in terms of our sustainability but also reconnecting with ourselves.
 
Getting still, finding your centre and being with the breath in the moment.  That’s all it takes (and a lot of practice).  We all have it, we’ve just forgotten it amid the busyness of life.  The ability to reconnect.
 
It's the one reason I can stay calm in the face of chaos, remain optimistic about the future and has helped me overcome the tough times along the way.  If you’d like some help and support with this get in touch and let’s see how we can work together.

Authenticity and the beauty myth

The first Miss England contestant in the global beauty pageant to compete without make up made the finals recently and made global headlines at the same time.

I don’t wear make up, unless the TV or photoshoot people insist on dusting my face to make sure it’s not too shiny under the lights!  But I’ve been aware of the constant feeling that I should my whole life.  That as a woman I’m considered less pretty without it or failing in some way, not making an effort with my appearance or under selling myself in some way.

For years our social norms have been that women shouldn’t leave the house without make up.  I felt the pressure as a young teen to wear make up, everyone else was and the media were constantly convincing me I’d not be beautiful without it and people wouldn’t love me as a result.  It helps of course when they’re trying to sell millions of dollars worth of product for us to feel less than without it!  I’ve realised since my twenties that I was wearing make up because I felt like I should and not because I wanted to or that it did something positive for me.

Now I’m not against make up if it makes you feel good and for some women it does.  This is less about wearing it and more about why we wear it.  Is it because we feel like we should or that we’re not beautiful without it?  Is it a mask behind which we hide?  Or is it just because we enjoy it?

Hilary Clinton was shocked to find she spent 600 hours getting hair and makeup done during the 2016 presidential campaign, that’s 25 days she lost compared to her male counterparts who didn’t need to bother. That shocks me too and what a disadvantage!

The amount of time and effort it takes to paint over our faces means it’s unlikely to be something I adopt.  I also don’t like the feeling it brings.  I feel like me face can’t breathe and doubt if it’s good for our skin health covering it in paint every day.  I also believe it’s wrong to think a woman is made more beautiful by covering up her natural face!

It covers up what’s real and doesn’t prioritise the inner beauty that actually makes the difference.  After all the physical body is just a container for the stuff that really matters and really makes us beautiful, it’s a container for our soul.

Beauty on the inside is a cliché but so true.  Our image will change despite what we try and do to prevent it artificially, we’ll all age and physically change. But it’s just our body, not our kindness, our courage, our intellect, love, empathy, strength, creativity or our wisdom, all the things that really make us beautiful.

Body image has been given such importance in our modern world, combined with unrealistic expectations linked to our self worth and the airbrushing that sets us up to fail.  Self image gets in the way of self love and if we feel we have to change something about how we appear we’ll always feel like we’re not enough.

Do you know when we look most beautiful? It’s when we’re comfortable in our own skin regardless of the make up, fake tan or designer brands we add to that.

Quiet quitting, the great resignation: what does it all mean for you?

Whether you call it the great resignation or quiet quitting it’s really all the same thing.  It’s our collective response to what’s been an unprecedented time in our history.  The impact of the last 3 years has taken its toll, life has changed forever and things have happened that we can’t change.  We’re fatigued from the constant uncertainty and our work has changed in a way that not all of us have been able to adjust to.

When we go through such monumental times it can’t not have an impact.  On the way we think, feel and what we expect of life.  It’s big change like this that often brings new perspectives.

So it makes sense we’re thinking about making the most out of life, working less and living more, working for a place we feel valued with people with whom we align.

But shouldn’t this have always been the case?  Maybe the experience of the pandemic has just allowed us to see this from a fresh perspective?

It carries more urgency now and the world has reconnected on a different level, so much division and threat it seems more paramount to take action and make a difference.  It’s not just at work either, we’re seeing discontent across the board.  Politically in NZ, strikes in the UK from the rubbish collectors, train drivers, posties and more.  Protests from some of the ‘freest’ people in our country fighting over their ‘freedom’.  Uprising and civil unrest.  Economic fears and cost of living instability.

We’re also at the end of our coping line, many of us no longer tolerant to the impasses living out of alignment has brought about and the impact reading the news and existing in society generally has on us these days.

What it boils down to is that we’re feeling a little burned out and disengaged and that’s probably a normal response to this ‘new normal’.  What we’re seeing is a collective response to this whether that’s in our jobs or the wider community as we look for things/people to blame. 

Lockdown was the governments fault, I’m stressed because of my job, I’m unhappy because my partner doesn’t care enough, I’m tired because everyone expects too much of me.  Of course some of this may be true, particularly if cost of living is impacting on you, long covid health issues, uncertainty around the future and job security.  All normal responses to change and our human conditioning around fear.

In my experience quiet quitting has always been there just known by another name and not talked about due to its quiet nature.  Presenteeism, dis engagement, discontentment.  We’ve all been in a job or relationship where we’ve felt like checking out for a while!  Then of course if we do check out it becomes the great resignation and the global pandemic has certainly been a conduit for that.  It’s like the migrations of big herds on the plains of Africa.  When the seasons turn and the environment is no longer conducive to life we move on.  That’s what we’re seeing now.

What does it mean for you?  As an individual take stock, know yourself and what you want, how does your one precious life want to be lived and what’s changed for you over the last couple of years, what needs to be different?  What have you learned?  What do you want?

And for our organisations: now more than ever it’s about what matters and making sure you provide an environment that attracts the high performing herds.  Navigating a post pandemic hybrid era in a way that fosters all the things we value.  The way we communicate, how we put our people first, diversity of thought, inclusion in our actions and the heart of that will always be the quality and capability of the leaders that create culture.

Ensuring people can be their best without burning them out in the process, that work is part of life but enables us to enjoy life outside of the office too.  That we have the autonomy and trust to perform at our peak and are supported and challenged in a way that helps us grow and are rewarded for that effort.

Want to support your team through these tough times? Learn to manage change and uncertainty and go from burnout to brilliance? Check out my in house workshops and get in touch to book.

Sustainability not self-care: changing the conversation to further the journey

 This year I’ve changed my language when talking about self-care.  I felt it’d become an overused term, synonymous with Instagram wellness warriors drinking green juice and taking yoga selfies.  It seemed to be difficult to get traction in business and to get organisations to take self-care seriously.

Now it is serious obviously.  I believe it should feature on our job descriptions because it powers everything else that’s on there.  Without it we’re simply not as good as we need to be, we run out of energy, focus and tolerance and ultimately do not perform at our peak unless we’re investing in this stuff.

So how can we shift the dial and talk about this in a way our businesses will listen but we’ll also take more seriously ourselves.

For me the angle is performance not wellness.  This doesn’t take away from the fact that we’re of course talking wellness and that’s one of the most important focuses we can have.  It changes the language in a way our organisations understand.  Wellness has long been a focus and aside from a few lunchtime meditation classes, free fruit in the staff room and some resilience training we've not shifted the dial.  In fact burnout is on the rise despite our focus on wellness and mental health.

When I look to the sporting world they have perfected this approach.  Their approach to performance is that peaks must be followed by troughs of rest and recovery.  Massage, saunas, days off and rest actually feature as part of their jobs and their performance schedules.  Pre match preparation and post match recovery are integral parts of ensuring peak performance.  Athletes see it as a non negotiable that their energy, shape and physical and mental health is directly linked to their success.  So why hasn’t this translated into our organisations?

I believe it’s about changing the conversation from one of self-care to one of performance.  For too long we’ve resisted the need to talk to our managers about the need for self care or discuss burnout through fear it’ll be seen as a sign of weakness, that we can’t cope or we’re not keeping up with the demands of our job.  Asking for help, support, time off or a focus on self-care feels like a loaded question as a result.  However if we start talking about performance, how we remain sustainable and ensure we’ve giving our best, it flips this conversation.  A shared goal we have as both employer and employee is that we want to do our best so when we talk about what’s required to achieve peak performance rather than what we need to remove to allow for self-care can you see how this fits with even the most traditional organisational cultures.

I now talk about sustainability.  It’s a popular term when we talk business sustainability or about the environment and climate change.  Yet we don’t use the word in association with ourselves.  I believe our energy and condition is a direct predictor of our success.  Ensuring we’re a sustainable resource and that our teams are too is one of the foundations of success and peak performance.  It’s also how we address the rise in burnout. I’m not saying it’s right that we need to change the conversation or that self-care has fallen on deaf ears but I’ve seen it to be effective in getting better results. Not just in terms of how our business responds but how we prioritise it in our own life too.

For too long we’ve seen self-care as a nice to have, a luxury item and a bit of an indulgence rather than the key to sustainability and a critical pathway towards peak performance. It’s why so many of us feel guilty for prioritising it or that it’s something we can go without if we’re busy.

So what do you do to keep yourself sustainable?  What does your employee sustainability policy look like?  In my workshops I often use the analogy of a road trip (in an EV of course because we’re sustainable!)  When we’re on a long road trip and our fuel light comes on we’d never dream of driving past a fuel station.  We stop and pull over to refuel even though we know it’ll add minutes onto our journey.  We do this because it helps us get to our destination and without it we’re left broken down on the roadside.  Yet how often does our inner fuel light come on and yet we push through, don’t have time to stop and refuel, assume we can refuel when the work is done.  The result?  We don’t get to our destination, our inner vehicle doesn’t perform as well as it could and for some we’re left broken down on the side of the metaphorical road.

In praise of nothing

Sometimes the best thing we can do is nothing, it is the simplest thing to do and yet also one of the hardest.  In a world where we’ve glorified busy and downgraded pauses in favour of making the most of every moment and being as ‘productive’ as possible we’re seeing burnout out like never before.  It sounds counter intuitive to suggest that doing nothing is a way to achieve brilliance so allow me to explain.

The fact that we’re too busy to pause is the precise reason we need it so badly.  Yet our attitude towards rest and recovery for too long has seen it as a nice to have, a luxury item or a reward when the hard work is over.  This attitude has lead to us feeling selfish or guilty if we make time for the very thing that helps us perform at our peak and in stead we’re left with this mantra of more is always better leading us to burnout!

Whilst writing Burnout to Brilliance I discovered that it’s often our pursuit of peak performance and the more is always better mantra that is in fact leading us to burnout.  The pursuit of brilliance leads us to burnout – ironic right, but it doesn’t have to be this way.

My relationship in this space changed completely after my own burnout.  The things I do to keep myself sustainable are just as important as any meeting in my diary or item on my to do list because by investing in these pauses ensures I do a better job of everything else and that I last longer.  I liken it to going on a road trip.  We’d never dream of driving past the fuel station when the fuel light comes on.  We pull over and refuel even though it adds minutes onto our journey because we know it's the only way we’ll reach the destination and to not do so means our vehicle is not performing at its peak.  Yet how often do we do this to ourselves.  We don’t have time to pull over or wait to refuel when we’re at the destination and then wonder why we breakdown along the way.

But there’s more to it than this.  When we press pause, take time out and refuel our tanks we create space in our brain.  We improve our cognitive function and we gain more energy.  That means anything we do after that we do a better job of.  We make less mistakes so don’t have to spend time re doing things, we solve problems and make decisions easier and our innovation improves.  It’s a concept I refer to as slowing down to speed up.  It means that what could have taken us 6 hours now only takes 5 and we do a better job of it so that pause we just invested in didn’t cost us time it created time.  But it also improved the quality of what we’re doing.  No-one is performing at their peak if they’re spread too thin, exhausted and constantly ‘busy’.

When we stop we get perspective, space and ideas, it also aids our rest and recovery.  However it’s also at odds with our societal norms around busyness and constant ‘doing’.  Our high achiever drive keeps us pushing and really struggles when we take time out.  Because we’re not getting the high of doing or the satisfaction of results when we’re taking time out.  We don’t get the instant gratification of ticking off the to do list and the positive impacts come much further down the track (less stress, better emotional regulation, increased focus, concentration, innovation, resilience, clarity and energy).

For many of us our self worth and value has been built on how much we achieve and how useful we can be to others, we get uncomfortable if we’re not contributing or being useful.  It’s why it’s so easy to throw ourselves into constant busyness – it also distracts us from any problems we have and can wind up like an addictive drug to our brains.

Why is it hard to be still?

If you’ve ever had time off between jobs or recovery time from burnout you may have noticed that you were tempted to fill it with baking, learning a new language, training to run a marathon or major house renos!  I was no different choosing to travel the world and write my first book during my burnout recovery.  Fortunately for me part of that was living in ashrams and going on silent retreats which forced me to slow down, to be still and to master the art of being not doing.  It’s through this experience I have gained the insight into the value of doing nothing.

Our society has glorified busy and doing to the point where the opposite has become undesirable.  Downtime, rest and pauses have been made to be the enemy of productivity and yet it’s the foundation from where our best work and full energy tanks come from.

Our devices have also trained our minds to be constantly absorbing, we are always looking for information or entertainment to fill a void.  Every time we get a second to ourselves we pick up our phones and seek to fill it or distract ourselves from the stillness.  Our brains are no longer conditioned to reflect, to be in the present, to idle or to rest.  We get impatient thanks to that instant gratification muscle that continues to flex and take us away from this critical skill.

It’s also uncomfortable to be still, to not DO.  Uncomfortable to be alone with our own thoughts, it’s why we seek out distractions so we don’t have to feel uncomfortable.  It’s here that our achiever high can become an addiction to offset our insecurities (am I enough, they’re doing better, what will people think?)

What’s the benefit?

Often it’s the stillness that gives rise to the best ideas, the energy to deliver and the sustainability to be our best without burning out in the process.  Our brains can’t think or create when they’re in busy or doing mode.  Tapping into the creative part of the brain and thinking is a different art, one that requires space.  Some of my most impactful things that have happened to my business happened when I was not in the office working thanks to the ideas I had!

Not only do we gain clarity and space to innovate in when our minds are still, we get perspective.  As Ram Dass said “the quieter you become the more you can hear” and we start to hear what’s important when we cut through the noise, the busyness and the distractions.

Practicing pauses and taking downtime to refuel and invest in us also means less stress, better emotional regulation, increased focus, concentration, resilience and energy.  It’s also where rest and recovery happens. The trough inbetween those peak performance waves I so often talk about. Each peak in our performance needs to be followed by rest and recovery to enable us to hit the next peak and be our best.

It’s tempting to be filling space all the time but without the space we can’t achieve brilliance both cognitively, energetically and in terms of managing our workload.

Next time you have a day off don’t schedule anything .  Try sitting for an hour (or walking) without distractions and be in the moment.  Practice the art of reflection or encourage some stillness into your day.  It might seem uncomfortable at first for all of the reasons we’ve discussed and yet it could be your secret weapon not just in the fight against burnout but in also achieving brilliance.

Need some practice learning the art of stillness?  Join us on spring retreat this year in Nelson.

Celebrating Matariki; looking ahead and reflecting on what's been

Signified by the Matariki cluster of stars reappearing in our night sky, this is a time to reflect on the past year, celebrate the present, and plan for the year ahead.  A celebration of the beginning of the Māori New Year.

Historically, the stars were closely tied to planting and harvesting.  If the stars appeared clear and bright, it signified an abundant season ahead.

A time of celebration, thinking about the year ahead and of course reflecting on what's past and celebrating the success.  It's important to have these check points and set our intentions to move forward.  This was traditionally a time the crops were harvested so another cause for celebration.  I often think of my work as planting seeds and watching them grow.  It helps me manage my impatience too!

In our modern society we can be so quick to move on to the next thing we often forget to pause and acknowledge how far we’ve come, to celebrate the wins along the way.  Without doing this we can feel like we’re always striving and never arriving so it leaves us feeling like there’s always something we’ve not done yet, at the expense of acknowledging how far we’ve come.

I’m guilty of this too and can find myself wanting more, to do better, to chase down goals.  It’s why it’s so important to celebrate the milestones along the way and to remember like the seeds our flowers take a while to bloom.  We can’t have instant success as much as the impatient part of our high achiever drive demands it.  We have to tend to the seed, water it, nurture the dream and eventually there will be a harvest.

Reflecting on how far we’ve come feels like a harvest sometimes.  It’s also a great time to consider what new seeds we’d like to plant.  What are we focusing on (the grass is always greener where we water it remember) and what we give our energy and focus to will grow – regardless if it’s positive or negative.  It can be a beautiful bloom of our dreams or the weeds of our insecurities, what are we feeding?

So as we enjoy the additional public holiday this celebration has afforded us let’s also consider the why behind the words.  A celebration of the Māori new year, matariki brings a focus on remembering those who have died, celebrating the present, and looking ahead to the future. 

So my question for you is what does this mean to you?  What are you harvesting and celebrating.  What seeds have you planted, what are you nurturing and how are they growing?

It's hard to be [insert privilege] right now.....

It’s hard to be white, straight, male, rich [insert privilege] right now.  I’m worried I’ll say the wrong thing, I can’t speak up anymore and I’m getting overlooked for opportunities I used to be given without trying.  I’m being made to feel guilty for having privilege. 

We’re hearing quite a bit about this and I’ve been reflecting on what it means. I get it and yes it is hard.  You know why?  It’s hard now because it’s always been easy…. for you.

It’s like playing soccer or rugby with an extra player for a season and then the playing fields level the following season.  All of a sudden you feel like you’re a man down [pun intended], you are but the teams are now equal, you’ll still find it harder than it has been.

The advantage of this is that for those who’ve had it hard for the whole time you had it easy now get the same chance as you, they get an even playing field, a shot, an opportunity.

If you’re a white cis gendered male who’s not getting the same opportunities they used it may be because organisations have made a shift in this space. For example in my industry, public speaking, it’s no longer acceptable to have a speaker line up made up solely of white men.  This is a good thing I think, we get more diversity in our speakers, the clients get a better experience and the top 10% (it’s still something like 50% in reality) of white cis gendered males now have to try even harder and be even better to secure a spot – that must be a good thing for everyone concerned right?  An equal playing field, diversity of voice and the fact that we must continuously improve now not to get overlooked, mediocre is no longer the marker for success. 

Despite being white and privileged I now enjoy being able to play the gender or sexual orientation card in a way that’ll get me on the agenda rather than get me beaten up or overlooked.

If you have privilege use it and if it feels hard right now know that that’s because it’s been easy for so long.  Do your homework, make an effort and stay open and curious not closed and fearful.

Celebrate in the playing fields being even, everyone having an equal opportunity and that you’ve had it good for so long.  Also bear in mind that your privilege means you get to help further this agenda and play your part rather than being fearful of the change it brings about.

Burnout in our organisations and what to do about it

As we return to the office post-pandemic, we are finding that engagement has taken a massive hit.  We are finding that our people are change fatigued.  We also have an uncertain future and there are impacts of the pandemic that we're going to feel long beyond the lockdowns and the restrictions. 

Of course, this is having a flow on effect in our organisations.  So many people are telling me at the moment their staff are burned out and that they too feel burned out.  As leaders we’re too busy to lead and exhausted because we've spent the last two years supporting the team emotionally, whilst also trying to manage ourselves and our families through the uncertainty. 

Engagement has taken a hit. The mass return to the office didn't go down too well when we'd all got a bit comfy and cosy at home.  There's this feeling that we've got nothing left in the tank and we're talking about burnout a lot, but what are we actually doing about it? 

The workshops and webinars that I've been running in organisations have surpassed my expectations, but also the feedback from the organisations in terms of a) the staff turn out and b) the engagement.  Organisations have had more staff come along than is usual, and the engagement and desire to talk about this stuff has surprised us all which shows it's an issue, which shows it's something we need to address and something that can be fixed. 

How?  Well, it takes a new way of thinking.  It also takes the acknowledgement of what's gone before and where we're at, so that we can then move forward and start looking at how do we be our best without burning out in the process.  That's where the Burnout to Brilliance workshops can help. 

The Burnout to Brilliance programme is available for your organisation in house.  It’s designed to allow us to find more time, to battle the busyness and cut through the noise to do important work, to improve our focus.  It helps us understand burnout and avoid it.  It helps our teams improve their productivity and focus.  To understand the habits of high performing people and how we can hack some of those habits to gain control of our schedule and to overcome some of the overwhelm that can happen when we get busy. 

In these programmes we learn how to get more done in less time, improve our focus, re-energise so we always feel like we've got enough in the tank to do the work that's in front of us.  To navigate the structure around what good looks like for us to be our best, and to work smarter rather than harder.  Many staff are telling me that they feel a lack of focus right now, tired, exhausted even.  Motivation has taken a hit and of course they wish it was different.  We all want to perform at our peak but we’ve been spread too thin for too long.  There's no room left for thinking space, creating, for strategic thinking.  It’s easy to get frustrated when we know that we can be performing at our best, and yet we are not. 

Do you feel like the batteries are a bit empty?  The tank needs refueling?  You're not alone. It's not uncommon.  It's a bit like when your phone is on low power mode.  We, the battery drops, we switch it onto low power mode.  And yet we are still checking our messages, our emails, sending texts, ordering Ubers, in a hope that the phone doesn't die before we can get to a charging point.  And that's a little bit like how we feel post COVID.  We need to plug in to a charging point. 

We are all wandering around on low power mode, wondering why we don't feel our best and why we're not performing at our best when we know we are capable of more.  And yet there's just this feeling of I'm over it, I'm tired.  This productivity guilt that then comes in.  I know I'm capable of more, but I just haven't got the energy.  We get frustrated with our loved ones because our tolerance levels have gone down.  And that's all normal.  It's also a sign that we need to take a break, that we’re feeling burned out.

Burned out staff will not perform at their peak, they will also not be engaged.  We know that that has an impact on the bottom line.  Retention will suffer as they won't be sticking around and there will be the obvious impact on productivity.  To enable your team to perform at their peak, to re-energise, to re-engage, to press reset.  We need a new way of thinking, a new way of doing things. To develop some practical strategies to wipe the slate clean, move forward and to be our best without burning out in the process.  We blame COVID and say, well, now it will be different but there is this change fatigue. This COVID hangover that hangs over most of our organisations that we need to address.

Burnout to Brilliance is one way of doing that.  Otherwise, without this support, it's like wading through treacle in an environment that's changed forever.  So if you want to give your staff the renewed motivation and increase in productivity, the ability to focus, the perception of time to shift from the busyness, the noise, the distractions to performing at their peak, then I would love to share the Burnout to Brilliance programme with you.

High Performance Habits

‘We are what we repeatedly do.  Excellence therefore is not an act but a habit’ – Aristotle

Often the difference between those who succeed and those who do not is the habits they form. This is how we hit peak performance – forming good habits and breaking bad ones.

All Blacks mental skills coach, Gilbert Enoka, talks about this in relating his experience of coaching rugby players. There’s a combination of mindset and skillset he says is crucial for success, but there’s also a third, equally important point: structure. Together, mindset, skillset and structure make up Enoka’s success triangle.

He’s witnessed players who have the necessary skills and mindset still fail to make the team because of a lack of structure. If they can’t adhere to the necessary routine of training, early nights, meal plans and habits, they will inevitably not succeed.

Of course, the fact that habits are so important is easier said than done. Often it’s not our lack of knowledge that’s the problem but how we implement the knowledge we do have, especially on a regular basis. Success requires structure, in the form of a succession of positive habits.

Forming good habits sounds simple, but, of course, it’s not. Otherwise, we’d all go to the gym, eat salad all the time and wake up at 6 am every day. Even when we know the negative impacts of a certain habit, it can be hard to break. Think of smoking, for example; we all know it kills us, but sometimes that’s still not enough to stop us.

A habit is a repeated behaviour that becomes automatic. The trouble is that we tend to find it easier to keep the bad habits and harder to form good ones – that involves more effort and less immediate reward.

Our bad habits work against us by being easy to perform and giving us instant reward hits – a wine on a Friday night, for example. Eating well, in contrast, won’t give us an immediate sugar hit, and the health benefits or weight loss might not be evident until weeks down the track.

How can we build positive habits and break bad ones? The best advice I’ve heard on this topic comes from James Clear in his book Atomic Habits. Clear believes that both success and failure are preceded by habits, and that we can be the creator, rather than the victim, of our habits. What’s on our desk or the way we set up our home can influence our behaviours and habits, he says; our environment is the architect of our habits.

What I like about focusing on our habits is that it puts us in control; it’s something we can influence. Whilst we tend to think that success is just down to talent, and that some people are just high performers for that reason, there’s much more to it. Talent gets us so far, but great habits make the difference. It makes sense when we look at those who are truly talented. At some point, those people are going to reach a peak at which everyone else around them is just as talented. At that point, how do they stand out? The answer lies in good habits, continuous improvement and a drive for performance. A lot of top athletes, for example, may have had talent to start with – but so did others who’ve not made it in their field. The difference most of these athletes talk about is the hard work and effort they’ve put in.

Peak performance is about forming good habits and repeating them consistently, whether that’s a gym routine, organising your diary, doing your filing, taking a lunch break or checking in on the team.

Let’s look at breaking bad habits first.

Reducing exposure and temptation is fundamental. If you want to save money, unsubscribe from those marketing emails that tempt you with specials. Want to stop eating chocolate at night whilst watching TV? Don’t buy it or have it in the house. If you have to get in the car and go to the shops for it, you’re less likely to pursue it – making the bad habit harder helps break it. I don’t have biscuits in the house usually; it’s an easy way to break my bad habit of demolishing a whole packet in one sitting.

Is your environment conducive to forming good habits or bad ones? Which habits are easier for you, and how can you make the bad ones harder and the good ones easier? Having my gym kit ready to go in the morning means I’m more likely to go to the gym later that day – in that way, I’ve made the habit easier.

The law of least effort applies, according to Clear. If we succeed in making bad habits harder and good habits easier, we’ll see a shift. We also have to want to create the habit (that is, we have to enjoy it), and we have to have an environment that’s conducive to the habit and a plan to make it happen.

The law of least effort is why it’s easy to binge-watch Netflix. It’s easier to let it keep auto-playing the next episode than to pick up your device and press stop. In this way, when we plan on watching one episode, we often end up watching the whole season and staying up three hours later than we meant to!

This is why I go on retreat to write books. It removes distractions. I find less excuses not to write when I’m away in the countryside, in a cottage, by myself. I don’t have TV and I don’t take books; it’s just me and my writing. I have to make it rewarding, though, so I take my favourite snacks and give myself a target. Each day, when I hit the word count that I’m aiming for, I reward myself with a cup of tea and some chocolate biscuits. That gives me that instant gratification; a reward that comes much sooner than seeing the book on the shelf. In this way, I’m forming good habits and making them easier to adopt.

I love the sauna, but the gym takes a bit more motivation. I go to the gym, and then I reward myself afterwards with a sauna, which is in the same building as the gym. I know I only get the sauna if I go to the gym, and once I’m in the building for one, the other becomes much more doable.

Another great hack from James Clear when it comes to forming good habits is something he calls ‘habit stacking’: adding a new habit we want to form on to an existing habit we already have, so we’re more likely to do it.

As an example, I mean to take my supplements every day, but I often forget. Leaving them by the kettle helps remind me and make this habit easy, because I’ve stacked it with another habit I know I’ll do every morning – my cup of tea.

Similarly, my meditation habit is something I do each morning for 10 minutes at the same time my partner is walking the dog. It means the house is quiet, and it’s part of my routine before my shower.

Thinking about habits can become a drain – the ever-constant thought ‘I must do this.’ Reframing statements like this into ‘the kind of person I want to become’ gives the habit more meaning and also motivates us.

I want to be a calm, clear-headed, happy individual; that’s why I meditate each morning. That self-talk gives me a different way of thinking about the habit; it’s not just another thing on my to-do list I’ve got to get around to doing today. It connects my activity with my ‘why’: the benefit I’m getting from the habit and how I identify myself. It links my results to my beliefs. There’s also the added reward hit my meditation app gives me: a gold star each time I don’t miss a day. Let’s face it, the reward of a calm, clear mind takes much more than one session to realise.

So, what habits do you want to form, and what’s your plan of action?

Having the goal is one thing, but James Clear will tell you that the habit is the system behind the goal: it’s the habit that will make the goal a reality.

Our fitness or weight loss goals only happen because of healthy habits. Our revenue goals are realised because of our sales strategy, so success is less about what we’re aiming for and more about what we’re going to do to get there – then the result takes care of itself.

This knowledge enables us to create a plan and develop good habits. I really like the analogy Clear uses of running a race. We tend to focus on the finish line, and ready ourselves for the result we want to see. But Clear tells us we should focus on being ready for the start line. If we’re ready at the start line, the finish line (the goal) will take care of itself; it will eventuate by virtue of our training and preparation (our habits).

If I’ve already put my gym kit in the car the night before, I’ve already done the hard work; the chances are greater that I’ll work out now rather than turning around and going home.

It’s worth considering how you can make your good habits more achievable and more within your reach, otherwise your goals can become overwhelming. Clear advises focusing on one habit at a time and aiming for a 1 per cent improvement. This is achievable and still impactful as it compounds: Clear calls it the power of tiny gains.

Find out more in the new book, Burnout to Brilliance, out now

A focused mind is a brilliant mind – the art of flow

Have you ever found yourself so completely immersed in a task hours flew by unnoticed? Or been so absorbed in what you were doing, the doing became the goal.  It’s often when we’re feeling most energised and accomplished and likely to be the effortless state of performance, known as flow.

Flow is referred to as an optimal state of presence and consciousness, where we feel our best and perform at our best.  As part of being our best and achieving brilliance I wanted to explore this concept of flow and how we get there more regularly.

When we’re in flow it’s likely we’ll feel full of energy, our productivity will increase, we’ll be more creative and innovative and we feel more confident and happier.

In a 10-year McKinsey study, top executives reported being five times more productive in flow. That would mean if we spent Monday in flow we could literally take the rest of the week off and still have got more done than most.

While most of us spend less than five percent of our work life in flow, if that number could be nudged up closer to 20 percent, according to the same McKinsey study, overall workplace productivity would almost double.  That’s a significant shift on the dial where performance is concerned.

Research by flow guru Mihaly Csikszentmihalyi tells us to create flow, an activity must stretch our potential enough to have an even balance between how challenging the activity feels for us, and our level of skill to complete the activity. It is known as the challenge to skill ratio.

Commonly described as being in the zone, totally absorbed in the task, oblivious to everything going on around us and merging at one with the activity.  Flow is often attributed the athletes and artists but available to us all.

We only have a finite amount of attention and focus: if we’re spreading them across many activities, it makes sense we’re not going to achieve the same level of quality. If we’re attending a meeting whilst thinking about what’s for dinner, reading the notes from the last meeting and checking our emails, all of those activities are going to be compromised. If we focus all of our energy or attention on one thing, the quality will improve dramatically.

Flow is like mindfulness, which I’ve long thought is the secret to success is so many ways.

When we succumb to the flurry of thoughts running through our head, our minds become chaotic, and we get more and more distracted.

A 2016 study conducted at the US National Institute on Aging found that allowing our mind to be disorganised doesn’t just feel bad – it’s also actually bad for us. A disorganised mind leads to high stress and chronic negativity.

This reminds me of my yoga teacher training. When doing balancing poses we’re always told to find a gaze point (‘Drishti’ in Sanskrit, meaning ‘focused gaze’, used to develop concentrated intention). When we focus our eyes on one, non-moving thing, we find balance so much easier, and our concentration improves. When we’re looking around the room at everyone else, we wobble much more. When we focus on one thing at a time, we make a better job of it.

Tips to create flow

·       Practise mindfulness – a present mind is a focused one.

·       Do things that use your skills/strengths.

·       Develop healthy habits (in terms of sleeping, eating and moving).

·       Look for a healthy level of challenge and stretch.

·       Take regular breaks.

·       Avoid distractions.