In a world where everything seems on tap: Netflix on demand, food produced in a hurry, quick vacations, quick breaks…All in the pursuit of achieving and acquiring something tangible. 

The tangible thing is whatever we make of it, status, power, money, fame, or dare I say, addiction to achieving? 

Now I am not picking on the act of achieving here. What I am pointing out is the often obsessive pursuit of something, call it a goal or target, without the moderation of contemplation, reflection, analysis and fine tuning. 

In other words, we care less about the journey of achieving and more about the result. Yes I am making a sweeping claim here, but if we are certainly honest about our own endeavors at some point in the past or present, then we can all relate. 

Here is a little about my story of burning out and the detrimental impact on the quality outputs I was desiring. Not to mention the personal costs. 

It was April of 2019 and I was due to present at an international fitness conference in Singapore. The morning of my presentation I awoke to a presenter’s worst nightmare: Feeling zonked out with a bad flu. The only thing, it was worse than a bad flu

I ended up bed ridden for 3 straight days, missing the entire conference with what I deemed at the time to be a ‘tropical fever’. 

So much for my busy travel schedule and all the grand plans I had for that. 

It took me months to recover and it was not until the forced border closures brought about by COVID-19, did I begin to appreciate the concept of sharpening the saw. For the first time in 5 years, my rigorous travel and teaching schedule was ground to a halt and incredibly, I found myself in an unfamiliar ‘new routine’. How was I going to handle that!?

The first and foremost lead domino would be to establish my new routines. This time I would move away from the concept of creating routines to establishing my morning and evening rituals. These would consist of a series of meaningful habits that would elevate my mind to sharper levels of focus and energize my body in a consistent and stable pattern of optimal energy outputs. 

What did productive outputs mean to me? Excellence and quality. MY focus shifted from ‘getting shit done’ to performing my daily tasks with a character driven approach. I would no longer become a victim to my unconscious and unwitting ways of performing moment by moment, day in and day out. 

I experienced a mindset shift that focused on quality and not quantity. It was through establishing my character strengths and establishing my ultimate mission statement that I found a new level of purpose in my daily pursuits.

The other shift occurred around the idea of producing quality whilst regenerating the thing that was producing that quality. 

Yes! I am talking about myself here. As my burnout story taught me more than anything, there is no point trying to continually produce if the thing producing is breaking down, getting sicker and ultimately on the verge of shut down.

Thus my new level of awareness emerged out of the concept that I contemplated for a number of years but never practically got it. The idea of interweaving states of doing with states of being. 

Simply put, I begun to apply this philosophical concept in the form of producing quality outputs (states of doing) with that of production capacity regeneration (states of being).

Achieving became intertwined with fulfillment. The result? Greater levels of professional satisfaction coupled with a more purposeful and balanced life. 

Am I a perfect example? Nope. As the wonderful saying by Carol Dweck goes:

‘Focus on the process and not the outcome’

If you think my story is simply interesting and these concepts theoretically nice, I urge you to simply give it a go and ultimately learn to give way to your higher operating system of the mind 

Keep reaching 

Coach Tarek  

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