Stop the Push, Push, Push way of living and create balance E74
December 27, 2022
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We are going to talk about the push push push way of living that a lot of people live by and what the consequences are. I share with you my not-so-secret recipe for how I bring more balance into my everyday life. Let’s get started.
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Have you ever heard these expressions? Push, Push, Push. Or Go, Go, Go? Work, Work, Work? It means to be all the time full on. Always driving ourselves to the limits in the pursuit of something. A lot of us have the belief that this is the only way to achieve it.
And lots of time people living their lives with this mentality will achieve a lot – but to what cost? And the funny thing is that this is not the only way to live and achieve your goals or dreams. But I did not know that either.
My life was about giving everything in my work
I wanted a career, I wanted promotions and higher salaries. And I just saw this happening in one way: for myself to always give my best and my everything. That was the only way I thought you could have it all. And let’s be honest, the companies benefit from it when their employees always give their best and put their work first in pursuit of more money, more status and more power.
Well, so they think. Because now they are starting to pay the price when 50-70% per cent of people are burned out. And burnout is directly linked to lower performance and absent days due to health reasons.
But back to ourselves, back to the way I was living for so many years. You might be resonating with what I am sharing here about myself. You might see yourself in the same shoes, asking yourself when there will ever be a time when work quiets down and you can actually take a breath.
Looking back at the last years: has this ever happened? If I look back at my years in employment I can say: No, this never happened. But I can say as well that I did not let it happen.
More More More – the push way of living
If I was in a situation where work did slow down and I could take some time to recover and rest, I would go out looking for more work, new opportunities and more responsibility to prove myself, right? If I have the belief that I can just have a thriving career when I work, work, work it makes sense for me to keep raising my hand for new projects or start looking for the next promotion.
No worris if this does not really sound like you, I invite you to look at the rest of your life and see if you have an area in your life outside of work where you do live by the mentality of go, go, go. Maybe it is sports and fitness. Going 5-6 times per week to spinning, for example. This is a typical area in people’s lives where we can keep pushing and we think that this is good, that this is how we grow and develop. And like with the working example, on the outside it looks like we do.
We can Push Push Push in all ways of living
And the same mentality can show up in a living area where you look after others. Either your children, your family, or your parents – if that is the case for you, reflect on this: Are you putting their needs always before yours? Are you always available to drop everything important to you to help or support others? Are you always so to say on call for people in your life and you feel like you have no time for yourself? Then you are living by the mentality of work, work, work – just not at the typical place of work but you constantly work in your family life.
So let’s talk about what that means and where it can end. Stress is good and necessary. But you have heard me talk about this in other episodes: If we cannot turn off our stress response, we are heading for some kind of breakdown in the future.
Our system, nervous system, helps us with the Push, Push, Push is not meant to be turned on all the time. We are not built to live like that. But we created a society, a culture, and a way of living that demands this from us to thrive or even survive. Again, so we think!
The consequences of living the Push Push Push mentality
If you keep living in Work, Work, Work mode for years and decades in your work you might end up with burnout or you might develop illnesses that are based on the way we live: heart attack, cancer, and many more. If you practice your fitness and sport regime based on the Go, Go, Go mode then you head for a more physical breakdown like regular injuries that could even become chronic. And if you are living a private life of push, push, push any of these can happen, injuries, the breakdown of your system or even serious illnesses.
I don’t want to scare anybody. I want to show you the cause and effect. Lots of people do not make the connection between the way they are living and illnesses or injuries showing up in their life. They think that they might have just been unlucky or this is just happening to them by chance.
No, all of the research these days shows that most of our illnesses are caused by the way we are living. And that does mean that you play a huge part in this. This is not something that is just happening to you – you have a decision here. You have a choice.
The Peak Performance curve
I mentioned already that stress is not bad, that we need certain stress in our lives to be in balance and to be performing. It’s actually a curve that first goes up and then at the peak suddenly goes down again, kind of like a mountain. We need to add some stress into our life to create healthy tension and to raise our performance at work, in the gym or to manage all the responsibilities in our family life.
When we are at peak performance we are very productive and at the same time very calm and relaxed. Check-in with yourself. Are you always calm and relaxed when you perform in your area of responsibility? When I look back at my old self before my burnout then the answer is No. I was most of the time performing and felt stressed.
My performance was more supported by feeling rushed and pressured, worrying about getting everything done and beating myself up for not being ahead further. That is NOT the peak performance that we are looking for.
What I just described is already the phase after the peak performance where it goes downhill. It’s when we moved from being in a healthy tension of stress to being in the exhaustion phase of stress. We are already overdoing it and we are heading for burnout and the breakdown of our system.
So ask yourself again: Looking at your area of responsibility or performance, whatever it is, is your performance based on a healthy tension that makes you feel calm and collected or is it rather based on stress, pressure, being rushed and feeling exhausted?
Managing my tendency of overworking
This is a good indicator for you to realize that you are not truly at peak performance and that you have to take a step back. and that of course sounds easier than it actually is. I know that. Just because I have all of this knowledge and even support my clients in overcoming burnout once and for all, does not mean that I eliminated all of my tendencies to overwork, to keep going and to put myself under stress.
I don’t think I will ever completely get rid of those and to a certain level I don’t even want to – they go me to the place I am in now. They did let me have a thriving career and build my own business – AND they did get me to burnout completely.
Use the *SORCE App to create balance in your life
So I know that I need something to keep me in balance, something that gives me messages for me to adjust my way of living so I can have more of that peak performance in my life. And for me, this is being in contact with my nervous system via the SORCE App. It’s an app that reads my Heart Rate Variability which is direct messages from my nervous system on how much resilience and energy I have for the day ahead. I do this every morning and I adjust my day based on this information.
I will give you a link to the app in my show notes or underneath the video. But let me tell you more about how I actually then adjust my life to these messages because that is really what changed my life and my health.
Push, maintain or recover days to keep living in balance
If my nervous system is really strong on a day, I get the message that I can push myself. For me, that means I can step out of my comfort zone physically but as well emotionally or mentally. I can push myself a bit when it comes to working and I have extra energy to tackle difficult tasks or even conversations.
When my nervous system is balanced out nicely, my day is focused on maintaining that state. So I will go about my day in a usual way, my new usual, not my old usual. It means that I keep to my well-being practices like meditation or yoga and go through a balanced day of work.
And when my nervous system is unbalanced or weakened from previous stress, I receive the message that I must take a step back and recover on that day. And I do take these days now very seriously. I make conscious choices and adjustments to give myself more recovery time and I will not push myself in any areas of my life if I can help it. Sure, this is not always possible but it is possible nevertheless. It’s a practice you need to get better at and try out different things and see what works for you.
Examples of how to create balance on a day-to-day basis
Let me give you a few examples of areas in my life where I do make adjustments based on the message I get from my nervous system through the app.
My best example is my yoga practice. I do yoga about 4-5 times per week and if I do I will always look at my nervous system state first before choosing what I do. If I have a push day I use that day to stretch myself either with a longer or more demanding yoga class. I have an online membership called the Soul Sanctuary where I have hundreds of classes to choose from – I will give you the link in case you want to check it out. And so if I have a recovery day I will choose a slow stretch class or yin practice where I don’t push my body and my system at all. And sometimes these are even the days where I take a break.
Yoga, Walks and Work
My second example is my daily walks with my dog Mykey. I will adjust my time out with him based on how much energy I have available. If I have a recovery day, I will not stretch myself and sometimes even try to take an easier walk so my system has time to restore itself. And if I have a push day, Mykey gets the benefit of a longer walk and I get more time out in nature and try to attempt more difficult walks. I will choose as well walks I have done many times before for recovery days and explore new walks on maintain or push days. Using as well the mental energy and stamina when we are out and about.
The obvious area of my life to adjust based on the strength of my nervous system is my work. I use push days for tasks that either take me a lot of energy or push me out of my comfort zone. And when I have a recovery day I will choose easier tasks, maybe some that are more of a routine to me and I could do them without it costing me too much energy.
Energy and health to enjoy my life to the fullest
And there are other areas where I listen to my system and adjust accordingly like going to bedtime or my meditations. All in all, I feel so much more energetic and balanced. I am more resilient to what life throws at me. There is not much anymore that can influence my mental stability to the detriment of my health. And that’s what it’s all about: energy and health to enjoy my life to the fullest.
I hope you took a lot of nuggets away from this episode. It’s jampacked with insights and messages. I hope you can create more balance in your life so you can enjoy it more.
*The SORCE App is sadly not available anymore for direct end-users.
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You Might Also Like
- Checking in with my nervous system once per day Episode 70
- Don’t work harder, work on yourself instead Episode 76
- 5-Step Method to Solve Your Problems Episode 83
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