Our first post in our guest blogger series comes from Ben Eubanks of upstartHR. Ben is a human resource professional and blogger from Huntsville, AL. He is also a part of the 2011 HR Florida Conference & Expo Social Technology Team. Ben shares some thoughts on maintaining your hunger to develop professionally.
Back when I was a high school wrestler, there was a familiar rhythm to our weekly tournament competitions. You’d starve yourself and work out like a madman up until Saturday morning when you weigh in. Once you find out your weight is good, you go and eat and drink as much as you can handle to build up some quick energy and prepare for competition. Anything goes. Candy. Soft drinks. Giant pretzels.
After a while, my coach realized that there was a problem with that approach. After honing our edge (or sharpening the saw, for you Covey fans) for a week, we were losing all motivation and discipline with that quick session of eating and drinking. After that short period of relief, we were satisfied.
If you’re going to be great, you can never let yourself get 100% satisfied. Why? Because then you lose your will to succeed. You stop reading just to read. You stop learning just to learn. You settle for what comes along.
Bad plan.
See, when we did the crazy eating thing, it eventually showed in our performance. We were noticeably more sluggish than the competition. We didn’t push when things got hard. We didn’t give that little bit extra that gets you from “almost there” to “mission accomplished.”
So with a few adjustments, we changed the routine. Yes, we still ate and drank after weighing in, but it became a conscious effort to make it count. Whatever you put in will affect what comes out.
Put in some fruit and Gatorade and you’ll get a sharper, more alert wrestler.
Put in some time learning and building connections and you’ll be a smarter, more agile employee.
Stay hungry, my friends.
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