Whenever we see an athlete in real life or on TV, we are amazed by their performance. After all, not many people are able to reach the level of skill that is required to win competitions and championships. And to be completely honest, not many people are willing to work that hard either.
Athletes need more than mere talent to become professionals in the sport they practice. They try something, reflect on how they are doing and then make changes in their methods to get the results they desire.
I like to run, I was working up to run my first marathon before it was cancelled in 2020. I was able to run for pretty long distances, but how would I get on in a marathon? Hopefully I will find out when I finally run one, but there is one thing I noticed in the training plan that is applicable to the corporate athlete… The training plan didn’t have me running a marathon every day.
The Difference between Athletes and Corporate Athletes
The terminology of corporate athlete was coined by Dr. Jim Loehr and Tony Schwartz and it was extensively discussed in their book ‘The Power of Full Engagement.’
In their book, the authors also noticed that there is a distinct difference between the regular athlete and the corporate athlete. While athletes spend 90% of their time training to perform, corporate athletes spend 90% of their time performing and possibly 10% training or reflecting.
Also, professional athletes focus on a good diet, sleeping schedule and get plenty of time off to build up on energy and relax. In contrast, many corporate athletes have a poor diet and sleeping schedule, and they can’t enjoy their breaks without stressing over work emails and calls.
The similarity between the two is that corporate athletes, just like professional athletes, want to perform excellently throughout their careers. To do so, they must show focus, dedication, and work hard to reach the level that they desire. Once there, they must deliver a good performance constantly. This boils down to the preservation of and effective release of energy at the right time.
Becoming a Corporate Athlete
Many people believe that in order to become a corporate athlete you need to maximise your mental capacities. After all, nobody is going to make you jog around your office building, so why would you need to have a good physical condition?
But that’s not entirely right. We mentioned before that being a corporate athlete all boils down to energy. So, although you have the necessary competency to do your job, you need to think about matters long-term. How long will you last until you burnout?
A burnout will make you lag and it will affect your performance severely. You want to avoid that at all costs. So then, if mental capacities and skill are not the only things that make you a corporate athlete, what else do you need to consider?
Physical Capacity
Professional athletes take extra care of their physiques. That means that they adopt a healthy lifestyle by eating good food and getting enough sleep every single night.
Corporate athletes should do the same. To maintain high levels of energy for long periods of time, you should start eating and sleeping well. Rest is a vital component when it comes to preserving your energy. Just like a bodybuilder, you need to find the perfect work-rest ratio for you, so you don’t overwork yourself and risk dropping your performance.
Emotional Mastery
Emotional health is just as important. This means that you should try to keep stress and anxiety as far away as possible. Of course, working at a corporate job can’t always be easy. Especially when the work environment is chaotic and pressured.
It comes as no surprise that negative emotions correlate with bad performances, so try to keep negativity at bay. You can do this by surrounding yourself with positive people that perform well and have good habits. Having a good team by your side will not only make your time at the office more enjoyable, but it will make your work easier. This in turn will make the anxiety and stress levels drop significantly.
Mental Resilience
Loehr and Schwartz talk about Mental Capacity in their approach. They discuss improving the focus of the mind in the context of enhancing cognitive capacity. Time management, positive and critical thinking skills all add to mental captivity which, in the eyes of the work life coach, builds Mental Resilience.
Spiritual Enlightenment
At the end of the day, everybody wants to feel like they have achieved something. People want to see that their work matters and that it actually contributes to the improvement of their department or company. Simply put, people want to have a sense of purpose. When one has a sense of purpose and feels like they are working for the greater good; motivation, determination, and focus will come easily.
Spiritual Enlightenment means different things to different people. For some it may come from following a religious path, it for others about reaching a level of vibration internally or it may come in a number of other ways. One trend that does resonate with most though, is it that it exists in the way they interact with themselves, those around them and the place in which they live. Having a clear sense of purpose that pulls these together helps with an outcome orientated approach.
Bottom Line
Every athlete has at least one coach to help them with all these topics, if not more. Why? Because athletes need coaches. But you might still be wondering why athletes need coaches. Can’t they do everything on their own?
Well, with enough dedication, athletes could accomplish everything on their own, but it would make their job significantly more difficult. After all, a coach is there not only to offer different pointers and share their knowledge but also to share their experience.
A good coach will guide you and ensure that you are making progress at your own pace. So then if sports athletes have coaches, why can’t a corporate athlete have a coach? Well, surprisingly, corporate athletes can have coaches. More exactly, life coaches!
A life coach will help you career-wise by pushing you forward and motivating you to do better. Not only that, but a life coach will use certain techniques, such as NLP and hypnotherapy, to make sure that you are exchanging bad habits for good ones.
All in all, a life coach is definitely a good decision for any professional that wants to step up their career game. So, if you want to become the best corporate athlete from your workplace, then contact me, and let’s start training.