Is Consistent Peak Performance a Luxury?

If you’re a business owner, you know that performing at your best helps you succeed in business, whatever success means to you. Granted, no one can be at their very best every single day – life happens! However, the more often you can attempt it, the more likely you are to achieve your goals.

So why do you treat as a luxury one of the biggest factors in top performance?

I’m talking about self-care, if you haven’t guessed already. National Self Care Day is April 5 – a good reminder if you haven’t taken some time for yourself in a while!

What is self-care for business owners who want to be more productive?

Healthy productivity (or slow productivity, if you prefer Cal Newport’s phrase) allows you to focus on the essential aspects of your business, so you can get more done without working longer hours. 

And the time you spend outside of work can actually benefit the time you spend working in and on your business … as long as that time is spent on self-care. Although capitalism will sell you plenty of items and call them self-care – bath bombs, soothing lotions, essential oils, bottles of wine – true self-care isn’t bought at the store.

If some of these items make rest and relaxation more pleasant for you, that’s OK. I’m definitely not going to tell you to avoid buying things that make you feel good! However, if you’re buying bath bombs but you’re working 12-14 days and don’t make time for scented, candle-lit baths, that’s not self-care.

Self-care is making sure that you have time to spend with loved ones, and being present when you’re with them – not dividing time between them and a screen. It’s doing the activities you enjoy and moving your body in a way that you enjoy (yep, exactly what you’re thinking, ha ha.) It’s giving yourself the fuel you need for mental, physical, and emotional health.

But it can also be things like setting boundaries with people who drain your energy (including clients, if applicable.) Tackling a big hairy (and necessary) task and completing it before you do something easier. Organizing files, whether paper or digital, so you don’t waste time trying to find things every day.

It can also include setting up (positive) habits and rituals, so you make one decision to do things a certain way and don’t have to re-make that choice every day. Building flexibility into your frameworks so you can stand tall like a palm tree even when gale-force winds are blowing.

Self-care is also giving yourself enough rest. Just as Olympic athletes get lots of sleep and take breaks between rounds of training, so too do business owners need to get lots of sleep and take breaks between rounds of complex tasks.

It’s taking time to read books that you like – not necessarily something that is tied to personal development, self-help, or business growth, but something that you enjoy reading for the sake of it. Listening to the kind of music you like, not just business or empowerment podcasts.

Why self-care helps entrepreneurs thrive and improve productivity

Even your laptop, which can run 24/7 as long as it’s charged, benefits from shutting down once in a while. Machinery periodically needs to be taken out of production for maintenance. Facilities workers will tell you that you either schedule the maintenance or the machine will schedule it for you (by breaking down.)

The same goes for humans. If you don’t schedule time for brain maintenance, which is basically what self-care is, then your body will shut things down for you. You might get sick, or your fatigue might result in an accident that lands you in the hospital. And it’ll take longer than you think to get back on track.

Or, you could work smarter and leverage the immense power of your brain. Recognizing that it needs more than the occasional reboot, and giving it what it needs. That allows you to accomplish more when you're at work while still having plenty of time outside the business you love for a life you love.

You might have noticed in the previous section that most of what constitutes self-care is active. Not scrolling through “social” media feeds or sitting in front of a screen with wine every night. 

Human brains don’t actually love passive consumption, so while it’s OK once in a while, rest and recovery is better through activity. Not spreadsheets and decision-making for the business, but something more creative, which uses different parts of the brain. Or hobbies.

Although you may not feel active when you’re sleeping, there’s a lot going on! Your cells get rid of waste and toxins, whose buildup is thought to contribute to diseases like Alzheimer’s and inflammation that leads to heart disease. Memories and learning are encoded, muscles are strengthened, and much more.

If it’s good for your brain then it’s good for productivity, and self-care is necessary for your brain. If you still think “self-care” is synonymous with luxury, then try “recharging” instead. Same principles, but a slightly different way of looking at it that makes the necessity of taking time for yourself very clear.

Recap (tl;dr):

Self-care is not a luxury, but rather a practice that boosts peak performance as well as productivity. 

If you’ve got the self-care down and still feel like you don’t have the life you want, click here for your free consultation to see how we can work together to create a more aligned reality.

Photo by LittPro Inc onUnsplash.