Time to wind yourself up and focus

The April short weeks are over, everyone is back in the office and the kids are back at school.?Are you feeling flat or 'pap', even if you took time off in the past few weeks? It's?time to wind yourself up and focus as you head into the most productive months of the year with fewer interrruptions?(we won't talk about loadshedding!).

DO THIS QUICK WINDING UP EXERCISE:

If you are sitting at your desk right now please?grab an elastic band, the bigger the better.?Now play with it, stretch it and twist it around your fingers. Essentially, you are increasing or decreasing the pressure and tension,?especially if you are playing with a larger, looser elastic band. There is no fun in a loose elastic band, is there? Human beings are not that different.

Popped Elastic Band Syndrome

• While you must find the balance between negative stress (distress) and positive stress (eustress), do be aware of what I call?Popped Elastic Band Syndrome. We all suffer from it from time to time. You may even be experiencing it right now. It can be caused by:Too much stress?that literally snaps the elastic band and burnout is the result
• Too little pressure and tension?which can also result in a feeling of flatness with no focus or get up and go. In South African parlance, you just feel pap. This is often experienced when:
• You come back to work after a break or a holiday
• After concluding a deal or negotiation you quickly move from a high to a low as the adrenalin and cortisol subside
• Post delivery of a project you have put much time and effort into and which has demanded all your focus
• When leadership is a bit iffy and there is no clear direction or expectation of you

Does any of this sound like you?

The lesson about your human battery

• It belongs to you and no-one else.
• There is only one person who can charge your battery and that's you.?
• You need enough positive pressure and tension in your system to be able to perform effectively at anything
• If you are struggling with?Popped Elastic Band Syndrome your battery will feel flat

Back to basics to wind yourself up again??

If you have Popped Elastic Band Syndrome or your human battery feels flat, you need to wind yourself up. The same goes for your team,?and there and many teams that feel like this at the moment.?Go back to the basics which are often missed when we favour complexity over simplicity because it makes us look smarter.

These three elements underpin all successful endeavours no matter your age, your position in the business, your responsibilities:?

• Skills
• Work rate
• Attitude

Whether you're battling to get your business strategy over the line, sales are down, you need to get your team back in the game, want to lose some weight, improve your golf swing, or run the Comrades Marathon, the same basics apply.These concepts are at the heart of my?Success Cube? workshops?that?help teams sharpen up, strategise and align priorities.?I enable?teams to create their?own Success Recipes for their specific Success Journey.

The Success Cube? is a simple yet powerful?3D tangible tool?that can become part of the DNA of your organisation from top to bottom.?It helps teams create a common picture of what success and good looks like for them, as well as well as co-creating the?recipe for how to get there.?

What does good look like? What does success look like? The cube allows you to measure how far away from that picture you are, and what you have to do, to get closer.?

The interesting thing is that the Success Cube? concept actually creates the healthy internal pressure and commitment required for optimal performance. World #1 PGA golf champion?Jon Rahm, and his coach have incorporated?the?Success Cube? into their toolkit, as have many teams in businesses around the world.

?Watch: Why strategy fails

Want to know a little more about?the Success Cube? concept? Watch this short video here about why strategy fails.

Beware of Flat Battery Syndrome and Popped Elastic Band Syndrome. They both leave you?with insufficient energy, little drive and a low work rate, all of which will affect your performance at work and?home?(and your kids at school). Self-awareness, feedback, measurement and support from mentors is essential to finding your way to fine tuning your stress and your need for just enough pressure and tension for effective performance.

Have an empowered week.