Keeping yourself and your team balanced, especially when times are hectic

If you are well-balanced, you feel good. You are resilient, can survive setbacks without being put off your stride. When in balance, you have the energy to tackle things, both at work and in your free time. But once you are out of balance you are easily irritated, you react emotionally and sometimes out of all proportion to anything that does not go your way. Maybe a child who argues with you, disagreements with your partner or issues with a customer at work. As someone gets further out of balance, their energy levels fall and physical symptoms or even feelings of depression can show up. All the more reason to want to keep in balance and to be alert as a manager to the balance of your colleagues. But how on earth do you do that?

As a former top sportswoman, it seems perfectly normal to Sanne to work on the basis of small chunks of time. This means that you build up very deliberately towards a strong performance. Not by training at full stretch all the time, but by increasing the difficulty and intensity your training, and alternating with rest periods. You also need to make sure that you are well rested when you are due to deliver a peak performance, and take time afterwards to recover. This applies just as much to performance in your day-to-day life and at work. Here too, you need to make sure that you start any challenging tasks properly rested, so you have the energy to reach your peak. Afterwards, you also need to relax and recharge.

What is actually meant by relaxing and recharging will be different for each of us. You therefore need to define your own rules. Where will you draw energy from, and what do you need to be able to do that properly? Of course a lot of relaxation options have disappeared thanks to Covid, meanwhile a lot is being demanded of us - other ways of working, less social contacts, uncertainty, etc. - so you need to take a close look at how you can recharge. And how you make enough room for that during these times.

TIP: Have you no idea (any more) where you can draw more energy? Review step by step the things you enjoy. Going out into nature - everyone feels better for that. Plan a day off, just for yourself. Don't know what you want to do? Then do nothing, that's good too.

As a manager you are of course setting an example. It does not help either you or the team if you sit and fret about what can't be done, so focus mainly on what can be done. Then focus on peak performance instead of high performance. In the case of the latter, you continually expect high performance from yourself, and just soldier on. If you go for peak performance, then you quite deliberately pick the goals you want to work towards and then take a break to recharge your batteries.

Top sports people deliberately schedule a rest period both before and after an important competition. There is a good reason for this. If you want to perform well, then you need to have plenty of energy. To be able to rely on this at just the right moment, you need to look after yourself.

So ask your colleagues to think of themselves as top sportsmen and -women. Get them to reflect on what they need in order to perform well. Give them the freedom to organise their own work and rest times, and encourage them to let go of any feelings of guilt. Stop caring whether someone else thinks they did nothing one day, just by taking a break they will shift more work in less time.

Anyway, you as manager are doing the same thing yourself. For example, each day plan to take half an hour to an hour to go outdoors. Take a walk or play some sport. Tell your people when you will do this, and switch off your phone. That way people understand that you are really not accessible.