Sneak Peek
On TIGNUM’s B-LD Kitchen Hub, our world-class Performance Specialists share their latest insights on human performance and discuss real-life experiences and best practices with industry leaders.
Here is a limited selection for you to explore:
Getting Stronger when fatigue strikes
Feeling tired from hard work is normal. Instead of focusing on exhaustion, reflect on your accomplishments, learn from challenges, and shift to a "we" focus by helping others.
It’s the end of the night, and you’re exhausted. You collapse onto the pillow with a wake of challenges behind you. From tackling your quarterly deliverables to debating how to handle a silo problem to smoothing inner office politics to spending quality time with your two kids, helping them wind down before bed - you left it all on the field today. As you lay there with barely the energy to turn the next page of your book before bed, you ask yourself - am I burning myself out? How long can I possibly keep this up?
We all ask ourselves this question when we are out of energy and feel like we gave it all in so many directions. When the long hours and tough problems empty our cognitive tank, and the personnel issues sap our emotional tank, we may question our own stamina and resilience. We may start to wonder just how long we can keep this up.
What if fatigue is a normal thing from hard work? What if the energy spent actually created something great, moved something critical forward, or paved the way for a future relationship you will always cherish? Would you still be asking yourself these same questions?
The other day, my wife and I had one of these experiences. After a long Saturday of chasing our kids, spending time with our friends and family, and squeezing the life out of every minute, we collapsed on our pillows, exhausted. But a funny thing happened. We didn’t ask each other if we were burned out; instead, we started reflecting on all the fun we had, the impact we made, the memories we will cherish, and the potential we were creating for our kids and our family - the same feeling of fatigue, but a completely different feeling of its meaning.
At TIGNUM, we have seen how fatigue can make the same person fragile or psychologically resilient. It can make them believe in themselves more, or it can raise their self-doubt. It can excite them for the future or scare them to death. So what is the difference?
Your focus makes all the difference
One of the most common differences is your focus. Do you focus on your fatigue and the effort you have put out? Or do you focus on your contributions, the impact you created, and the lessons you learned? The former leaves you zapped, but the latter can leave you energized, inspired, and hungry for more.
Do you focus on the huge amount of things out of your control? Or do you choose to deliberately and consistently focus on those things that you can influence or control? The former leaves you overwhelmed, but the latter makes you feel capable and in control.
Do you choose to focus on how you are being impacted or instead on how you can positively impact others on your team? When you choose to be an energy multiplier for others, to be we-focused instead of me-focused, and to be of service rather than helpless, everything changes. Suddenly you may find your gas tank full rather than empty.
Role modeling these behaviors should be a part of leadership. But unfortunately, most of us learn these Sustainable Human Performance skills when it is too late, and we’re already struggling with burnout. Are you going to wait?
ABOUT THE AUTHOR
As TIGNUM's Managing Director of the Americas and APAC, Chris is an experienced Sustainable Human Performance coach to many CEO’s, C-suite executives, and professional athletes. In 2020, Chris was inducted into the MG100 Coaches program, an organization of some the best executive coaches, leaders and business thinkers from around the world.
ABOUT TIGNUM
TIGNUM is the major performance building block for business professionals, designed around a skill- and data-based approach that respects the individuality, focuses on the brain, evolves constantly, and creates lasting impact. Its international team comes from a wide range of fields, including human behavior, elite athletics, special forces, performance medicine, executive coaching, change consultants, and more.
The Invisible Fatigue
Fatigue is a funny thing. Sometimes you know exactly where it comes from, like when you've been sick, sleep-deprived, or moved furniture all day, but other times it seems to come out of nowhere.
Fatigue is a funny thing. Sometimes you know exactly where it comes from, like when you've been sick, sleep-deprived, or moved furniture all day, but other times it seems to come out of nowhere. The human body is complex, and many of the forces working on the human body are invisible. Things like changes in the seasons (weather and light cycles), your immune system fighting a bug, quarantine, or even the impact of the suffering and tragedy that is covered in the news.
At the same time, as many of you have probably experienced before, there is also fatigue lag. One night you get 8 hours of perfect sleep, yet you feel tired the next day. Another night you get 4 hours of sleep, and you feel great the next day. How could this be? One reason is that the way you feel today is actually the product of your last 3 to 7 days. Muscle tightness and soreness may be due to physical activity you did 3 days ago. That lack of energy you feel today is often due to your cumulative sleep over the past 5 to 7 days.
What causes emotional fatigue
Even more mysterious is the impact that emotional fatigue has on your energy levels and your ability to self-regulate your response to your emotions. Like all fatigue, the cause, symptoms, and remedies of emotional fatigue can be very individual. This is why it is so critical that you constantly increase your awareness and proactively build your toolbox with recovery strategies. One key thing to remember when it comes to emotional fatigue is that it isn’t the event or trigger that causes the body’s response to fatigue. It's actually your perception, your current capacity and condition, your emotional history, and even your self-image that dictate the emotional cost of that event.
Common causes of emotional fatigue can include: fear, change, hard work on a project without progress or impact, negative people, drama, the achievement of something you have worked long and hard on, a lack of team support, emotional roller-coaster experiences, losing someone close to you, situations out of your control, caregiver responsibilities (elderly parent, sick kids, friends, etc.), and many other situations. Interestingly enough, almost every person is dealing with at least one of these situations at any given moment. The problem is, in today’s highly competitive and complex world, you may be so focused on winning or driving results that you don’t even see these things around you.
The cost of being emotionally exhausted
While there are a variety of symptoms of emotional fatigue, the most common ones we see are apathy, emotional outbursts (inability to control reaction to emotions), insomnia, negative ruminating thoughts, unexplained anxiety, emotional flatness, and an excessive desire to sleep. The problem is that by the time you are experiencing any of these symptoms, or an array of other symptoms you may experience, you are already late to the game. Your emotional fatigue has not only been draining your energy, but it's also been destroying your performance.
Many people today report that they are experiencing burnout. Incorrectly, they often attribute their burnout purely to a work overload. Our experience at TIGNUM has shown us that burnout is often just the accumulation of the effects of emotional fatigue and work overload is just the final straw that breaks the camel's back.
How strategic emotional recovery keeps you strong
There are many strategies (too many to cover in one blog post) to help repay your emotional debt and be better in your future performances, but here are a few that we have found to be particularly powerful:
.01 Reconnect with your purpose. Why are you doing what you do? How do you and others benefit from you doing what you do? How do you add meaning to other people’s lives? Who are you a role model to?
.02 Serve others. Nothing rebuilds your emotional bank account more than giving to others. This not only helps you gain perspective, but it also fills you with positive emotions like kindness, gratitude, helpfulness, and love.
.03 Reflect on your successes. When you are emotionally fatigued, it is too easy to see the pain and miss the progress. When you reflect on the behaviors, actions, and choices you are making that create your success, you stimulate your parasympathetic nervous system (recovery system), you rewire your brain to the key behaviors you want to do more of, and you energize yourself to keep going.
.04 Plan for fun. In today’s busy world, we forget that most of what we do is not life or death. We also forget that, without fun, life can quickly feel like a grind. Pull out your calendar and start planning at least one thing to do each week just for pure fun. When you get this down, try planning something daily.
.05 Listen to music. Have you ever noticed, when you watch a movie, how the music can completely alter your emotional state? The producer can bring you up, take you down, make you laugh, or make you cry almost exclusively by selecting the right music. Many of our clients have found that creating several playlists of the music that creates the emotional state they seek can be a very powerful emotional recovery tool.
Emotional fatigue can often be overlooked and invisible. If you wait until you are suffering, it's too late because your performance is already compromised and you are already losing impact. Sustainable High Performers front-load their performance by building recovery strategies into every day, every week, and every month.
ABOUT THE AUTHOR
Scott Peltin // Co-Founder and Chief Catalyst
As the Co-Founder and Chief Catalyst of TIGNUM, Scott has coached many top CEOs, executives, professional athletes, and others to Rule Their Impact. Scott’s unique blend of his 25 years in the Fire Service, education, and coaching experience helps him combine the art and science of Sustainable High Impact to help TIGNUM clients be better, for longer, when it counts the most.
ABOUT TIGNUM
TIGNUM is the major performance building block for business professionals, designed around a skill- and data-based approach that respects the individuality, focuses on the brain, evolves constantly, and creates lasting impact. Its international team comes from a wide range of fields, including human behavior, elite athletics, special forces, performance medicine, executive coaching, change consultants, and more.