personal development

Have you noticed all this focus on the perfect habits of successful people as if the cause for their success can be summed up as a daily 8 hr sleep, 30 min exercise, and 30 min reflection time? But it’s not real.

New Years Eve, Christmas Day, birthdays… we’re pretty good at celebrating important occasions. In between these holidays our days can often be forgotten as the pace of life demands our time for work, errands, exercise, etc.

As a person I’ve gotten pretty good at forgoing fun to reach a goal. Often knowing that a holiday is coming is all I need to keep the sacrifice going.

When a goal is achieved it’s rewarding. It makes the sacrifice worthwhile. Inspirational speakers talk about the impact people can make if they choose growth over comfort and work over fun.

It’s hard not to praise people like Steve Jobs, who epitomized what it looks like to die for your company and dreams. At his end he remarked that it may have been the strain of working as the CEOs of both Pixar and Apple that brought about his cancer.

When you achieve your goals or hit the jackpot it’s easy to look back at that sacrifice and feel it was worth it. Yet, what if the road is longer than you anticipated and you’ve fallen short of your quarterly goals. Even though you are made of the stuff of champions – character and perseverance – the years go by and the goal remains aloof.

Is the sacrifice worth it if the reward is the end?

Sacrificing fun over work makes for a purpose-driven life, but not a good one.

Nelson Mandela is quoted as saying that, “There is no passion to be found playing small – in settling for a life less than the one you are capable of living.”

I see two important parts to what he said. Firstly, passion is found when you live up to your potential. And secondly, you are capable of living a larger life.

It’s easy for personalities like my own to miss the nuance of his point. Because I’m oriented towards action, when I read Mandela’s words I know them to be true and am motivated to work even harder.

But working harder isn’t living larger. It isn’t really living at all. It’s might even be playing small.

I’ve heard it said that we get to choose our habits and our habits choose our future. I agree with that. I’ve also learned from others that there is a difference between good trade-offs and bad ones.

Living a life that you are capable of requires trade-offs. Each person is unique and their trade-offs will be different. Perhaps it means giving up security for an opportunity. Or giving up the 80 hour work week for time to invest in your family.

As 2014 has come to a close here’s what I’ve learned and will be taking with me in 2015. Good luck this year as you pursue the large life that you are capable of living.

To attract people to your cause you need a mission and a vision that’s easy to articulate.
Find fulfilment in your vision because it will become real.
Focusing your attention on growth and development rather than on goals makes the journey worthwhile.
It’s hard to control outcomes but it’s easy to control activities.
Measuring activities make outcomes more predictable
People are motivated and/or held back by fear, security, and fun.
Make fun an intentional part of your day.
Celebrate everything.
Working smarter is better than working harder, combining the two will get you further than either.
Working with others who also understand this will multiply everyones efforts.
If you are motivated you will be more likely to continue.
If you continue you will be more likely to reach your goals.
If your attention is on growth you will have achieved success on the entire journey.

All of us have bad luck and good luck. The man who persists through the bad luck – who keeps right on going – is the man who is there when the good luck comes – and is ready to receive it.
Robert Collier

Successful people attract success.
Life’s a long journey – make time for fun. It’s not a trade worth making.

“There is no passion to be found playing small – in settling for a life that is less than the one you are capable of living.”
Nelson Mandela

light bulb not burnt out Burnout is the worst. There is nothing quite like it. You go from performing at 100% to less than 50% and there is nothing you can do to boost your output. Not even caffeine helps. I remember the first time I experienced burnout. We had just attended a trade show in Toronto. The months prior to the show I worked very hard to get everything ready. I was designing the trade show booth, the signage and programming the new StreetText features. Then in the airport on the way to Toronto I got food poisoning. It wasn’t until after the trade show that I burnt out. I didn’t even understand what was happening.

Sitting at my kitchen table with my laptop open, I was writing some code. I think it was a Saturday afternoon. Suddenly my brain started to get foggy. It’s hard to explain. I stood up shook it off and sat down again to keep working. Again my mind became foggy. So this time I thought I must need a five minute break. So I took one, everything cleared up I felt normal again and went back to work. I wrote about 2 lines of code and again my mind became foggy. I kept doing this all afternoon wondering what was going on until I finally gave up and took the rest of the day off. The next 6 months were brutal. I went from foggy to exhausted, my productivity decreased substantially and I began depending on caffeine to power through the days. Soon my body became sick, I stopped caring about leading a company, setting direction or fighting to maintain the levels of excellence I believed in. I felt like giving up.

That was not quite 2 years ago and I am still recovering. On my journey to overcome burnout I allowed myself to repeat bad patterns of behaviour again and again before becoming sick enough that I knew I needed to re-look at how I was operating.

Have I learned anything?

Rule number 1: Stress kills.

This is really important to understand. It is hard enough when you need to work late to complete projects, but when you are under stress too, that’s when your body gets sick. I was working in a high-stress environment. I have two business partners, one of which naturally puts a lot of stress into the business. I’m very grateful for both of my business partners, they bring a lot of different skills to the table that I don’t. But a culture of stress is not worth much.

If you work under a culture of stress you need to stop. Either change your environment and work somewhere else or change the environment. For me to change the culture meant that I needed to lay down some ground rules. Project deadlines need to be realistic. Over expectations are not acceptable and additional “outside” pressure to complete jobs is not acceptable. High performers like you and I don’t need additional stress from others. It doesn’t help productivity. Ultimately it kills it. The challenge with rules is they need to be enforced. Our tendency as a company is to under-estimate project deadlines, become stressed when we cannot meet our own promises and project that stress onto each other. I am still working at changing that culture and it usually requires a battle every step of the way.

Rule number 2: Get active.

As my body became more sick it became harder for me to eat food. I would feel sick at work, at home, at meetings and when traveling. This summer I started biking to work regularly and I noticed that when I biked I felt better. Biking became an escape for me. It gave me time to feel normal and the space to process some of the problems we were trying to overcome at work. Overtime biking actually improved my health. Not a lot, but a little bit. But when I stopped biking for a short while I would get much sicker. I know that being active helps combat stress. For me cycling was my way out.

Rule number 3: Live caffeine free.

I no longer drink caffeinated drinks (for the most part). Caffeine is really dangerous. It gives you energy when you actually need to rest. I don’t drink coffee anymore. Like a lot of people I would drink coffee though out my day to keep me focused and charged. But caffeine also increases your blood pressure, increases your stress level, and in my case contributed to me becoming sick. Not having any coffee during the day is hard. It means I have to had to change my sleep routine to get through the day focused and energetic.

Rule number 4: Establish a regular sleep schedule.

I’m somewhat disciplined, but this has been the most difficult thing for me to implement. When I have a big deadline approaching my natural habit is to work late nights. Not only that, I love hanging out with people. Pulling the plug on a good evening with friends is like pulling teeth. Going to bed the same time every night however has proved to be extremely valuable for my health and my productivity. After just 2 weeks of maintaining a steady schedule I noticed drastic improvements in my work output.

Getting a good rest can be hard. I live on a noisy street, I know. But it is worth getting. If you have a hard time sleeping due to stress it is probably a good idea to talk to a doctor. For me I found keeping a fan running all night helps deaden some of the noise. On some nights I have resorted to earplugs.

Rule number 5: See a doctor.

Not everybody needs to see a doctor. However, for myself seeing a doctor was tremendously valuable. After various tests and failed diagnosis, my doctor put me on a short term medication that allowed my body the time to recover and heal itself. Honestly, this was a huge aid in recovering from stress induced sickness. Everyone is different and may develop different symptoms. Doctor’s are extremely educated on matters of stress and even just talking to one can greatly benefit you.

Rule number 6: Do what motivates you (work in your strengths and interests).

We are all good at doing some things. Some of those things are enjoyable for us to do and some of them are not enjoyable. I will give you an example. I enjoy programming code and I am good at it. However, even though I am good at fixing computers I really don’t enjoy doing that. Some of the things that we enjoy doing are going to pay the bills and some of them aren’t. I really love free skiing but that is not going to pay me anything. I also really love building cool applications. That does pay my bills. So do the things you are good at and that pay your bills. The rest are called hobbies.

If I had to fix computers and other peoples problems every day, it wouldn’t take long before I was burning out. Because I would be using energy to not only do the work but to motivate myself to keep doing the work I hated. Most of us have to do somethings that we don’t enjoy along with the things that we do enjoy. Just make sure that the majority of what you do is something that you enjoy being good at and that you enjoy doing.

Rule number 7: Celebrate large milestones with short holidays.

In our business we have numerous tasks that we work hard to achieve. However, we don’t celebrate when we hit our targets, we simply go to the next one. I was lucky enough to have a good conversation with another business owner who also has experienced burnout. In the conversation he asked if we set milestones in our company. I answered that yes we did. Then he asked me if I took time off after reaching them. I responded, “Why would we do that?”. He explained to me that when we reach our milestones we need to take time off to recharge and recover for our next one. No use starting the next milestone on anything less than a full tank of fuel. This is an important piece of wisdom that I am going to implement in my life. Had I taken a week off from work after our trade show in Toronto there is a chance that I would have recovered and not burned out at all.

Final thoughts

Burnout is not something that I need to experience again. I know that it is an unpleasant experience. For me these steps are now part of my life. I value my health and I believe that it is something worth fighting for. For some of you it may mean finding new employment and for others who are self-employeed like myself it may mean creating a new culture, developing new habits and changing the way you motivate yourself and your employees. I wish you the best in your effort to eliminate burnout.

2018 update: The truth about burnout