8 Tools For Getting Better At The Balancing Act Called Life
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“8 Tools For Getting Better At The Balancing Act Called Life” includes lessons and insights on work/life balance from Johnson & Johnson’s Human Performance Institute, SAS’ Energy Management Program, Tim Ferris, Arianna Huffington, Brad Stulberg, Greg McKewon, and many others. This presentation was delivered to The Mission-Driven Life Course at Durham Academy by Garrett Putman ‘94.
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8 Tools For Getting Better At The Balancing Act Called Life
- 1. Tools For Getting Better At The Balancing Act Called Life The Mission-Driven Life Course – Fall 2017 Durham Academy Garrett Putman ‘94
- 2. Thesis: There’s no such thing as perfect “balance”. LIFE
- 3. Energy is at the center of everything we do – from our performance at school or work to our lives at home. We must learn to manage our energy – not just our time – if we want to try to lead a more “balanced” life.
- 4. 1. LEARN TO SAY NO Busy is a decision.
- 5. 1. LEARN TO SAY NO Busy is a decision. “Give a damn about what’s in front of you.” - David Baldwin
- 6. 1. LEARN TO SAY NO Busy is a decision. FULL ENGAGEMENT The acquired ability to intentionally invest your full and best energy, right here, right now.
- 7. 1. LEARN TO SAY NO Busy is a decision. FOMO JOMO Fear of Missing Out Joy of Missing Out
- 8. 2. STRESS + REST = GROWTH We’re at our best when we operate between periods of intense work and rest.
- 9. LOOKING FORWARD2. STRESS + REST = GROWTH
- 10. 3. BE COMFORTABLE BEING UNCOMFORTABLE
- 11. 3. BE COMFORTABLE BEING UNCOMFORTABLE
- 12. 3. BE COMFORTABLE BEING UNCOMFORTABLE
- 13. 4. LIMIT YOUR SITTING & SLEEPING TO JUST 23.5 HOURS PER DAY
- 14. 4. LIMIT YOUR SITTING & SLEEPING TO JUST 23.5 HOURS PER DAY Benefits of 30 minutes of physical activity per day: • In a study of 10,000 Harvard alumni, exercise is responsible for 23% lower risk of death • Reduces the progression of diabetes by 58% • Reduces rates of pain & disability for arthritis • Reduces progression of dementia • Reduces anxiety by 48% • Reduces depression by at least 30% • Is the most effective treatment for fatigue
- 15. 4. LIMIT YOUR SITTING & SLEEPING TO JUST 23.5 HOURS PER DAY Think about it: We don’t hear about the golfer’s high. Regular running produces the same brain changes that are thought to be behind the effectiveness of anti-depressants.
- 16. 4. LIMIT YOUR SITTING & SLEEPING TO JUST 23.5 HOURS PER DAY
- 17. 5. MIND YOUR MINDLESS TASKS “Men of lofty genius sometimes accomplish the most when they work least for their minds are occupied with their ideas and the perfection of their conceptions, to which they afterwards give form.” - Leonardo da Vinci
- 18. 5. MIND YOUR MINDLESS TASKS NOT WORKING….IS THE WORK.
- 19. 6. TREAT YOURSELF AS WELL AS YOU TREAT YOUR PHONE
- 20. 6. TREAT YOURSELF AS WELL AS YOU TREAT YOUR PHONE
- 21. 6. TREAT YOURSELF AS WELL AS YOU TREAT YOUR PHONE “The irony is that a lot of people forego sleep in the name of productivity. But in fact our productivity is reduced substantially when we’re sleep deprived.” - Arianna Huffington
- 22. 7. FOOD IS FUEL. WHAT’S FUELING YOU?
- 23. 7. FOOD IS FUEL. WHAT’S FUELING YOU? Your nutrition will positively or negatively impact your energy • Don’t overeat • Eat light, eat often • Choose foods that sustain energy • Always “anchor” your snacks and meals with protein, fats, and fiber • Think of the 80/20 Need vs. Want Rule • Drink water consistently throughout the day • Never smoke
- 24. 8. FIND YOUR PURPOSE Our motivations tend to drive our actions.
- 25. 8. FIND YOUR PURPOSE REGULARLY FIND TIME TO REFLECT ON THESE IMPORTANT QUESTIONS • What legacy do you want to leave behind? • How do you want people to describe you? • Who do you want to be? • Who/what matters most to you? • What are your deepest values? • How would you define success in your life? • What makes your life really worth living?
- 26. 8 TOOLS FOR GETTING BETTER AT THE BALANCING ACT CALLED LIFE 1. Learn to say no 2. Stress + Rest = Growth 3. Be comfortable being uncomfortable 4. Limit your sitting & sleeping to just 23.5 hours 5. Mind your mindless tasks 6. Treat yourself as well as you treat your phone 7. Food is fuel 8. Find your purpose
- 27. Who you are now is a consequence of your past energy investments…. Who you are going to become is a consequence of your future energy investments.
Notes de l'éditeur
- It’s truly an honor to be invited to present to this class. I told Michael and Lee when they first started this course that I would like to take it as an alumni participant and – YIKES - low and behold, here I am as a guest presenter. The last time I was in class with Michael 24 years ago, I went by the name Ceasar and was taking Spanish 4 from him. When I think about all the other speakers that you’ve had, including my father-in-law Will Willimon, it’s truly a humbling experience to be here with your all. And, I say that for many reasons not the least of which is that I’m by no means an expert on balance. Balance is something that I have had deep personal struggles with over the years and one that continues to be something that I am constantly working to get better at. What I’ve done is pull together 8 life hacks, tips, & tools that I’ve used in the past or am currently trying to master. I chose the number 8 because it’s the most balanced of all numerical digits. I hope that you’ll find this conversation useful in some way and that there may be one nugget of wisdom in here that you can use in your daily lives.
- This notion of balance that is so commonly talked about in our culture is, I think, an illusion. There’s no such thing as perfect balance 100% of the time. We can’t ever get the scales of life to match up in ideal harmony 100% of the time. It’s impossible. Our lives are not like a pizza where you are entitled to a perfectly equal slice of all the important things each and every day. There will always be tradeoffs. So, rather than think about getting ourselves to the perfect “balance” state and calling ourselves experts at balance, I would like to frame up today’s talk that we can and should focus on ways to get better at the balancing act of life. There’s no doubt in my mind that if we truly want to live moral, happy, productive lives that striving for balance is of critical importance. We need to be mindful of what we want to achieve in life and then go all in after it with keen self awareness about the tradeoffs we are making along the way.
- In order to do so, it’s my belief that we’ve got to get better at understanding, managing, and optimizing our most critical human resource, our energy. re You Invest Your Energy [Time, Attention, Love], You Invest Your Life Research shows that most of us today fail to manage our energy effectively which has led to disengagement, heightened levels of fatigue, low levels of wellbeing, health problems, and, yes, work-life balance issues. So let’s talk about 8 life hacks that might help you get a little better at properly manage our energy and therefore our balance
- First and foremost, I believe that we have to get better at saying no. Being busy is a decision. Every choice – every decision – is an act of saying ‘yes’ to something and ‘no’ to something else. So, what are you saying yes to? What are you saying no to? If you’re like me, you probably have a tough time turning down opportunities – you may want to try it all, do it all. I’d like you to challenge the core assumption of ‘we can have it all’ and ‘I have to do everything’ and replace it with the pursuit of ‘the right thing, in the right way, at the right time’. We all need to develop our ability to say no – gracefully, sensibly, but unapologetically. We have, if we’re lucky, about 30,000 days to play the game of life. How we play it will be determined by what we choose to say no to. If we truly value what we say we value, we must get better at saying no to things that distract us from our most important priorities. Learn to say no so that you can say YES to the critical few. Protect your energy for what matters most to you.
- When we learn to say no ---- it’s unequivocally a positive affirmation for what we care most about. I would encourage you to use the motto of one of my good friends David Baldwin, “Give a damn about what’s in front of you”. Your focus is such a precious resource – don’t waste it. Give whatever it is that is in front of you ---- the book, the paper that you’re writing, the person that you’re talking to, the team that you’re practicing with – your all.
- Ultimately, what I think we should all be looking for is full engagement. The benefits of doing so include Improved performance and productivity • Improved happiness • Improved health
- In order to grow, whether it be personal growth, or business growth, or growing a relationship, you need to do two things. You need to challenge yourself, and push yourself. You need to feel the burn. You need to relax and give yourself time to recover. Life is a track meet – not a marathon.
- Think about how you make muscles stronger, like your bicep muscle on your arm. You have to stress it. You have to lift a weight that breaks the muscle down and tears it. But if you lift way too heavy of a weight, what happens is you end up getting injured and you tear your bicep tendon. But if you lift a two-pound weight, you could sit there all day and nothing’s going to happen. You have to find a weight that works your muscle just about to fatigue — embarrasses it but doesn’t totally crush it. That’s step one. That’s the “sweet spot” weight. What we want is just manageable challenges to focus on. Step two is if you just lift that weight all day every day, you’re going to end up literally burned out. So what you need to do is find the weight that stresses the muscle to get a stimulus, but then rest and recover in between sessions so the muscle gets stronger. And I think that is a pattern that holds true for everything — for how to grow cognitively, how to grow creatively, how to grow emotionally, how to grow in a relationship, and even how to grow a company.
- “By nature, we humans shrink from anything that seems possibly painful or overtly difficult.” — Robert Greene So much of success is just showing up day after day and grinding away at the hard parts in a deep and focused way. However simple that sounds, it's not easy. And that's why most of us struggle to get better. We need to get comfortable being uncomfortable.
- The problem is most of society is really comfortable with being lazy. I urge you to reject that. Stress is opportunity for growth • Protection from stress erodes capacity • Things that push us the most help us • No discomfort, no growth
- The world is full of hard and scary things. We are at our best when we can tackle them bravely and confidently, not when we are accustomed to shying away. Set your alarm for two minutes earlier, get in the shower and before you turn it off, put it on cold. Think of it, quite literally, as stepping out of your comfort zone. It may be really hard, but just remember that most good things are.
- The author of the best seller The Power of Habit, calls exercise a “keystone habit,” or a change in one area life that brings about positive effects in other areas. Keystone habits are powerful because “they change our sense of self and our sense of what is possible.” Exercise isn’t just about helping out your health down the road, and it’s certainly not just about vanity. What you do in the gym (or on the roads, in the ocean, etc.) makes you a better, higher-performing person outside of it. The truth, cliché as it may sound, is this: When you develop physical fitness, you’re developing life fitness, too.
- 30 minutes of exercise is literally the optimal dose of preventative medicine you can take
- And even if you don’t 30 minutes to spare, you can get a ton of benefits from high-intensity exercise like the 7 Minute Workout.
- Research shows you’re more likely to have a creative epiphany when you’re doing something monotonous, like walking, driving, or showering. Since these routines don’t require much thought, you flip to autopilot. This frees up your unconscious to work on something else. Your mind goes wandering, leaving your brain to quietly play and work through your biggest questions.
- Strange as it sounds, your brain is not most active when you’re focused on a task. Rather, research shows it’s more active when you let go of the leash and allow it to wander. Shelley Carson at Harvard found that highly creative people share one amazing trait—they’re easily distracted. And that’s the beauty of a warm shower. It distracts you. It makes you defocus. It lets your brain roam. It activates your key insight receptors and encourages wacky ideas to bounce around. So when the lather rinses off, your light bulb switches on. We’d be wise to think of it not as something separate from doing good work, but rather, as an integral part of doing good work; sometimes, not working is the work.
- But according to the US Centers for Disease Control and Prevention, a third of us get fewer than seven hours of sleep per night. In addition, 50 million to 70 million Americans suffer from sleep disorders such as sleep apnea, insomnia and restless leg syndrome, which can ruin a good night's shuteye. Science has linked poor slumber with high blood pressure, a weakened immune system, weight gain, mood swings, paranoia, depression and a higher risk of diabetes, stroke, cardiovascular disease, dementia and some cancers.
- Bottom line is that when we’re not well rested, we’re not as healthy. If you don’t buy that, consider a study in Sweden where untrained participants were asked to look at photos of both sleep-deprived and well-rested people. Participants judged those in sleep-deprived group as “less healthy, more tired, and less attractive.” Get your beauty sleep.
- The head of the national highway traffic safety administration says “Every aspect of who you are as a human, every capability is degraded or impaired when you lose sleep. What does that mean? Your decision making, reaction time, situational awareness, memory, communication, and those things go down by twenty to fifty percent. Sleep is not empty time but a period of intense neurological activity – a rich time of renewal, memory consolidation, brain and neurochemical cleansing, and cognitive maintenance. In case you haven’t yet heard, rest is important. It’s when our bodies repair and grow; our brains become smarter and more creative; and our minds replenish willpower and gain emotional control. Rest is so important to working in a happy, healthy, and sustainable manner. Experts recommend that we all challenge ourselves to get at least 8 hours of sleep a night. And, if you’re a teenager, you’re supposed to get 8-10 hours per night.
- Another way to ensure that we’re optimizing our energy levels is to consider what we’re fueling our bodies with. When we’re hungry or not eating the right foods, we’re prone to mood swings, lack of attention to detail, errors in judgement, and poor performance. This Snickers ad --- note the misspelled logo --- is a perfect illustration of that.
- Obviously, I’m not here to advocate that you eat a snickers, but I do want you to consider how what you eat is going to positively or negatively impact your energy.
- Let’s end with the one that is perhaps most important in getting better at balancing your life and that is the idea of finding your purpose. Our motivations tend to drive our actions, so if we can understand with clarity what our aspirations are – who we want to be – and live according to those values, we will be able to make more balanced decisions. There’s emerging research (from fields as diverse as exercise science, neuroscience, and public health) that having a deeply-held purpose (or set of core values) and regularly reflecting on it helps people endure a greater perception of effort than they otherwise would. This holds true whether the task at hand is athletic, academic, traditional workplace, or even janitorial. Unfortunately, most of us know of friends and family who have become removed from their underlying purpose and motivations and that causes real disruption from living moral, happy, productive lives.
- In sum….
- Let’s all commit to choosing wisely and working to try to get better at the balancing act called life.