Many successful people appear to be maniacal when it comes to achieving important pursuits, be it looking for a promotion at work, building a business, or achieving a health and fitness goal. The question is: do you have to be full-on to be a great success? Or can you mix it with chilling out which can enhance your likelihood of being a great success?
Liz Huber, who calls herself a “mindset and productivity coach” writing for www.medium.com gave us her “10 Rules of the Ultra-Successful to Master your Focus & Achieve your Goals”.
- Plan your week according to your TOP 3 goals.
- Know your WHY, which helps keep your focus.
- Time-Block like you mean it — schedule the important stuff and don’t compromise on it.
- Learn to say “NO”.
- Start the day with intention and ask yourself: “If I could only do ONE thing today to make progress on my goals, what would it be?”
- Design your Deep Work Zone and don’t get distracted from it.
- Keep distractions out by being objective about what lures you away from the crucial task and design systems to KO them.
- Use the Pomodoro Technique to learn how to focus on one thing. This is a time management system that encourages people to work with the time they have—rather than against it. Using this method, you break your work day into 25-minute chunks separated by five-minute breaks. These intervals are referred to as pomodoros. (See these apps: Focus Keeperand Focus Booster.)
- Take care of your body to make sure your productivity doesn’t suffer. A “sleep deprived body is a great recipe for killing your productivity as it leads to impaired memory, increased levels of stress hormones and a significant decrease in your mental ability to focus,” Huber explains.
- Increase your mental focus through mindfulness, which says Huber knows all work and no relaxation makes Jack and Jill underachievers.
Notice how only two out of the 10 rules were about a better life versus being a better worker. So how important is the role of chilling out, exercising and getting into mindfulness, meditation and say good eating?
Writing on the flywithfitness.com website, Ching Chew made a strong case in his “Why we need to chill — the importance of some rest and relax time for your health.”
“It is important to get a little rest and relax time to activate our parasympathetic nervous system (PNS),” Chew explains. “PNS stimulates digestion and restoration functions in our body.
“I quite often refer to it as the green zone; the zone that allows us to relax and experience amazing overall health benefits, including better sleep and improved gut health.”
When we are under stress — fighting or flighting — we’re in the red zone.
He is on a unity ticket with the Dalai Lama, who argues that a “calm mind brings self-confidence, so that is very important for good health.” On the other hand, the long-term effects of living in the red zone can eventually lead to various health issues such as high blood pressure and irritable bowel syndrome.
Here’s Chew’s rules for effective chilling out:
- Trust yourself and stop trying to please others. Take the pressure off yourself.
- Breather deeply and engage with meditation.
- Sleep 7-9 hours. If that’s hard, look at your caffeine intake and electric devices in your room.
- Improve your digestion via smaller meals at night, chew your foods 50 times before swallowing, avoid processed foods and have a glass of warm water with lemon juice or a glass of apple cider vinegar in the morning half an hour before you begin your meal.
- Take breaks and pamper yourself.
- Learn to say no (there’s that one again!).
- Schedule you time which is non-negotiable.
- Have a morning ritual like going for a swim.
- Schedule three one-hour blocks for returning calls rather than doing lots of stuff on the fly.
- Exercise gratitude, which Chew says will deliver calm into your life.
What these rules are mirroring are the rules or systems that explain success. Focused people with enormous drive and efficient systems create businesses such as McDonald’s, as they’re both high-performing and chilled out.
If you want the double play of business and family success, the advice from Liz Huber and Ching Chew combined is a great start.
Important: This content has been prepared without taking account of the objectives, financial situation or needs of any particular individual. It does not constitute formal advice. Consider the appropriateness of the information in regard to your circumstances.
