Hey - It’s Michael.
Deeply enjoying those late summer days. Enjoy the newsletter!
The Situation
You work and there’s negative emotion. You push through, only to feel worse afterwards.
This thing is annoying you, that situation is hurting. Just a little bit more and it will go away.
But it doesn’t. It never does.
Just like physical pain - sore muscles or an open wound - will not go away if you treat it badly, mental and emotional pain are just the same.
The System
Any great sports coach knows: If fun stops, pain is not far away. And when pain hits, you have a serious problem.
Pain is an important signal from your body that there is some unmet (recovery) need. Or that reality works different to how you think it does.
Listen & use it, and you will grow. Ignore it, and it will come back stronger and create more and more problems.
Principle:
Pain + Reflection = Progress
(Ok, this one is stolen from Ray Dalio but it’s too catchy to not use it.)
It’s imperative that you learn to listen and correctly interpret the body’s signals. Figure out whether you are physically, mentally or emotionally overtraining - or undertraining.
Overtraining is exerting too much stress & too little recovery, undertraining is exerting too little stress & too much recovery.
Chances are, as a knowledge worker reading about healthy high performance, you are physically undertraining and emotionally & mentally overtraining.
In Practice
Stop Rule
Stop pushing through pain. Instead, use it for recovery & reflection.
Whenever pain hits, stop.
Listen.
Figure out whether you are doing too much - or too little.
And then, commit to fulfill your needs or make a change.
This of course does not mean to never feel discomfort - but I guess most of the readers here push too much than too little.
Here’s a simple reflection process:
Listen & observe
What do I feel?
What happened - what are my observations?
Identify & reflect
What could my pain or negative emotions signal?
What is the unmet need?
What is the reality of this situation?
How is my expectation different from reality?
Learn, recover & grow
How am I going to meet that need now or ASAP?
What is my new way of moving forward?
A Quote To Ponder On:
“Difficulties strengthen the mind, as labor does the body.” - Seneca
A Question To Reflect On:
How can I make this fun?
See you next week - Michael
PS: If you like this issue - please share it with someone you know who might like it to. You know what they say: the more the merrier!