I’ve been a little quiet on the social media front since the Commonwealth Games.  A campaign like the Commonwealth Games takes a level of focus and commitment that is all consuming.  You find yourself saying “I’ll sort that out after the marathon” multiple times per day. Once the race was over the to-do list was far too long and full of extremely large jobs with urgent marked in the priority column!  Sound familiar?

After the Games my family and I had many life tasks to sort out, large house maintenance work, a new work assignment, activities with Pete and planning for the next achievement in sport and work life.  Not to mention finding the bottom of the ironing basket!

Many people ask me how I do everything.  The key is that you can’t give every aspect and every person in your life 100% focus at the same time.  You need family and friends who support that and who help you achieve your best.  I provide that very same support back to them as they are my everything.  Together, as a unit we support each other to achieve amazing things.

In my family we have always had the philosophy that if someone in the unit needs us we drop everything and help.  Living by that philosophy not only gives us the satisfaction of seeing each other achieve amazing things and conquer challenges, it means we always feel like we have a safety net in each other when tough times arise.  It’s an extremely powerful feeling.  As a leader in the work place, if you can instil that same philosophy in your own team, you’ll be amazed at how high performing your team can be.

I’ve tried many times to make everything perfect at the same time and I’ve either gotten sick, endured a major injury or my races haven’t gone as well as I’d planned.  When you try to tackle too many life goals at the same time you get a nice side order of anxiety and stress and neither of those are conducive to personal best performances.  This is why after the Games I took a break from the intensity of my training regime to focus on the to-do list items.

After years of trial and error, a few personal best performances and a few mediocre ones, I know the exact approach for winning at life…it sounds extremely simple, but it all comes down to the support philosophy, prioritisation and planning as a team.  It all comes down to setting the right goals for you and your family at the right time, from saying no to those who expect more from you at a given time than you can provide and most importantly, learning to be ok with saying no – guilt is a side order that has no place in high performance.

Very simply, if you want to find your personal best at work or at your next race, work with your team to prioritise the when and the how and work out who you can fall back on when you need a shoulder.  No work or race campaign goes off without a hitch when you are trying to achieve personal best.  We always need a shoulder.

Happy running!

Lisa

xo