How to stay productive and high performing during Covid-19
The world today is a scary place right now! Many of you are worried about your health, your business, and how the world is going to unfold. The truth is most of us hate uncertainty and this creates fear. However, if there is one thing I want to share with you, it is my ´WHY´, and that is, to really want to help in this current situation. As a former elite athlete that used to study and train with Olympic winning athletes (Sir Mo Farah, the current World and Olympic champion in 5 and 10,000m was my training partner), I want to share some of the lessons I learned that can help you get through this time of crisis.
1. Build mental toughness:
This is one of the skills I learned very early on in my athletic days. I got into long distance running because I was low in confidence, I lost my hair to alopecia, and I was bullied many times when I was a kid. When I first started running I was also an asthma sufferer, I could barely run fifty meters without having an asthma attack. I wasn’t bad, I was terrible! I felt extremely intimidated when I turned up to training every Tuesday and Thursday seeing all these top athletes. I started by comparing myself to these other top athletes and using excuses about how bad I really was.
On many occasions I just wanted to throw the towel in, but over time I noticed I started to make small improvements in my performance. I started to get quicker, stronger and mentally charged. As my performances improved so did my attitude and my confidence. Through repetitive training my asthma improved and disappeared in less than a year.
I’ve been an entrepreneur since the age of eleven and like my athletic career, I’ve gone through more highs and lows than most entrepreneurs have gone through in their entire lifetime. Every time I go through a cycle,it’s the mental toughness that I have developed that keeps me going.
2. Get focused and build self-discipline:
In one-way or another the world will never be the same again. This virus is going to kill more businesses than people. Most of us have to adapt to new working conditions and if you’re like me, trying to juggle kids and serve my clients is a whole new way of working, and its tough. There are so many distractions including the media, which can lead us to become unfocused and unproductive. However this is also a great time to reflect on what is important to you right now and why you do what you do.
In my early athletic years when all the other kids were playing video games, I was prepared to do what others were not, which was to be out training hard in minus temperatures and to do whatever it takes. This iswhere I met my training partner Sir Mo Farah, and we used each other as ginea pigs to test each other’s discipline and become laser focused on our training and competition.
3. Create a strategic plan:
To formulate a plan you have to build a foundation and that requires time and creativity. Last year, I helped an Intellectual property lawyer formulate a plan for his business. When he first came to me he was unclear, was confused on the direction of where he was taking his business and was using a scattergun approach to growing his business. We worked together to create his vision, mission, his why, the problems he wanted to solve and the clients he really enjoyed working with. With this foundation in place we then created a strategic game plan to help him grow his company.
One of reasons why I became a successful athlete is because my coach helped me develop a strategic plan. I was introduced to my first coach Alex Magee who had a track record of turning normal people into superstars. Alex was a very successful athlete in the earlydays; he knew the success formula and the traits that I needed to develop to become a champion. It’s these same success principals that I teach today in the business world. To me, coaching is just as important as oxygen!
In the midst of what is going on right now and how you may be feeling I want to know that you have a great opportunity to reset and reinvent yourself because you cannot control what’s going on right now, you can only do your best with what you have which is blood, sweat and tears. I want to offer my hand to you and say I’m there for you.
Over the coming weeks we are launching the ‘Strategic Game Plan’ summit for business owners that are looking to empower your mind, create a strategic plan and get focused for results. There will be 30+ industry leaders sharing stories and content to help you with formulating a plan. Feel free to drop me a message or connect with me on social media if I can be of assistance.
Adam Strong
Ultra-High Energy Personal Productivity Authority
Adam Strong is a former elite athlete who trained with Olympic gold-medalist Mo Farah. He has taken the principles of discipline, focus and productivity and applied them to business
