Training for longevity
As leaders how easy is it to get drawn into things for the wrong reasons or approach things in a way that’s not really serving us or others?
Recently I’ve started experimenting a little bit by having a sauna twice a week.
It’s quickly becoming an important part of the “intentional renewal” strategy in my ever-evolving quest for sustainable high performance.
A sauna might seem like the strangest of places to strike up a conversation about high performance but that’s exactly what happened this week.
After a quick 10-minute weights session that’s part of my daily routine (I follow a really simple mantra of 10-7-365 for things that are really worth doing, to make them approachable and easily achievable every day) I went for the sauna.
There was only me and another guy in there and we started talking. Turns out he was a very accomplished triathlete having completed 5 Ironman events in as many years.
The conversation evolved into a discussion about why we both do endurance events and how we approach them. That’s when the gold in the conversation came out.
“I used to train for performance,” he said
“you know, to beat last year’s time and prove to myself that I’ve still got it. But recently, well over the last 2 years actually, I’ve made a significant adjustment. I now train for longevity instead of focusing only on performance. It’s changed my approach to triathlon and I’m finding that I’m enjoying it way more and as a consequence of feeling better about myself and I’m getting better times.”
We spoke a bit more about why he decided to make the change.
The long and short of it came down to fatigue management, injury avoidance and the fact that he’d started to resent the way the sport, which he once loved, made him feel.
When I asked him how many more events he felt like he had in him the answer was powerful in its simplicity.
“I don’t know how many events I’ve got left in me but that doesn’t matter. I’ll keep training for exactly the same amount of time as I keep on enjoying training. And what’s there not to enjoy about training for longevity.”
As leaders how easy is it to get drawn into things for the wrong reasons or approach things in a way that’s not really serving us or others?
Things that don’t bring with them a feeling of meaningful progress or help us to self-express fully will only be able to motivate us for so long. We need to continually find new ways to grow and evolve so we don’t feel stuck.
It’s becoming ever more important that we learn to re-train ourselves, our leadership teams and our people to focus on longevity and personal fulfilment so as a consequence, together, we can sustain better performance and achieve better results, not only in the short term but for the duration.
When it comes to life, leadership and performance it’s time to train for longevity so we can play an infinite game.
To find out more about working with me one on one, with your leadership team or to invite me to speak at your next conference follow the links below.
