SYSTEMATICALLY GROW BY ALTERNATING BETWEEN STRESS AND REST

Stress Yourself

Seek out “just-manageable challenges” in areas of your life in which you want grow

• Just-manageable challenges are those that barely exceed your current abilities.
• If you feel fully in control, make the next challenge a bit harder.
• If you feel anxious or so aroused that you can’t focus, dial things down a notch.

Cultivate deep focus and perfect practice

• Define a purpose and concrete objectives each time you set out to do meaningful work.
• Focus and concentrate deeply, even if doing so isn’t always enjoyable.
• Remove distractors such as smartphones; remember that out of sight is truly out of mind.
• Do only one thing at a time. Next time you feel like multitasking, remind yourself that research shows
it’s not effective.
• Remember that quality trumps quantity.

Work in discrete blocks

• Divide your work into blocks of 50 to 90 minutes (this may vary by task). Start even smaller if you find
yourself struggling to maintain attention.
• If deep-focus work is new to you, start with blocks as short as 10 to 15 minutes. As you cultivate a
deep-focus practice, gradually increase the duration you go deep.
• For almost all activities, 2 hours should be the uppermost limit for a working block.

Nurture a growth or challenge mindset

• Keep in mind that how you view something fundamentally changes how your body responds to it.
• In situations when you feel the sensation of stress, remind yourself that this is your body’s natural way
of preparing for a challenge. Take a deep breath and channel the heightened arousal and sharper
perception into the task at hand.
• Push yourself to view stress productively, and even to welcome it. You’ll not only perform better but
also improve your health.

Have the Courage to Rest

Grow your mindful muscle with meditation so that you can more easily choose rest

• Find a time when other distractions are minimized, such as first thing in the morning, after brushing
your teeth, or before going to bed.
• Sit in a comfortable position and, ideally, in a quiet space.
• Set a timer so you aren’t distracted by thoughts about the passage of time.
• Begin breathing deeply, in and out through your nose.
• Focus on nothing but your breath; when thoughts arise, notice them, but then let them go. Direct your
focus back to the sensation of the breath.
• Start with just 1 minute and gradually increase duration, adding 30 to 45 seconds every few days.
• Frequency trumps duration. It’s best to meditate daily, even if that means keeping individual sessions
short.

Apply your growing mindful muscle in everyday life

• Have “calm conversations” during stressful periods; remember that you are separate from the
emotions and sensations that you are experiencing.
• Realize when you want to “turn it off” and then choose to leave stress behind. Taking a few deep
breaths helps because it activates the prefrontal cortex, your brain’s command-and-control center.

Take smart breaks and let your subconscious go to work

• When you are working on a strenuous task and hit an impasse, have the courage to step away.
 Step away from whatever it is you were doing for at least 5 minutes.
 The more stressful the task, the longer your break should be.
 For really draining tasks, consider stepping away until the next morning.
• During your breaks, perform activities that demand little to no focus.
 Go on a short walk. Sit in nature. Meditate.
 Recover socially. Listen to music.
 Take a shower.
 Do the dishes.
• You may have an “aha” moment of insight during your break. If you do, great. Even if you don’t have
an “aha” moment during your break, your subconscious mind is still at work. When you return to
whatever it is you were doing, you’ll be more likely to make progress.

Prioritize sleep

• Reframe sleep as something that is productive.

• Aim for at least 7 to 9 hours of sleep per night. For those doing intense physical activity, 10 hours is not
too much.
• The best way to figure out the right amount of sleep for you is to spend 10 to 14 days going to sleep
when you are tired and waking up without an alarm clock. Take the average sleep time. That’s what you
need.
• For a better night’s sleep, follow these tips:
 Ensure you expose yourself to natural (i.e., non-electric) light throughout the day. This will help
you maintain a healthy circadian rhythm.
  Exercise. Vigorous physical activity makes us tired. When we are tired, we sleep. But don’t
exercise too close to bedtime.
 Limit caffeine intake, and phase it out completely 5 to 6 hours prior to your bedtime.
 Only use your bed for sleep and sex. Not for eating, watching television, working on your laptop,
or anything else. The one exception is reading a paper book prior to bed.
 Don’t drink alcohol close to bedtime. Although alcohol can hasten the onset of sleep, it often
disrupts the later and more important stages.
 Limit blue light exposure in the evening.
 Don’t start working on hard, stressful activities—be they mental or physical—after dinner. If you
struggle with a racing mind, try inserting a brief mindfulness meditation session prior to bed.
 When you feel yourself getting drowsy, don’t fight it. Whatever you are doing can wait until the
morning.
 Keep your room as dark as possible. If feasible, consider black-out blinds.
 Keep your smartphone OUT of the bedroom entirely. Not on silent. Out.
• Try taking a nap of 10 to 30 minutes to help restore energy and focus if you hit a mid-afternoon lull.

Take extended time off

• Regardless of the work you do, take at least one off-day every week.
• To the extent that you can, time your off-days and vacations strategically to follow periods of
accumulated stress.
• The more you stress, the more you should rest.
• On both single off-days and extended vacations, truly disconnect from work. Unplug both
physically and mentally and engage in activities that you find relaxing and restorative.

PRIME FOR PERFORMANCE

Optimize Your Routine

Develop warmup regimens for important activities/performances

• Determine what state of mind and body your performance demands.

• Develop a sequence of activities that puts your mind and body in that state.
• Be consistent: Use the same routine each and every time you engage in the activity to which it is
linked.
• Remember the impact of mood on performance; positivity goes a long way.

Create “a place of your own”

• Find physical spaces to dedicate to unique activities.

• Surround yourself with objects that invite desired behaviors.
• Consistently work in that same place, using the same materials.
• Over time, your environment will enhance your productivity on a deep neurological level.
Condition yourself to perform

• Link key behaviors to specific cues and/or routines.

• Be consistent and frequent; execute the same cue/routine every time prior to the behavior to which it
is paired.
• If possible, link key activities to the same context (e.g., time of day, physical environment, etc.).
• If your pursuit requires variable settings, develop portable cues/routines that can be executed
anywhere (e.g., a deep-breathing routine, self-talk, etc.).
• Consistency is king. The best routine means nothing if you don’t regularly practice it.

Design Your Day

Become a minimalist to be a maximalist

• Reflect on all the decisions that you make throughout a day.

• Identify ones that are unimportant, that “don’t really matter” to you.
• To the extent that you can, automate those decisions that don’t really matter. Common examples
include decisions about:
 Clothing
 What to eat at meals
 When to complete daily activities (e.g., always exercise at the same time of the day so you
literally don’t need to think about it)
 Whether to attend social gatherings (It’s not always a good idea, but during important periods of
work, many great performers adopt a strict policy of saying no to social events)
• Don’t devote brain power to gossip, politics, or worrying about what others think of you.
• Consider the second- and third-order effects (e.g., commute, financial pressures, etc.) of larger life
decisions, such as where to live.

Match activities with energy levels

• Determine your chronotype (e.g., whether you are a morning lark or night owl).
• Design your day accordingly—be very intentional about when you schedule certain activities, matching
the demands of the activity with your energy level.
• Protect the time during which you are most alert for “the most important work.”
• Schedule less-demanding tasks during periods in which you are less alert.
• Don’t fight fatigue! Rather, use this time for recovery and to generate creative ideas that you can act
on during your next cycle of high energy and focus.
• Remember that working in alignment with your chronotype not only maximizes performance, it also
ensures an appropriate balance between stress and rest.
Surround yourself wisely

• Recognize the enormous power of the people with whom you surround yourself.
• Do what you can to cultivate your own village of support so that you surround yourself with a culture
of performance. Positive energy, motivation, and drive are all contagious.
• Remember that by being positive and showing motivation, you are not only helping yourself, you are
also helping everyone else in your life.
• Don’t put up with too much negativity or pessimism. A chain is only as strong as its weakest link. Show
up • There is no replacement for showing up, day in and day out, to hone your craft.
• Remember that attitudes often follow behaviors; sometimes the best thing that you can do is to simply
get started.
HARNESS THE POWER OF PURPOSE

Transcend Your“self”

Overcome your ego

• Remember that your “ego” or “self” or “central governor” serves as a protective mechanism that holds
you back from reaching your true limits. When faced with great challenges, your ego is biologically
programmed to shut you down, telling you to turn in the other direction.
• By focusing on a self-transcending purpose, or a reason for doing something beyond your self, you can
override your ego and break through your self-imposed limits.
• To the extent you can, link your activities to a greater purpose. This way, when you are faced with
formidable challenges and your mind is telling you to quit, you can ask yourself why you are doing it. If
the answer is “for someone or something greater than myself,” you’ll be more likely to push onward.
• Thinking less about your self is one of the best ways to improve yourself. Enhance your motivation
• Recall that you are constantly balancing perception of effort, or how hard something feels, with
motivation. Thus, if you want to endure more effort, you may need to increase your motivation.
• To increase motivation, link your work to a greater purpose or cause.
• Not only will focusing on activities that help others make the world a better place, it will also help
make you a better performer.
• Think about why you are doing what you are doing, especially when you are feeling fatigued.

Give back to avoid burnout

• Find opportunities to give back in the context of your work. These can be more intensive activities like
coaching and mentoring, or less intensive acts like posting sincere advice in online forums.
• The only criteria is that the giving is closely linked to your work and that you give without the
expectation of getting anything back.
• While giving is especially powerful for preventing and reversing burnout, you should still aim to avoid
burnout by supporting stress with appropriate rest.
Develop and Harness Your Purpose

Develop your purpose using the exercises in Chapter 9

• Select your core values.

• Personalize your core values.
• Rank your core values.
• Write your purpose statement. Strategically call upon your purpose
• Use visual cues to remind yourself of your purpose when you are most likely to need a boost.
• Develop a mantra based on your purpose and use it for self-talk when the going gets tough.
• Reflect on your purpose nightly (try using expressive writing). Think about how closely you lived in
alignment with your purpose, striving to move closer to consistent alignment over time.