When I was finishing school, I was made the House Captain of one of the three houses that we had. I know that I wasn't chosen for my athletic skills; there were other factors that figured in my being chosen. But, when sports day came around, I felt the pressure to, somehow, prove myself on the track field as well. They didn't really need me, but I thought that, being the house captain, I needed to do something. So I thought that the best thing to do, having had no training, was to run the long distance marathon. I figured that I was fit and could easily do it. I remember taking off, keeping up with the pack until halfway down the track, I thought that I had lost my legs. My legs had turned to jelly. I just couldn't get one leg in front of the other. I could see the group moving far ahead of me and there was nothing I could do to catch up. But I was quite clear that I needed to finish it. After all, my house was at risk here and as captain, I needed to make a good effort to complete the race. So I plodded on, one foot in front of the other. As I reached the home stretch, everybody was clapping and cheering and I finally crossed the line and collapsed there.
There are a few things from that day that have stayed with me throughout my life.
1. If you want to run the marathon, you have to train for it. You cannot just waltz into a marathon and expect your body to keep pace with the rigors of the track.
2. You don't run it like it is a sprint, which is what I did. I took off thinking that I could easily do it, and quickly ran out of energy.
3. This was quite humiliating. I realized that when people are cheering for you, it might not be that you have achieved anything. They just want to get on with their lives. That's what happened to me that day. The cheering was not because I was completing the race but because I was holding up the next race. The cheers were, in effect, "C'mon! Finish the race so that we can get on with our sports day." I look back on that day, now seeing the humor in it, but it is tinged with the humility that comes from knowing that all applause may not necessarily be because we have achieved something but it could be because people just want to get on with their lives.
I want to focus on the first two points and let you ruminate on the third one.
You and I need to train for a marathon and life itself is a marathon. You dare not treat it as anything less. We cannot afford to run it as if it is a sprint especially in the things that we do every day. I was reading an article by Scott Behson entitled, "Don't Treat Your Career Marathon Like A Sprint," in Harvard Business Review. He says, "It's possible in the realm of knowledge work, too, to work so hard for so long under so much pressure that we run out of energy, not just to the detriment of our family lives or our mental and physical well-being, but also with terrible consequences for our long-term job performance. Yet many of us launce into our workweeks, six-month projects, and even whole jobs as 100-meter dashes, seemingly oblivious to the long race over uneven terrain we are actually running."
It brings home the point that sometimes we go our every road as if it is a sprint, not realizing that our entire career is really a marathon and that we need to be able to pace ourselves. He goes on to say, "Smart companies who know they stand to gain most by retaining the talent they develop, know better than to make their people choose between employer and family." How true! If we want productivity from our people, then we don't want them to be counting the company out of the equation.
He says that when he was at a Leadership Summit for the Thirdpath Institute, an organization that advocates for work-life balance. One speaker told an anecdote about a small law firm that was taking on a potential client. They had advertised themselves as a family-friendly workplace. The prospective client asked them, "What happens when an emergency comes up during my case? How do I know you'll be able to respond?" The answer was, "We can respond better because we have a balanced approach. And here's why. We prioritize better, are staffed more appropriately, schedule time for long-term planning, and allow for time outside of work for our lawyers to have full family lives. Because our lawyers aren't chronically overworked, they have the capacity – in terms of time, energy, and mental focus – to respond effectively to your crisis situations. We are much more able to rise to these occasional challenges because we don't treat every day like a crisis."
How true, isn't it? Every day that turns into a crisis is a crisis because we treat it as a sprint rather than a marathon. If we look back at our lives, we can think of many instances when we have talked to people who have never said, "No, we can't do it." There are people who never say 'NO'. They say, "Yes, we can." And they finally end up dropping the ball, saying that they cannot deliver or landing up with incomplete work. I tell people, "Always, always set your boundaries. Know your boundaries, because if you don't set your boundary, others will set it for you."
Laura Stack, one of America's premier experts on productivity, has a couple of quotes, which I thought were relevant. "He/she who sows hurry, reaps indigestion" – a quote by Robert Louis Stevenson, Scottish author. This one by Colin Powell, "Have fun in your command. Don't always run at a breakneck pace. Take leave when you've earned it, spend time with your families." Laura says, "I often have to remind clients that they aren't robots and even machines break down eventually if you don't turn them off sometimes and do some preventative maintenance. Intellectually, we all know this; but we tend to ignore it in favor of getting just a little bit more done before we stop. Too often, the 'little bit' turns into a lot, and we wind up wearing ourselves down to a frazzle on behalf of our employers."
But how do we find this balance? I want to throw out to you, from my own experience, four things that have been crucial.
1. Learn to trim the fat. What are the 'fat' things in our lives? Maybe they are the amount of time spent in coffee chats with people, or on emails, or online shopping, stuff that is really not important in our day. We need to be able to trim that.
2. When we look at situations, always break them down into manageable portions. For you cricket fans, when you hear captains talking how they chase down huge totals, they always say, "We broke it down into ten overs, again and again." Take it from one session to another. Break it down.
3. Take time off. You need to take time off every week, just get away and not do anything that is work related. I take a Monday off and don't do anything that is related to my work. I just try and chill, spend time with God and then do the things that I enjoy doing.
4. Have a mission, not an agenda. A mission keeps you from getting lost in the minutiae of daily life. #productivity from Laura Stack. When you have an agenda, it's always 'what needs to be done'. But a mission answers the question – how should I do it? Always take decisions about your time by asking the "how" question. To do that, you need to know how things are going to get done. That's the key!
Every now and then, I need to take a deep breath and say, "Am I trying to run a sprint here when I should be looking at longevity? My whole life is ahead of me, and therefore, I should be looking at the marathon and wondering if I will end this race well and not whether I will have a good sprint today. While there may be room for sprints occasionally, we need to always keep in perspective that life is about a marathon. More importantly, I think we need to understand that God is with us, that His wisdom is available to us.
In our Scriptures, God says, "I will instruct you and teach you in the way you should go. I will counsel you and watch over you."
How good to know that, that in our everyday lives, God is saying that He wants us to stay the course and finish well, and for that, He will instruct and teach us.
"So teach us to number our days, that we may apply our hearts unto wisdom." Make each day count so that we can make all our days count.
Friends, life is not a sprint. It's a marathon. So let's pace ourselves so that we don't burn out.
Let me pray with you. Almighty God, teach us to number our days. Teach us to take each day and lean on Your understanding. Help us to hear Your voice giving us instruction and guidance on how to do things so that we don't burn out, that we don't forsake our family lives and our loved ones. Help us to keep a balance in our lives and for that we need Your wisdom. So we ask for that wisdom, we ask that we will hear Your voice, leading and guiding us each and every day. In Jesus' precious name we pray. Amen.
• Scott Behson, "Don't Treat Your Career Marathon Like a Sprint," http://blogs.hbr.org/2013/10/dont-treat-your-career-marathon-like-a-sprint/
• Laura Stack, "True Productivity at Work Requires Pacing Yourself." http://theproductivitypro.com/blog/2012/06/true-productivity-at-work-requires-pacing-yourself/
• Quotes by: Robert Louis Stevenson & Colin Powell
• Bible quotes: Psalm 32:8 & Psalm 90:12
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