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Discussion on: How do you stay motivated?

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_morgan_adams_ profile image
morgana

Mix things up. They say too much of a good thing is bad for you. I've been a serial burnout for years. It's only over the last year and half that I've learned to rein it in and take lots of breaks.

Our brains can only sustain high performance for so long before they need to cool down. Frequent breaks help you reset even if you think it breaks your concentration. If you keep pushing you hit the great motivator killer - burnout.

Bonus, taking breaks help you get out of mental ruts and you'll learn faster.

Anyway, there's a lot of science behind all this and I'm happy to elaborate... maybe worth a blog post... it's been a while :P

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samueljseay profile image
Sam Seay

I would really love to see a blog post on this. I'd like to understand myself better and bringing in the science is very compelling.

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frankfont profile image
Frank Font

Your advice is healthy -- nothing bad about it at all!

However "sustain high performance for so long before they need to cool down" is common sense to many people and is at the same time very wrong. The clue is in the first point you shared about breaks and variety.

Our minds (and perhaps our bodies in general) wear down doing one thing like a machine. That kind of high performance is not sustainable -- it is exhausting.

High performance is sustainable when we expand what we mean by performance. When performance is about getting the most important things done when they should be done -- the big picture; then there is an opportunity to mix things up while performing at a high level sustainably.

Sometimes switching from one important thing to another is itself a break. And breaks done right do prevent breakdowns.