Are You Too Intense?

Do you work consistently or intensely? We hear many people laud their intense efforts in both the gym and in the work world. Maybe your friend spends hours lifting weights. Or maybe your colleague stays at work until 9 pm.

We have all witnessed the admiration society has for intense work. People who work intensely are placed on a pedestal and celebrated. They are viewed as models of perfection. Surely, that intensity is what we should all strive for. You are inadequate if you are not committed for 23 hours a day. Sleep, who needs sleep? I will accomplish and succeed if I commit to intense methods and strategies.

Intensity, however, will not win success for the long term. Consistency is more effective. Now, some of you may say, I work intensely on a consistent basis. I’ll bet you don’t do that for long periods of time.

What’s my experience? I was a competitive distance swimmer for 15 years. I trained for hours in the pool every day. During peak training, I would spend up to 5 hours a day in the pool and weight room. I swam miles and miles every single day. My coaches expected me to complete training sets at a specific time interval. My workouts were grueling and intense. I was fit, strong, and fast.

However, this intensity led me to become a victim of severe burnout. After college, I did not enter a pool for 10 years. I am not exaggerating. My entire life had been spent swimming, yet for a decade I refused to get wet.

Unfortunately, what I took from my experiences is that high level intensity was the key to success.

If someone asked if I wanted to go for a 30-minute run, I’d respond with a quick “no”. What’s the point of that? If you aren’t training for 2 hours, why are you exercising? You can imagine where that thinking led me.

My New Year’s resolutions were always an epic fail. I would sit down and craft intense plans. My daily calendar would be filled with tasks. Complete an intense weights workout in the morning, write an article after school, complete another interval cardio workout in the evening, and so on. During the first few days, I would happily cross off each completed task. “I am on a roll!” I thought. After 30 days of intensity, I would burn out and ditch my plan.

Of course, the feelings of failure would then creep in. Why am I not good enough to maintain these plans? What magic key am I lacking? How will I ever accomplish my goals? Isn’t this the expectation? I just need some sort of motivation to get me going, right?

In reality, no one can maintain these intense efforts for extended periods of time. Even top athletes take months off to recuperate from their training.

What if I had focused instead on just being consistent? What if I had worked consistently to change small habits on a daily basis? What if I had shifted my mindset from intense perfection to incorporating tiny changes? Would that have made a difference? I believe so.

After decades, I have finally “untrained” myself. I now focus on building small consistent habits into my daily life. I created a system to incorporate my most important activities into my day. That’s not to say I don’t have goals. I do, but I have more realistic expectations and build the rest of my life into the plan.

I am more productive and achieve more over the long term. I have a solid energy now, and I have accomplished more than I imagined I could without being intense. Sure I have periods when I work intensely, but these are now intermittent.

Is it time for you to reconsider your approach? Is it time to be more consistent?