Drive is great. It’s what brings people to professional and personal success. It’s what pushes us to our limits.
It’s also what sometimes inspires us to exceed them – and that’s when you begin running into problems.
Whether you’re a student or a business owner, or an ambitious professional trying to climb the corporate ladder, you need to develop habits that will help you accomplish your goals in a sustainable way.
In this article, we take a look at how you can pursue greatness without burning yourself out.
Overview
If you follow success influencers on Facebook, Instagram, TikTok, etc., you are probably well acquainted with the narrative that there’s no such thing as working too hard or too much.
Alex Hormozi types emphasize the idea that limits are for the unsuccessful. If you want to be your best self, you shouldn’t allow the word “limitation” into your lexicon.
Is this accurate? Here’s where we get into nuanced territory. On the one hand, yes, if you look at 100 notable success stories, you’ll probably find close to 100 people who were willing to work harder than average to achieve much greater than average results.
So you’re not going to find us here saying that there’s no value to hard work. That said, there are limitations that everyone has. That boundary isn’t going to be the exact same for everyone, but even to this point, there are commonalities.
For example, studies have shown that people can only work at their highest possible level for about four hours a day. From that point on, you can, of course, keep at it, but it will be a question of diminishing returns.
To that end, even recognizing your own productivity threshold – for example, being able to note when you’re feeling more tired, more distracted, less efficient – can be a good way to identify your professional rhythm.
After four hours of intense work, for example, you might decide to participate in a self-care behavior.
Understand also that no matter how dedicated you are to the idea of success, you need to be more long-sighted than the tasks that are on your plate today or tomorrow or even just this week.
You need to think about your long-term mental health: Am I working in a way that I can sustain for an entire month, an entire year, an entire lifetime?
If the answer to that question is no, then you should try to modify your behavior accordingly. Sustainability and balance are key not only to success from a tangible career perspective but also for personal satisfaction.
What Behaviors Help?
Self-care has become something of a loaded phrase. To some, it means healthy habits that are rooted in science.
For others, it means buying candles on Amazon and inhaling their most likely toxic fumes while they take a prolonged bath. What’s the healthiest way to pursue balance and self-care?
There are behaviors that are scientifically rooted in mental wellness. The basic framework exists within a concept called hedonic and eudaimonic wellness.
Hedonic wellness refers to behaviors that make you feel good in the short term but do nothing to improve your baseline.
A good example of hedonic behavior is drinking alcohol or indulging in an excessive amount of screen time. Neither behavior, by the way, is intrinsically wrong, but neither is it very productive in a general long-term sense.
Eudaimonic behavior, on the other hand, is designed to continuously reduce cortisol levels in your brain – cortisol, of course, being the chemical responsible for stress, anxiety, and even depression.
It is beyond doubt okay to have a mix of both behaviors, but when it comes to optimizing life for both professional success and personal happiness, you certainly should focus primarily on eudaimonic wellness.
Promoting Balance During Stressful Times
You’re building a business. Starting a new academic year. Trying to demonstrate to your boss that you deserve a promotion.
Whatever your goal, the pursuit of it should be disciplined on multiple fronts.
An athlete is very serious about giving their body the time and ability to recover from workouts. You as an ambitious person, should be equally committed to recovering from a mental health perspective.
Gina Harrison, DNP, CRNP, PMHNP-BC, Faculty of Practice of Nursing at Wilkes University, has several suggestions.
She says: “If stress builds up, it can quickly lead to burnout. Mindfulness is a powerful way to manage stress before it takes over.”
A simple breathing exercise can help reduce your stress levels and put more gas in your tank.
“Sit comfortably and focus on your breath. Count the seconds of each inhale and exhale, slowly lengthening them. Pay attention to the sensation of air filling and leaving your lungs. If you would like, check out short guided breathwork videos on YouTube, TikTok, or even Apple Music playlists.”
Ultimately, mindfulness behaviors are habits. They take time to set in. Most people do not find immediate success with them. Professor Harrison advises that this is both normal and ok.
“Mindfulness is not about being perfect; it is about giving yourself space to breathe and reset. If your mind wanders (it will), gently guide it back to the present. With a little practice, these small habits can help release pressure and prevent burnout throughout the semester and beyond.”
While her thoughts and mindfulness are very rooted in the academic setting—naturally enough—they can be leveraged to equal effect in any situation you find stressful. Even family life.
What busy parent hasn’t learned that, amidst all the joy of raising a family, there is a wearing stress that comes with constantly being needed?
Bottom line
If you are feeling overwhelmed, overworked, or just not as happy as you should be, do something about it. Mindfulness behaviors are free, easy to adapt, and not nearly as time-consuming as you might think. Give yourself the gift of wellness.