Olympians are not just physically exceptional; they are masters at determining where their attention and energy goes.
Cognitive research finds an important link between working memory and performance: top athletes are better able to regulate their memory and attention than their less trained peers, and this ability predicts better performance under pressure.
What sets top performers apart is not just their effort, but also the discipline to balance their mental load. In other words: their ‘burden of thoughts’.
Think of thought burden as the invisible burden on your performance. It consists of three problems that affect your effectiveness:
- The cognitive demands of competing priorities
- The emotional burdens of uncertain times
- The depleted energy reserves that make everything feel harder
When the thinking load is high, even talented, motivated people underperform. But Olympians succeed because they refuse to carry unnecessary burdens of thought. So how do you start reducing your own taxes? Four strategies can help.
1. Shift your focus
Olympians know that focusing on performance is critical. Take the U.S. figure skating team, more than a few members of which skipped this year’s opening ceremony to stay cooped up.
At work we often do the opposite. Instead of starting the day with our eyes on the prize, we let our inbox and calendar determine our priorities, hoping that enough activity will lead to success.
Lowering your burden of thought means reversing that logic. Start with the results you’re rewarded for: more paid users, lower churn, a better accounts receivable balance. Then identify the few results that will move the needle and the activities that will get you there.
- Budget your attention
Elite athletes also spend consistent hours training, no matter how secure their place as champions are: practice is always on the calendar. But at work we often allow ourselves to shift priorities or spend our time in the wrong places.
Think of your time as a finite resource to spend. Choose one critical result and decide how much attention it deserves; Only then do you spend your remaining time on other important results and even a few side activities. Delay, dismiss, or delegate anything else that doesn’t fit into your attention budget.
- Use an emotion track
Even when your gaze is focused, emotional distractions can come from within. For an athlete, it could be a fall in training or a looming new competitor. For you it is a missed goal, a tense conversation or an unwanted piece of feedback. Emotions are inevitable, but unprocessed emotions slow you down.
Olympians understand that the emotional burden of yesterday’s disappointment can sabotage today’s performance; take the many who use sports psychologists to deal with poor performances and devastating crashes.
You can loosen your grip on your feelings with an emotion track, which helps you identify and redirect distracting emotions. It consists of four simple steps: place, name, question, action.
- Notice where you experience the feeling, such as sweaty hands or a racing heart.
- Name the feeling you are experiencing accurately, such as frustration or fear.
- Ask the story you tell yourself why you feel this way, and whether it is rational.
- Choose one action that will move you forward, whether it addresses the problem head-on or just helps you feel better about yourself.
- Conduct an energy audit
Energy management is not about pampering or self-care. It’s about making the right investments so that you have the physical, mental and emotional energy when you need it most.
Olympians plan effort and recovery carefully. But at work we often think of energy as unlimited until it suddenly runs out. There are back-to-back meetings, deadlines imposed one after another, new change initiatives that start before you’ve had a chance to anchor the previous ones. All of that leads to fatigue that leads to bad decisions.
Try an energy audit instead. Name three activities that reliably energize you and three that inevitably deplete you. Then make small changes to increase your investment in the first group and reduce your exposure to the second group. Even small changes can make your thoughts feel much lighter over time.
Elite performance is not reserved for top athletes. It is available to anyone who is willing to take less so they can achieve more.
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