Manage Your Performance to Go the Distance

One of the keys to delivering maximum performance is being able to manage your energy so that you can go the distance. Every task takes a certain amount of time, and you must maintain enough energy during that time to effectively exercise your skills, talents, judgment, and teamwork long enough so that you can win. Athletes are great role models for energy management. For example, boxers must be able to control their energy expenditures for twelve rounds. It does not matter if you give your opponent the battle of his life for five rounds if you don’t have the stamina to finish the fight. The workplace is no different. To complete a task or a project, you need to be able to go the distance.
The competitive challenge in life as in sports is to maintain your own energy levels while pushing your opponent into a state of overuse and overreaching. On the other hand, wise energy management involves being smart enough to never allow others to maneuver you into a position where you are being forced to overreach, to attempt a task that you know is beyond what you can realistically do. That could automatically set you up for a failure.

• Always perform with integrity. If you have integrity, you will go the distance with your client, even when the chips are down. You will stand by your people, handle and minimize the damage, cut your losses, analyze what went wrong, and create a better plan to help you make a comeback
  
• Never overreach yourself. Managing your energy system is crucial to going the distance. It does not matter how much sheer talent and experience you have if you are overreaching. Whatever amount of energy you are putting out daily on your job, make sure that it is never so much that you are not able to recover.

The upside of the equation is that once you have learned how to manage your energy system, you are almost always going to be able to go the distance and accomplish whatever performance goals you set for yourself.