The tyranny of giving 100%
Today I’m sick. My throat is raw & I can barely speak. I’ve postponed today’s coaching so I can rest.
I used to inwardly roll my eyes when my team called in sick. I’d think, if I can drag myself in when I’m feeling shit, why can’t you?
As I lie here, I’m cringing at how I used to flog myself and model that to others. And I’m realising it felt like the only way to be.
I remember one morning at work, as I headed to a meeting with a senior colleague, someone else was arriving in the office at 9am. ‘Part timer’ my colleague said to me under his breath.
I was 8 weeks pregnant at the time, and as my morning sickness kicked in over the coming weeks I started leaving the house at 5.30am rather than 6 so I had time to vomit at Paddington station and still be in the office by 8am. It never occurred to me to get in a bit later. That his comment was wrong and that the culture of 12 hr days was toxic. I didn’t feel equipped to question it. To ask for what I needed. Instead, I continued my effort to be seen as the ‘good girl.’ And my assumption was that meant not letting up for a second.
We often hear the mantra ‘we must give 100%.’ The truth is that what our 100% actually is on any day varies, because we are not machines, we are human beings. We ebb and flow. Sometimes we feel like we are unstoppable. And sometimes we feel the opposite. Often we are somewhere in-between. Holding ourselves to a fixed standard of productivity as ‘100%’ and beating ourselves up whenever we don’t manage to meet it is not sustainable, sucks the joy out of our lives and is counterproductive.
I see it time and time again with my clients. They are hard-working high performers and want to make a difference to their teams and organisation. They often believe that looks a certain way. That it means sacrificing themselves to deliver the result.
When they realise differently, slow down and start making what they need more of a priority, it always leads to results they never imagined were possible. That difficult conversation they have been putting off just kind of happens. The backlog they had been worrying about, seems to dissipate. Despite putting in less hours, they achieve more.
If you tend to run at a hundred miles an hour and find yourself internally judging yourself when you’re not ‘nailing it’, try asking yourself this simple question at intervals throughout the day.
“What do I need right now?”
Just stop. Take a breath and silently ask yourself this. And allow a minute for the answer to pop up.
Start doing this just three times during your working day and see what happens.
Drop me a line at claire@clairemackinnon.com with your comments and reflections or join in the conversation on LinkedIn. I reply to every message and would love to hear from you.
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