Finding Your Sweet Spot

Finding Your Sweet Spot

Striving vs. Straining

We live in a “do more” culture — one that prides ourselves on how busy and full our lives can be.  A culture that endlessly encourages us to take on new goals and pile on task after task. But what happens when our to-do list starts to feel overwhelming…we burnout! Listen, I’m a leadership coach, I’m all about goals and pushing ourselves out of our comfort zone to tap into our greater potential. But there’s a fine line between striving and straining. 

Think of it this way, when we work out we purposely stress our muscles and cardiovascular system to overtax our bodies in order to build ourselves up. But it is in the recovery where we make the most gains.  When our body repairs and replaces damaged muscle fibers through a cellular process to fuse muscle fibers together to form new muscle protein strands. These new muscle protein strands enable us to get stronger and leaner improving our performance the next time we workout. The same holds true with our performance in life, there’s nothing wrong with “stressing” or “pushing” ourselves for a period of time just not all the time.

Truth is some stress in our lives is actually good for us. We learn how to be resilient, and get things done, our body primes us with an increase in blood flow and a healthy dose of adrenaline, making us more alert and attentive. However, chronic levels of stress, that is stress without reprieve for long periods of time, works against us, which hinders our performance and our wellbeing.  But as you can see stress isn’t the culprit here, it’s the lack of recovery.  More is not always better,  periods of recovery are necessary.  The key to high performance lies in both these actions where we push ourselves for periods of time to tap into greater potential yet factor in R& R.

Whether it be on a small level like a coffee break or stepping outside for a breath of fresh air, or even better yet a day off and a good night sleep, and of course on a bigger level through vacations, long weekends, and holidays to enjoy.  

I encourage you to find the sweet spot between striving and straining, know your tipping points and embrace pushing yourself out of your comfort zone as long as you are sure to factor in recovery!

Wishing You The Best Of Success

-Holly-