Your work efficiency is a product of your lifestyle, thinking abilities, and mood, not just your ambition and skills.
You’re a driven, ambitious, and hard-working individual. You have goals and things you want to accomplish, but for some reason, you are not performing at your optimal level when it comes to work efficiency.
This leads you to work more hours, with little time left for your personal life, relationships, and other aspects of your life.
This also frustrates you and decreases your confidence in yourself, even though you know you have what it takes to grow exponentially in your business.
If it’s not your skills, talents, or drive, what is it then?
We often forget that our focus, performance, and work efficiency are related to lifestyle factors such as our stress levels, our sleep quality, lifestyle habits, and how we are optimizing (or not optimizing) our mind.
Imagine a life in which you wake up refreshed and rejuvenated, ready to tackle all the decisions and problems for the day. You’re feeling confident, efficient, and performing at your true capacity and ability.
Sounds pretty great, right?
I’m going to let you in on a little secret that has helped hundreds of my clients accomplish that and so much more: Optimize your lifestyle and mind.
Work Efficiency Secret: Address Chronic and High Stress
One of the top reasons for poor work efficiency and performing at a lower level than you know you are capable of is chronic or high stress getting in the way.
When we are chronically stressed, this interferes with our physical health, our emotional health, and our brain health.
When high stress is causing you not to feel well physically, distracts you, and causes your mind to race, it is very difficult to work at your optimal efficiency level.
Keep in mind-you don’t need to *feel stressed* in order to experience symptoms of stress. In fact, many aren’t aware of the sneaky ways stress gets in their way.
Stress can come out in unexplained medical issues, difficulty sleeping, distractibility, trouble with decision-making and problem-solving, and so many other distracting ways.
So, identify your triggers to stress and make a plan to address them.
Also identify the early clues and symptoms that tell you that you are starting to go up the stress meter.
The higher you are on the stress meter, the less likely you are to be performing at your optimal capacity and cognitive abilities.
Improve Your Sleep to Improve Work Efficiency
One of the most underrated and ignored aspects of high performance and work efficiency is quality sleep.
It is a very common to skip sleep to work longer, or to undermine its importance if you are not getting enough of it due to difficulty falling asleep, staying asleep, or waking up far earlier than intended.
When we don’t sleep well, we are more likely to experience the following consequences:
· Higher stress, anxiety, and irritability
· Low energy, fatigue, and sluggishness
· Poor focus, attention, and memory
· Less motivation and drive
· Weakened immune system functioning (and more colds and other illness)
Not exactly the winning combination of symptoms for you to function at your optimal performance and efficiency level, right?
Now, imagine the opposite- you are waking up energetic, motivated, feeling great physically, with laser sharp focus, attention, and decision-making capacity. Imagine how much more you could accomplish…..
One of the best ways to improve your work efficiency, performance, and confidence in yourself is to prioritize your sleep. Most people do well with 7 to 8 hours, but this will be dependent on you individually.
Optimize Lifestyle Habits to Boost Performance and Efficiency
Not only is it important to manage high stress and improve sleep quality, it’s also important to pay attention to other lifestyle factors that play a significant role in our ability to function at our highest cognitive capacity.
Two of these lifestyle habits include physical activity and balanced eating:
Physical Activity
There is no better way to decrease stress, improve mood and confidence, boost cognitive performance, and improve sleep than being physically active.
Time is limited, but physical activity can give you so much bang for your buck in a short amount of time.
By making time for physical activity, you are working at a much higher cognitive capacity, allowing you to work much more efficiently and perform at a higher level.
Keep in mind, physical activity can be anything that gets you moving – walking, running, golfing, dancing, the list goes on.
If you want to truly function at your highest cognitive capacity and highest performance, don’t sleep on the role of physical activity in becoming the powerhouse you know you can be.
Balanced Eating
It’s important to remember the main purpose of food, which is to provide nutrients to the body and mind. What you consume has a direct relationship to how you feel physically and cognitively.
Eating balanced meals that give you the macronutrients your body needs (carbs, fats, protein), as well as foods that give you micronutrients (veggies, fruit), is your key to sustained energy, focus, and cognitive capacity.
If you are feeling sluggish and distracted, what you are eating may be a culprit in this. If you are eating highly processed and sugary foods and drinks, you are likely to experience significant blood sugar fluctuations, which are known to get in the way of sustained energy, focus, and productivity.
If you are skipping meals or not eating nutrient dense foods, you are unlikely to provide your body and mind with the fuel that it needs to function at its highest cognitive capacity.
So, take inventory of the meals that you are consuming and consider where you might make some changes to support your brain health, focus, and decision making ability.
Summary
The secret is out-if you want to function at your highest cognitive ability, optimal efficiency, and highest performance, addressing lifestyle factors such as your stress levels, sleep, and lifestyle habits is your key to success.
If you’re realizing you need to address more than one area, start in one place and focus on tangible and sustainable change.
And get ready to step into your most confident and productive self!
Not sure where to start to boost your efficiency, confidence, and performance? My Master Stress Method will give you all the tools to optimize your lifestyle and mind so you can step into the best version of yourself.
Book a discovery call so we can talk about how to change your life, together 😊.
---About Dr. Julia
Hi! I'm Dr. Julia. Health psychologist, stress and sleep expert, and creator of the Master Stress Method.
I have worked with thousands of individuals in major hospitals, university medical centers, and primary care settings to improve their stress levels, sleep, and overall emotional and physical well being.
My current focus is helping busy professionals prevent and manage the high stress that is getting in the way of their productivity, mood, sleep, and their ability to reach their full potential.
My Master Stress Method has helped hundreds of stressed out, overwhelmed, and burned out clients significantly reduce their stress and anxiety, improve their sleep, and maximize their productivity, fast.
I can't wait to help you stop the struggle with stress, for good. Let's chat :)