G Mental toughness involves setting quality time aside to tackle issues head on. What is going on in your life right now that you need to resolve or address?
G When and how will you spend time working on these issues?
G How will you switch them off again so that you can focus on your performance?
Time-Out 7.4
Over to Adrian . . .
One of the hardest things I had to deal with in this regard was coping with the death of one of my closest rivals, Victor Davis of Canada. He had already retired from swimming after the 1988 Olympics, with a career that included numerous Olympic and World Championship medals. A week before the Commonwealth Games selection trials in England, I heard that he had been killed in a car accident. It was made clear to me that I had to swim the trials in order to qualify for the team (at the time I was the World Record holder, but selection is never guaranteed). I found it really hard to deal with and was struggling to motivate myself to prepare in that last week.
Much as I knew how to, I couldn’t box it away. I struggled to make the final – eighth qualifier, and in danger of missing the team. Just before the final, I sat down and remember thinking ‘the race is only 60 seconds. You only have to block it out for a minute, then deal with it.’ Somehow this worked, and I won the final and made the team.
Re-energising your performance focus
Mentally tough performers are acutely aware of the importance of not only switching their performance focus on, but also switching it off. This may be at the end of each day, or it could be over more prolonged peri- ods such as holidays when restoration is the number one priority. This minimises the risk of burn-out and also reflects a balanced perspective on life, making time for the other things and people that matter outside the performance environment. Work/life balance has been a common topic in my one-to-one coaching with senior executives desperately searching for the ‘magic formula’ for getting it right. Sadly, many do not achieve the successful balance they are striving for, and this can have dire conse- quences for their home life and sometimes their performance at work. The following approaches are particularly useful in being able to switch off from the pressure of delivering sustained high performance, and also helping you achieve a healthy work/life balance.
Planning restoration periods. Restoration is crucial in the sustained high performance delivery process. Just as your body needs rest so that it can recharge its energy resources, so does your mind. Relentless pressure will take its toll in the form of mental fatigue and reduced concentration capability. It becomes more difficult to focus over sustained periods and the only answer is a time-out. Relaxing holidays are one obvious means of restoring the mind’s energy in readiness for a renewed challenge. Planning regular holidays in your calendar is an important way of re- energising your focus. Another way is to plan ‘quiet’ times in your weekly schedule where you will not think about work.
Planning enjoyment time. A very pleasant way of re-energising your focus is to plan times when you will simply enjoy yourself. The activities you engage in will be specific to your needs and ‘what turns you on’, but they provide attractive opportunities to switch off from any performance- related pressure. They also provide an important opportunity to be with people who are important outside the performance environment and to establish what is an appropriate work/life balance. One thing to bear in mind is that enjoyment often involves mental exertion, maybe in the form of competitive sport, playing musical instruments and socialising, so it forms a vehicle for switching focus from one thing to another rather than winding down energy expenditure. As such, it serves as a way of distract- ing you from the pressure.
Pressing the focus on-off switch. I described earlier in this chapter how using a light switch, either physically or metaphorically, can be a helpful technique for switching your performance focus on. The light switch can also be used to turn your performance focus off, giving you the opportunity to focus on restoration and enjoyment activities. This will prove particularly useful in the early stages of establishing a better work/life balance.
These techniques and strategies relating to restoration and enjoyment time-outs are little more than common sense. However, when under pressure over prolonged periods, you may forget about your need for them and you just haven’t got time for them anyway! This is when you most need these time-outs and planning them into your diary might be the only way of ensuring that they happen. The distinction between restoration and enjoyment is important. Restoration involves allowing your mind to wind down and not taxing it too much; it is quite literally about allowing it to rest. Enjoyment time can involve your mind being just as active as when you are in the busiest moments in your perform- ance environment, but it takes your mind off the pressures. These techniques and strategies therefore help you in different ways, and are both valuable and should be built into your life. The light switch metaphor can aid this process in the early stages of getting used to switching into these different modes. Use Time-Out 7.5 to think about ways of managing and planning your time better so that restoration becomes a natural part of your working life.
Over to Adrian . . .
All these techniques are ones that I have spent years working on. I think that I have carried over many of them into my working life now – particularly the ‘on-off switch’! I use the analogy of the video recorder actually, and put myself on pause every now and then. As I mentioned earlier, I do see this as a particularly important skill. I am at my best when I block out some restoration time. For me, this could be as simple as reading the paper or a novel on a train or plane journey, rather than feeling that I have to look at business papers. I also switch off my phone for the odd half hour!
At a macro level I plan and keep to my holidays. I take every day I am allowed, and again I never take any work papers or even my phone. When we started Lane4 I forgot some of these basic
principles, and became quite overloaded and stressed. It wasn’t until I managed my time more effectively that I became more productive.
Not getting derailed by success and failure
Both failure and success bring with them the risk of being a distraction to future performance. Performers can be paralysed by failure or become carried away and excited by success. Mentally tough performers allocate a period of time following important events to deal with their failures and successes. They seldom ‘beat themselves up’ after failures, but they
are careful to identify and analyse the causes. This process involves
drawing out the learning points before leaving the failures behind as his- tory and moving on armed with their learning.
Mentally tough performers also ensure that they make time to celebrate and enjoy their successes. I have witnessed performers put as much effort into their celebrations as they did into their successful perform- ance! And why not? They work hard to deliver the highest levels of performance and deserve to enjoy their achievements. These performers don’t move on without scrutinising and thoroughly understanding the reasons underpinning their success. In this way they are able to build further on their strengths, and recognise and continually replicate those things that are the key to their achievements. This is an important distin- guishing factor between performers who are merely 'good' and those who are ‘great’; the lesser performers tend to focus on dissecting their failures and may forget about understanding their successes.
The key messages for you in dealing with success and failure so that you can re-focus on the next performance are as follows:
In the case of failure: G Do not beat yourself up!