It’s a common problem for high performers – the all or nothing approach. Yes – that old chestnut.
It applies to so many facets of work and life.
People who don’t exercise consistently end up exercising too hard too quickly and then get injured again which makes it harder to keep exercising. And the boom/bust cycle of exercise continues…
And when it comes to work we see people be lured in by the fallacy of intensity when they could have been better served by a bit more consistency.
For example, many of my clients include successful fund managers, investment bankers, lawyers, accountants and financial planners. Many of these people require a strong focus on business development as part of (or perhaps all of) their roles.
Without business development, business doesn’t…well…develop 🙂
Yet many don’t develop a cadence for all aspects of business development that are required and while they might start strong, they don’t break down the small parts and do them consistently. Unfortunately this doesn’t lead to a consistent flow of new clients.
Leadership can also be like this. We get busy with the day-to-day and we don’t end up coaching our staff or checking in with them like we should, and then either performance goes a little awry, or they end up getting a better offer.
Or this can apply to the never ending to-do list, and we just keep going and going until our body starts to whisper, but we are too busy to listen so it ends up screaming at us… and that never ends well.
So why are we so ingrained to choose intensity over consistency?
Well there are many reasons but many of them can be boiled down as follows:
- Based on the way many people were brought up we have deeply ingrained beliefs that working harder will always yield better results. These can be caused by our parents’ ways of thinking and what we were taught at school.
- It’s easy to view rest as counterintuitive especially in light of the above point.
- High-performers tend to be their own harshest critics. This self-imposed pressure can lead to overcompensation and reluctance to embrace a more measured and consistent way of doing things.
- Of course at the very core is the fear that many high performers have of not wanting to look stupid and therefore always wanting to prove that they did as much as they possibly could to be successful.
So how should we go about applying consistency over intensity?
Success is just the sum of small habits repeated consistently over time. The first step is to very clearly define your desired outcomes and then work backwards to determine the tiniest bite-size chunks that need to be done, and then create really easily manageable routines and habits that can be sustained over the long term.
For example if business development is part of your role, what is your target revenue? How many new clients do you need to achieve that revenue? What is your conversion rate? What are the types of activities that you need to do to attract leads to you, and what are the types of activities required to go through the conversion process? And how do you achieve those activities that are required in the easiest, as I like to say laziest, way possible?
And just like athletes need to give their bodies a break, we knowledge workers need to give our brains a break. Sometimes it can help to allow yourself some downtime by seeing it as a really important part of your productivity plan. At least that’s a way of thinking that helps me anyway.
It also helps to incorporate a process of continual check-ins with yourself. Think about your energy levels. Think about what’s working with your productivity and think about what might need a tweak. Given that our lives are constantly evolving this will never be static.
The time is now…
When it comes to beliefs an easy way to explain them is that the more you think a certain way, then the more you think a certain way. So continuing the intensity over consistency belief system will be your natural default until you choose to think differently. And the longer you leave that the harder it will get.
So if you are serious about sustainable high-performance the best time to get this right would’ve been many years ago and the second best time is now.
Conclusion
For high performers the allure of intensity will probably always be there. I’ll admit I don’t always get this completely right myself, and I’m not sure ever will, but I’m a lot better at it than I used to be. I have now seen enough science to support that my body and brain both need a break before they tell me to have one. Luckily I have always wanted to do things in the easiest way possible so that is something I tune into even more. When you embrace the power of small, consistent actions the compounding effect can be quite magical.
Of course, if you’d like to find out more about how to improve performance with less effort why not either book a Performance Call or sign up for our next 20/20 session or one of our open workshops here