Tal Ben-Shahar and Angus Ridgway’s SHARP model of leadership looks at
Performance Multiplier 2: HEALTH
How much energy do you apply to life and work? Energy is our capacity to work that comes from the ‘wellsprings of our body, mind, spirit and emotions’. Stress is our body’s natural response to the demands placed on us. The more demands placed on us, the more energy is spent.
MYTH 2: “People are happiest and most productive when they eliminate stress from their lives.”
Traditional belief is that all stress is bad. You know that stress causes energy drain. When it is ongoing, lingering and prolonging, it is devastating. Chronic stress leads to fatigue, burnout, illness, high turnover at work, and high cost to corporations. Stress can be negative ‘distress’ which you are most familiar with.
Now the good news. Stress can also be positive ‘eustress’. Acute stress like having a baby, getting a job promotion, a strength training workout are examples of eustress. It saps you of energy at first. But when the stress is short lived, energy can be quickly refueled. Change the lens through which you look at stress. When given a tough work assignment view it as a challenge and motivation for self-improvement. Do not stress out about stress. “Adopting the right attitude can convert a negative stress into a positive one.”
Embrace it. It can make you “stronger, more capable and resilient.” Evidence based studies show that these short bursts of stress improve mental functions by growing new nerve cells, and build immunity against illness by multiplying white blood cells in the immune system.
You do not have to go through life tolerating good stress and avoiding bad stress. Invite good stress into your life and work. Learn a new language; apply for that new position at work. To be healthy you want to increase eustress and decrease distress in your life.
You don’t always have the luxury to choose the stressors in your life and work. So it helps to regulate the energy you spend in response to these stressors. Energy managementis even more relevant today than time management. “Managing energy, not time is the key to high performance and personal renewal” according to Tony Schwartz and Jim Loehr in ‘The Power of Full Engagement‘. Time is a limited resource. Once time is lost, it is gone. Energy is also a limited resource, but once it’s depleted, it can be replenished. Energy is a renewable resource.
“A 10x leader is able to boost positive energy by regulating its two determinants: depletion and restoration.” 10x leaders see the importance of energy management both for themselves and their teams and cultivate a culture around it. The strategy is to maintain a healthy energy depletion to energy renewal ratio.
Behaviors that drain energy and those that restore it can be quite unique to each individual. Begin to identify choices you make and behaviors you engage in that are your ‘energy depleters’ (what sucks the life force out of you) and those that are your ‘energy restorers’ (what perks you up and makes you shine).
Next article will examine how to balance those so you can get into your Energy Creation Zone!