The Law of Attraction states that our lives are a result of the things we think about. But how much control do we really have over our lives? If we are all in complete control of our lives, then the Jewish prisoner in Auschwitz concentration camp was also in complete control of his life, right? So is the Law of Attraction saying that his suffering was his own fault? How does the Law of Attraction explain tragic events such as The Holocaust? Let’s start by asking two of the leading experts on the Law of Attraction-

The Secret’s Answer- It’s All Their Fault

Rhonda Byrne (author of The Secret) explains tragedy and human suffering as “thought frequency being on the same frequency as the event”:

Often [people] recall events in history where masses of lives were lost, and they find it incomprehensible that so many people could have attracted themselves to the event. By the law of attraction, they had to be on the same frequency as the event. It doesn’t necessarily mean they thought of that exact event, but the frequency of their thoughts matched the frequency of the event. If people believe they can be in the wrong place at the wrong time, and they have no control over outside circumstances, those thoughts of fear, separation, and powerlessness, if persistent, can attract them to being in the wrong place at the wrong time.

According to Byrne’s view of the Law of Attraction, people facing tragedy, on some level, willed their own suffering.

Steve Pavlina’s Answer- It’s All Your Fault

Steve Pavlina explains that subjective reality answers our question about tragedy/suffering and the Law of Attraction. Subjective reality is the belief that 1) there is only one consciousness, 2) you are that consciousness, and 3) everything and everyone in your reality is a projection of your thoughts.

According to Pavlina’s view of the Law of Attraction, people are facing tragedy, on some level, because you willed their suffering. The more you think about tragedy, the more you’ll see it expand in your subjective reality.

Could the Experts be Wrong?

Neither answer seems correct- both are still basically saying “If a tsunami kills thousands of victims, it’s either your fault or the fault of the victims.” Both answers perpetuate a blame-the-victim or blame-yourself mentality, and make people feel responsible for events outside of their control. Let’s take a closer look at the case for and against the idea that we each have complete control over our lives.

The Case Against Complete Control: Shit Happens

In the words of J.H. Holmes, “The universe is not hostile, nor yet is it friendly. It is simply indifferent.” Natural and man-made disasters happen all the time. Fires. Tornadoes. Floods. Diseases. Murders. Wars. These are tragedies of which we often have little control over. While it is important to do as much as we can to prevent these tragedies from occurring, we shouldn’t expect that our efforts to change external conditions will immediately improve our lives.

Footage from the December 26, 2004 Sumatran Tsunami:

The Case For Complete Control: Our Thoughts Do Impact Our Health, Lifespan, and Success

Research has shown us that positive thinking works. Dr. Martin Seligman, the director of the University of Pennsylvania’s Positive Psychology Center, and author of Learned Optimism, has studied optimists and pessimists for 25 years. His research has found that positive-thinking optimists:

• Get better results than pessimists in most areas of life
• Live longer
• Are healthier
• Do better at work and in school
• Have fewer depressions
• Have more friends and better social lives

By contrast, negative-thinking pessimists:

• Thinking style leaves vulnerable to depression
• Produces inertia rather than activity in the face of setbacks
• Feels bad subjectively–blue, down worried, anxious
• Self-fulfilling; pessimists don’t persist in the face of challenges and thus fail more frequently (even when success is attainable)
• Is associated with poor physical health
• Even when pessimists turn out to be right, they still feel worse than the deluded optimists

Compromise: We Don’t Have Complete Control Over Outside Events, but We Do Have Control of Our Inner Experience of Those Events

After looking at the evidence for and against complete control of our lives, a compromise is what provides us with the right answer. You don’t have complete control over outside events, but you do have control of how you experience those events. For example, you cannot choose whether or not you get in a car accident. But if you get in a car accident, and are injured, you can choose how to respond to that injury.

Victor Frankl, holocaust survivor and author of Man’s Search for Meaning, explains:

Forces beyond your control can take away everything you possess except one thing, your freedom to choose how you respond to a situation. You cannot control what happens to you in life, but you can always control what you will feel and do about what happens to you.

So you can’t choose for a negative or positive situation to happen to you- but you can choose how to respond to the situations which you are given in life.

Changing Our Mindset about The Law of Attraction

The current Law of Attraction mindset promotes a blame-the-victim mentality, and makes people mistakenly believe they are responsibility for events that are out of their control. If we are to continue to experiment with and tell others about The Law of Attraction, we first need re-define it:

The Old Law of Attraction: Our lives are a result of the things we think about.

The New Law of Attraction: Our responses to life are a result of the things we think about.

Sure, the idea of having complete control of our lives gives us a sense of security, as we are led to believe that we are able to exert control over the great forces of the universe. But is that sense of security not a false one?

Help Popularize The New Law of Attraction

The Law of Attraction helps us visualize our responses to life. It helps enable positive thinking and personal growth. But the current popular thinking about it is wrong. If you are in agreement that it is time to change our mindset about The Law of Attraction, and would like to tell others, please use the Share This button below. If you have a blog, please share this post with your readers.

photo credit: Mädchen aus Ostberlin, grave-digger

Life is like a river

Life is like a river. It’s moving, and you can be at the mercy of the river if you don’t take deliberate, conscious action to steer yourself in a direction you have pre-determined.

-Anthony Robbins

Leo Babauta over at Zen Habits recently wrote a very honest post about The Dirty Little Secrets of Productivity Bloggers, and I’ll be sharing one of my own with you in this post. To give you some background, over this last month, I have been on two extremes, and am now back to normalcy. For the first two weeks, I was on vacation. I had lots of free time, and I managed my own schedule and did what I wanted to do. I lived on my own sleep schedule (I’m a late riser). I meditated and exercised every day. I did a lot of reading, writing, and relaxing.

When I came back to work, I was immediately placed on an intense project, which involved long hours and weekend work for 2 weeks. I went from 100% free time to 100% structured time. Was I able to maintain my positive habits when my routine changed so significantly? Nope. And this explains my dirty little secret- I wasn’t able to follow my own advice.

I ended up building sleep debt due to long work hours. I was unable to maintain my exercise routine due to getting home so late from work, I ate unhealthy food (catered into our conference room at work), and I stopped meditating.

Why couldn’t I maintain my daily positive habits when my routine changed?

I love being challenged and pushed to extremes- this is a way to personal growth for me. I dedicated myself to the success of the project at work, and gained a lot of experience from it, but in doing so, I also adopted the norms (eating and sleeping habits) of the team, and temporarily lost my positive habits along the way.

I wasn’t able to follow the advice of my blog post about living like a sprinter (having a healthy balance between stress and recovery), versus living like a long distance runner (no balance/time for recovery, leading to burnout). During these past two weeks, I have been confronted with how difficult living like a sprinter can be. How do you maintain positive habits when routine changes, and the nature of your work can be so chaotic?

Your routine will change, that’s a given- plan for it

I’m learning that routine changes will happen to you and I many times in our lives, but the important thing we need to have in place is a a backup plan. A back up plan is your pre-determined way of handling drastic routine change and maintaining positive habits. Why come up with a backup plan early on? If you have to come up with the backup plan while you are in crisis mode, it’s already too late:

Here are several examples of creating a backup plan:

Routine Change: Working long hours, unable to work out at gym

Backup Plan Options: If long work hours are going to be a long-term occurrence, you will want to find an alternate work-out time, such as early in the morning or over lunch break. If it is only short-term, you can simply cut back on your daily caloric intake, and plan to get back into your workout routine as soon as your work hours go back to normal.

Routine Change: Unable to leave work for lunch break due to deadlines, unhealthy snack options in the office

Backup Plan Options: Bring a bag of trail mix or nuts with you to work, use this as a meal replacement when you are unable to eat a normal lunch. Otherwise, you may end up eating unhealthy office snacks, or even worse, you will be starving by dinner time, and overeat to make up for the missed lunch.

Routine Change: Unable to get enough sleep during the week

Backup Plan Options: Take a mid-day 20 minute nap at work. If you have you own office, this will be easier to do. If not, you will have to be more creative with napping at work.

It’s Your Turn to Share

It’s much easier to maintain positive habits when your external environment and routine stay the same. But when the situation suddenly changes, are you able to adjust? Do you maintain your positive habits, or do you revert back to the way you were before you acquired the positive habits?

I’m still working on my backup plan, and experimenting with the best ways to maintain positive habits when my routine changes. I’d love to hear your experience with maintaining positive habits through routine changes- please leave a comment!

photo credit: aledt

You must daily have the courage to risk making mistakes, risk failure, risk being humiliated. A step in the wrong direction is better than staying “on the spot” all your life.

-Maxwell Maltz

There are some activities and jobs in which people must fail every day in order to succeed. Think of the insurance salesman who is turned down 9 times in a row, just to have one success. Or the skateboarder who must fail at performing a new trick many times before he is able to perform it successfully one time. We can learn a lot from these extreme failing individuals- they seem to view failure as a temporary setback, or a learning experience.

Learning from Extreme Failing: Skateboarders

As a high school student, I loved skateboarding. The nature of skateboarding involves a lot of failing- my skater friends allowed themselves to fail much more often than I did, and in doing so, they became great. I’ve pulled together some footage from my high school skateboarding days to give you a visual of extreme failing:

What if a skateboarder fell one too many times, and thought of his failure as a defeat, wallowing in its permanence and pervasiveness? What if he decided he wouldn’t try the same trick again, for months? I can tell you that he wouldn’t get very far in skateboarding with that mindset. To be successful at skateboarding, you must pick yourself up after a failure and immediately start trying again. You must look at a failure as a challenge, or a temporary setback to achieving your goal.

The Extreme Failing Mindset Can be Applied to Any Type of Setback

The extreme failing mindset isn’t just for insurance salesmen and skateboarders- it can help anyone overcome a setback in their life. One example would be if you recently broke up with someone- If you tell yourself “This is only temporary, I will find someone else”, you will be on your way to a fast recovery. But if tell yourself “This person meant everything to me, I’ll never find someone else like them”, you are setting yourself up for depression and pain.

Similarly, if you recently lost your job, and explain it to yourself as “I lost my job because I am lazy and incompetent- no other employer will want to hire me”, you most likely won’t recover and get a new job for a while- the negative mindset will be self-fulfilling. By contrast, if you tell yourself “The economy is not doing well right now so my employer had to make some cutbacks- I tried my best, and now I will find a new job even better than the last”, you will be on your way to finding a great new job.

Three Dimensions of Explaining Setbacks to Yourself

Based on years of research from psychologist Martin Seligman (explained in his book Learned Optimism), there are three dimensions of explaining setbacks to yourself: Permanence, Pervasiveness, and Personalization. On each dimension, you can explain a setback with either the extreme failing (optimist) mindset, or the pessimist mindset:

Permanence: Do you believe the cause of the bad event is permanent or temporary? Extreme failing individuals believe the bad event is temporary.

Breaking up example: Tell yourself “I will find someone else”

Pervasiveness: Do you believe the cause of the bad event is universal, or specific? Extreme failing individuals believe the cause of a bad event is specific.

Breaking up example: Tell yourself “My relationship was only one part of my life”

Personalization: Do you believe the cause of the bad event is your fault (internalize), or other people’s fault (externalized)? Extreme failing individuals believe the bad event is external to themselves.

Breaking up example: Tell yourself “My ex was not the right person for me”

Do You Have the Extreme Failing Mindset? Take the Test

How do you perceive failures in your own life? Take the test to find out how well you handle setbacks, and how much of an extreme failing individual (optimist) you are.

Taking Responsibility

A comment was recently posted by Brandon (see below), with concerns over how the Martin Seligman’s optimism test, and the Personalization dimension of explanatory style. The test seems to encourage us to not take responsibility, and instead blame external events/people. Here is a quote from Dr. Seligman’s book to help answer Brandon’s concern:

I am unwilling to advocate any strategy that further erodes responsibility. I don’t believe people should change their beliefs from internal to external wholesale. Nevertheless, there is one condition under which this usually should be done: depression . . . We want people to change, and we know they will not change if they do not assume responsibility. If we want people to change, internality is not as crucial as the permanence dimension is. If you believe the cause of your mess is permanent, you will not act to change it. If, however, you believe the cause is temporary, you can act to change it. If we want people to be responsible for what they do, then yes, we want them to have an internal style. More important, people must have a temporary style for bad events- they must believe that whatever the cause of the bad event, it can be changed.

According to Seligman, we should use the external explanation only in situations where we are at risk for depression. Additionally, the Permanence dimension (temporary/permanent) is the key to change, not  Personalization (internal/external).

photo credit: I Love Trees

When we feel jittery, or worried, or anxious in thinking of the great amount of work that lies before us, the jittery feelings are not caused by the work, but by our mental attitude- which is “I ought to be able to do this all at once.” The truth is: We can only do one thing at a time. When we work with this attitude, we are able to concentrate and think our best.

-Maxwell Maltz, Psycho-Cybernetics

A few weeks ago, I realized that my multitasking habits on the computer were starting to impact my productivity. As I became more active in reading blogs/RSS feeds, Digg, Facebook, Twitter, and Plurk, I became less effective at actually getting things done that matter to me. So what did I do? I asked Timothy Ferriss (not literally- I re-read a chapter of The 4-Hour Workweek).

Ferriss recommends that each evening, you think about what task needs to be completed, and ask yourself about the next day, “If this is the only thing I accomplish tomorrow, will I be satisfied with my day?”. Then, write down 2 mission-critical tasks that you’d like to get done the next day. Instead of using computerized to-do lists, Ferriss recommends that we revert to paper, to limit the amount of information we put on our list:

I use a standard piece of paper folded three times to about 2″ x 3 1/2″, which fits perfectly in the pocket and limits you to noting only a few items. There should never be more than two mission-critical items to complete each day. Never. It just isn’t necessary if they’re actually high-impact.

-Timothy Ferriss, The 4-Hour Workweek

The next day, you perform these two tasks separately from start to finish without distraction. I have implemented Ferriss’ simple productivity strategy in my own life, limiting my multi-tasking habits, and focusing on 2 mission-critical tasks each day. After trying this for a few weeks, I have found that his solution works great- my productivity skyrocketed, am I am also happier and feel more gratified with my work.

What makes it work?

Parkinson’s Law- Work expands to fill the time available. This is the magic of the imminent deadline, and works well for completing 2 daily mission-critical tasks.

80/20 Rule (The Pareto Principle)- For many events, 80% of the effects come from 20% of the causes. In relation to 2 mission-critical tasks, your 2 tasks should be part of the 20% that results in your desired outcome (e.g. increased income, productivity, happiness). Again, make sure you ask yourself “If this is the only thing I accomplish today, will I be satisfied with my day?”

Before you get started using Ferriss’ approach to productivity, please be aware of these 2 challenges with the approach:

Challenges with the 2 Mission-Critical Tasks Approach

1) 80/20 optimizations can sometimes cut out critical tasks

This is what’s wrong with a lot of 80/20 optimizations- the belief that truncating the system at the head will optimize its effectiveness; in many cases it actually cuts off a critical piece of the overall ecosystem.

-Clay Shirky, Here Comes Everybody

Solution: When you define your daily mission-critical tasks, be careful not to cut out/stop doing anything that is critical to your long-term success.

2) You may have a bunch of smaller tasks you need to complete in a day

Solution: Bundle your tasks into 2 larger mission-critical tasks. For example, if I want to write three blog posts in a day, I would consider this one of my mission-critical tasks: “Write 3 Blog Posts for Life Evolver”.

photo credit: gabyu

Mastermind Group: A powerful alliance between people who support each other on the road to success.

Napoleon Hill formally introduced the idea of a mastermind group in his classic book Think and Grow Rich. In it, he describes a mastermind group as “The coordination of knowledge and effort of two or more people, who work toward a definite purpose, in the spirit of harmony.” Many famous entrepreneurs, such as Andrew Carnegie and Thomas Edison, were known to have their own mastermind groups, which were critical to their success. Mastermind groups bring together a synergy of energy, commitment, sharing, and brainstorming that you cannot get otherwise.

For several weeks now, my coworkers and I have held weekly mastermind group meetings over our lunch break. This has been a great way for each of us to stay accountable to our personal goals, help each other by sharing knowledge and brainstorming, and share our personal networks.

5 Reasons to Start a Mastermind Group Over Your Lunch Break at Work

1) It’s like having your own personal board of directors

In a mastermind group, the agenda belongs to the group, but each person’s participation is key. Your peers give you feedback, help you brainstorm new possibilities, and set up an accountability system that keeps you focused and on track. You create a community of supportive colleagues who will brainstorm with you to move the group to new heights. You gain tremendous insights, which can help improve your business and personal life. In a real way, your mastermind group is like having an objective board of directors.

-Joe Vitale and Bill Hibbler, Meet and Grow Rich

Being part of a mastermind group is like having your own board of directors. After meeting once a week over lunch, you’ll notice that you have a lot less trial and error due to running new ideas by your mastermind group beforehand.

Example from my group: I discussed what I eventually wanted to do with my side business to other group members- I received a couple great ideas I hadn’t thought of, implemented one of them, and it has helped out tremendously.

2) Knowledge sharing and The Wisdom of Crowds

James Surowiecki explains that the group has a larger intelligence than any individual member:

If you can assemble a diverse group of people who possess varying degrees of knowledge and insight, you’re better off entrusting it with major decisions rather than leaving them in the hands of one or two people, no matter how smart those people are.

-James Surowiecki, The Wisdom of Crowds

Your group will have knowledge and experience in different fields, allowing you to overcome your lack of knowledge in certain areas. Likewise, you will be able to help other group members in areas where you are an expert.

Example from my group: One member of my mastermind group has a very successful real estate side business. Another member just moved, and is considering renting out his old house. There have been significant benefits to information sharing between these two members.

3) Staying accountable to your goals

This is one of the best reasons for starting a mastermind group at work. During each meeting, you give yourself a homework assignment. The group members can keep you accountable to your homework assignment, along with your long-term goals, such as losing weight, starting a new business, writing a book, or getting into the real estate market.

4) Sharing personal networks

Mastermind groups multiply the size of your personal network.

Example: One group member might mention that they are interested in writing a novel, but don’t know how to get it published. Another member has a cousin that recently had their book published, and offers his cousin’s contact information.

5) Holding the group meetings over lunch is a time saver

By having a mastermind group at work over lunch break, you are not spending your time meeting during an evening or weekend. This also keeps the meetings more consistent.

These five reasons alone aren’t enough to get you started- based on my own experience, you’ll need these 4 tips to help you start your own mastermind group at work:

4 Tips for Starting a Mastermind Group at Work

1) Choose a diverse group of individuals

Compared to a normal mastermind group, the individuals that join one at work will be less diverse. Diversity is one of the keys to success in any mastermind group, so try to find people with different ages, different backgrounds, and different personality styles. If possible, each member should be from a different department or have a different area of expertise at work.

2) Choose individuals you can trust

Trust is fundamental to the success of any mastermind group. Coworkers may become worried that you will share their personal goals with other coworkers, or use it against them in the workplace. Make sure you choose group members that trust each other, and set ground rules beforehand that you won’t talk about each other’s goals with others outside of the group.

3) Meet once per week, and let each person talk for 15 minutes

Meet over lunch at the same time each week- block the time off on your calendar. Choose a group coordinator, who will be in charge of making sure each person gets 15 minutes to discuss what’s on their mind, and get feedback from other members. The group coordinator should also record each person’s goals, to keep the person accountable at the next meeting.

4) Keep the size of the group small

Normal mastermind groups ideally have 5-6 members. But mastermind groups at work need to be half that size. If you are meeting over lunch break, and each person is talking for 15 minutes, then the group should be no larger than 3-4 people. My group currently has three members. Any more than that, and we would be rushed to discuss each member’s goals.

photo credit: yatenkaiouh, Ikhlasul Amal

Doing what you love is the cornerstone of having abundance in your life.

-Wayne Dyer

Doing what you love

When I was younger, I loved videogames. I read all the latest videogame magazines, spent all my money on new videogames and game systems, and was obsessed about new games that were coming out soon. Yep- I was a videogame nerd… So when I learned how easy (and free) it was for me to start my own videogame magazine online, and share my love of videogames with others, I jumped at the opportunity.

I started the videogame website, and my passion for videogames soon paid off- I was receiving free games in the mail from game companies to review, had a staff of 10 content writers from around the world working for free (they received free games to review), and was making good money from advertising (as much as $2k/month). This was every videogame nerd’s dream… And I was only 13 at the time- this truly shows how powerful doing what you love can be.

Doing what you think will make you money

On the flip side, in college, I came up with an idea for making money. I launched a dating website specific to my college, hoping to be successful and later expand to other schools. I didn’t love this idea- I was doing it to make money. This lack of love was noticeable in the final product- there was nothing really special about the dating site other than its catering to students from my college. The site ended up being a financial failure, and was a good lesson for me- when you aren’t doing what you love, you are setting yourself up for mediocre results.

If I had loved the dating site idea, versus using it only as a means to make money, would I have been successful? I don’t know. But I do know that I would’ve been more passionate and not so focused on making money. This would’ve increased my chances of success tenfold.

The Power of Doing What You Love

Whether or not our subjective experience of work is of freedom depends on whether we choose to be slaves to material wealth or to emotional prosperity. Slaves to others’ expectations or to our passions.

Tal Ben-Shahar, Happier

When you’re doing what you love, you are in a more passionate state of mind, and always doing your best because you enjoy what you do. You’ll often find yourself in “the flow”, a state where you lose track of time as your focus is solely on your passion. You’ll be better able to handle obstacles that come into your path because you enjoy the day-to-day activity of doing what you love (versus doing something solely as a means to make money).

A study done by the University of Rochester’s Human Motivation Research Group found that people whose motivation was “self-authored” (doing what they love) exhibited more interest, excitement, and confidence, as well as greater persistence, creativity and performance than a control group who were motivated by external demands and rewards (doing what they thought would make them money).

Your Challenge

I now challenge you- in some way, start spending more of your time doing what you love. I’m not saying you should do anything drastic like quitting your job… I am simply asking you to reflect upon what you are most passionate about, and begin spending more time on that area of your life. You may begin to notice (as I did with my videogame site) that abundance will begin to expand in your life when you are doing what you love:

If you follow your bliss you put yourself on a kind of track that has been there all the while, waiting for you, and the life that you ought to be living is the life that you are living. When you can see that, you begin to meet people who are in your field of bliss, and they open doors for you. Follow your bliss and don’t be afraid, and doors will open where you didn’t know they were going to be. Life is too short to do only what we have to do; it is barely long enough to do what we want to do.

-William H. Murray

When we expend energy, we draw down our reservoir. When we recover energy, we fill it back up. Too much energy expenditure without sufficient recovery eventually leads to burnout and breakdown (Overuse it and lose it). Too much recovery without sufficient stress leads to atrophy and weakness (Use it or lose it).

-Jim Loehr and Tony Schwartz, The Power of Full Engagement

Nature is constantly oscillating- think of tides moving in and out, the seasons changing, or the sun rising and setting. We as human beings naturally follow a similar rhythm with our energy levels. Our natural state is to oscillate between rest and activity, similar to a sprinter. Unfortunately, our society of technological innovation socially sanctions living like a long distance runner- we ignore rest and fail to recognize its necessity for preventing burnout and sustaining high performance.

Ignoring recovery for too long causes burnout- symptoms of being burned out include emotional exhaustion, loss of motivation, detachment, isolation, and irritability.

Are your addicted to living like a long distance runner?

Living in a state of stress produces an adrenaline rush, and over time, this becomes addictive, and we lose the ability to relax. Common sense would tell us we need to take breaks and rest, but instead we overindulge in work, and face the consequences. Researchers have found that self-described workaholics have a significantly higher than average incidence of stress-related illnesses, divorce, and alcohol abuse.

Are you creating artificial relaxation and alertness?

If you regularly rely on alcohol, marijuana or sleeping pills to calm down, you may be trying to create relaxation (artificially). Similarly, if you rely on stimulants such as caffeine or amphetamines, you are trying to create alertness (artificially). Both of these artificial means of oscillation are masking the bigger problem- you are still living life like a long distance runner.

Are you creating artificial importance?

Do you like the feeling of importance when you become busier? Even when it means being unavailable to your friends and family? This artificial importance will only create artificial success, as you are still living life like a long distance runner.

Are your work habits putting you at risk to karoshi?

Karoshi is the term in Japan which means “death from overwork”. This is apparently a fairly common occurrence. In fact, I just read about a Toyota engineer who worked himself to death today (he died of heart disease). Additionally, I have known several people in the workforce who have had heart attacks after working extreme long hours under high pressure.

Research shows that these five key factors contribute to karoshi:

• Extreme long hours that interferes with normal rest patterns
• Night work that interferes with normal rest patterns
• Working without holidays or breaks
• High pressure work without breaks
• Extremely demanding physical labor and continuously stressful work

Here are some tips for preventing burnout (or karoshi!), and living like a sprinter:

Tips for Preventing Burnout from Stress and Living like a Sprinter

1) Balance stress and recovery to achieve your best performance

Push yourself beyond your ordinary limits, and regularly seek recovery, and you will grow. This is similar to lifting weights at the gym. The problem with people who live like long distance runners is that they don’t allow themselves to recover, and get burned out as a consequence. This brings us to the topic of tip 2.

2) Create a ritual of disconnecting

New technologies such as Blackberries/PDA’s, and social networking tools (ex. Facebook, Twitter), make it easy for us to never truly disconnect. Several people I work with will bring their work phones/laptops with them on vacation, and check e-mail/take phone calls the entire time. This is faulty, socially-sanctioned “live life as a long distance runner” logic.

It is a very good plan every now and then to go away and have a little relaxation… When you come back to the work your judgement will be surer, since to remain constantly at work will cause you to lose the power of judgement.

-Leonardo Da Vinci

Da Vinci’s advice still applies to us today. To prevent work burnout, create a daily ritual (read my post on creating consistent daily habits) of completely disconnecting- have a daily stopping point. For example, if you are a business traveler, make a habit of not working during your commute, and instead, relax and read books/magazines. If you are on vacation, completely disconnect from your work- don’t bring your PDA or laptop.

Another option for preventing work burnout is to disconnect during your lunch. A lot of people fall into the habit of eating at their desk, or eating with coworkers and discussing work-related topics. To truly disconnect and use your lunch break to recover, you may need to eat by yourself.

3) Create healthy breathing, eating, sleeping, and exercising habits

Breathing: This is an easy way to relax and prevent burnout- throughout your day, make a habit of breathing in to a count of three and out to a count of six, for several minutes. This will help you relax deeply.

Eating: Eat small meals at regular intervals (five to six times a day is recommended), in amounts that are satisfying (not over or under filling). Try to eat primarily foods that are low on the glycemic index, as these will provide a steadier source of energy. And don’t forget to drink plenty of water!

Sleeping: Get 7-8 hours of sleep. If you are able to, take at catnap in the afternoon. Winston Churchill was a proponent of this, explaining that a catnap helps you get two days in one, as you wake up more alert and sustaining energy.

Exercising: Work out 3-5 times per week, and add some form of strength training to your routine (read my post on losing weight by gaining muscle). Strength training is just as important as cardiovascular training, especially as we age- on average, we lose one-half pound of muscle mass each year after the age of forty in absence of exercise.