If you're a hard charging type A person like me (Derek) who really LOVES what you do and cares about your mission, quite often it's actually taking the down time you need that requires more discipline than working hard.
In some ways, working hard is easy.
It's easy to do the things that make people happy, the things that give you fulfillment and push yourself until you're so tired and burnt out that you're getting absolutely nothing done.
What's hard is stopping and catching yourself BEFORE you hit your breaking point.
Tell me if this sounds familiar...
You work hard, you do great things and you get great results.
You repeat the process getting a little more tired and a little less effective each time you do it.
Eventually you hit a point where you realize you're spinning your wheels.
You're staying up late, doing who knows what, scrolling on social media, binge watching Netflix and mowing down on chips or other junk foods.
You've worked hard and your exhausted, but you don't even remember what you got done. In fact looking back, your productivity really dropped off half way through last week.
Now your diet is a mess, you haven't worked out in 5 days and you're getting snappy at the people you care about.
THIS is not disciplined hard work.
This is actually indulgence.
Despite how it might look on the surface, sometimes working hard (especially when you are people pleasing) is actually just indulging a bad habit.
No different from indulging in those chips or giving in and skipping a workout.
When you really think about it, you KNOW you can't get by on 4 or 6 hours sleep... But you trick yourself into doing it because it FEELS GOOD.
... You may not recognize it as feeling good, but pay attention to that impulse.
That drive to stay up late or work 'just a little bit more' instead of stopping and getting into your workout or going to bed.
It's no different than the impulse to eat that entire bag of chips.
It feels good in the moment, then you deal with the consequences of feeling sluggish, tired and unmotivated afterwards.
So what do we do to fix it?
First... Self Awareness. You must recognize that you are doing this.
Second, relentlessly remind yourself that hard work is not always a virtue. It's good in it's place, but if it means you're going to be burnt out and useless in two weeks, your overall results will suffer. That's not good. Don't let your brain tell you it is.
Finally, build in some accountability. Have a trusted friend or a coach (or both) help you stick to your self-care routines.
This stuff is HARD. Harder than almost any other discipline.
It takes time, and honestly, you're probably going to screw it up.
I know I did.
In fact I still do.
But I've improved a lot and gotten MUCH better at spotting those times when I need to back off and so will you.
Remember your goal... It's not hard work asap, it's overall results.
The ONLY time I allow myself to work myself to exhaustion is on those few and far between all out sprints where it's worth it to sacrifice the next two days to get something done now.
If you've got a deadline to meet and you can afford two days of recovery, then of course, do what you have to do. But go into it knowing that it's going to sacrifice the next two days and use that to decide if it's a worthwhile decision.
If this sounds like you, send me a message and we’ll get you started on a new path.
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Derek