Today I sat down to Write and Nothing was coming to me.
I was Uninspired and Definitely Did Not "Feel" like Doing It.
Despite having Written for over 500 Days Straight, Loving my Work and Writing, and considering Writing a part of my Ikigai, Days like this Still Happen.
Just as I wrote the other day, Ikigai Will Not Save You as a Leader from Psychophysiology.
There is a Reality we must face that comes with Peak Performance.
Results Do Not Care how you Feel from one moment to the next.
You either Get Them, or You Do Not.
Though Emotions are Important to Understand for Peak Performance, to Truly Rise, you Must still get Results regardless of what Emotions you Have or Don't Have.
So, how can you get Results in the Face of this?
How do you Push Forward when it Feels like Nothing is coming to you?
When You Strive for Results, yet Everything You Attempt Begins to Feel Like You're Moving Backwards?
How do you Progress?
Well, I did a little thing that sounds Counterproductive, but in all Reality is one of the Greatest Tools we have for Peak Performance.
I Stopped Trying.
I walked away from my Laptop for a good 20 minutes, watched a bit of Jurrasic World Dominion with my wonderful Spouse, and Stopped Trying.
Now, I didn't "Give Up", because you Can't if you are going to get to Peak Performance.
Rather, what I did was tap into something known as a Micro-Recovery.
All I did was simply take one of those Recoveries.
Now, what makes this such a Powerful Tool?
There is a Cycle we Must go through to reach Peak Performance which is called the Flow Cycle.
It goes Struggle, Release, Flow, Recovery, Repeat.
Now, the 2 Spots most people get Stuck on are the Struggle and the Recovery.
Most people either Struggle Too Much and then get Blocked from Peak Performance, or they do not Recover Enough and then get Blocked from Peak Performance.
Ironically, the Solution ends up being similar for both Problems - Recover!
When we are Struggling too much, and Continue to Push, we just put ourselves into a worse and worse state of Dis-Stress which is "Truly" Counterproductive to Success.
The Further we go into Dis-Stress, the Longer our Recovery must be, and the worse our Stress Damage (Oxidative Stress) becomes.
On the other hand, if we are not Recovering Enough, then we will Not have Enough Energy (Mg-ATP) to get into another Flow State.
However, if we Strategically Recover, we can both Reduce our Dis-Stress to an Ideal Level and allow our body to Restore some Energy (Mg-ATP) to get to Flow States.
Though it may "Feel" Counterproductive to Stop Trying, it is in Reality Hyper-Productive when timed Correctly.
Now, why was watching a small bit of a Movie with my Spouse Productive?
The first is that I was spending time with my Spouse, and developing a Relationship.
We as Humans need to have Strong Relationships, and Building those often has Regenerative Qualities.
With this, the specific Movie is something I am very interested in (I've always loved Dinosaurs), which got me to Focus (a Flow Trigger) and was Novel (I haven't seen the Movie enough to Remember everything, and Novelty is also a Flow Trigger).
Plus, when I changed my Focus "Off" of my Article, I did another Secret Hyper-Productive Move.
I sent my Writing to my Subconscious.
Our Conscious Minds are Extremely Powerful, but they are Nowhere Near as Powerful as our Subconscious.
The best comparison I've heard is that the Conscious Mind is like trying to Solve a Problem on Sticky Notes, while the Subconscious Mind is like using a NASA Supercomputer.
The Subconscious will figure it all out Significantly Faster.
So, changing my Conscious Mind to my Spouse and the Movie pushed my Article to the Subconscious Mind.
When I came back to the Article 20 minutes later, my NASA Supercomputer Subconscious provided me with a Report of what to Write about!
That is the Power that exists within Recovery.
Now, there are Many Ways to Strategically Recover.
I've written before about how Walking for 15 minutes is one of the Best Recovery Techniques.
There are also Several other Techniques I've Discussed Using Before.
These aren't an extensive list of Ideas, but it is Necessary to use Recovery for Peak Performance.
It may "Seem" Counterproductive to Simply Stop, but what is "Truly" Counterproductive is pushing yourself into further states of Dis-Stress until you Hit Burnout.
When you Fail to Recover, and Struggle Too Much, your Final Destination will be Burnout, and that is where we are our Least Productive.
It is Far Better to "Seem" Less Productive than to "Be" Less Productive.
So, when you Feel like you're hitting a Wall, Be Productive and Stop for a Bit!