Off-Season
Late last year I heard a concept from Chris Williamson about ‘Going Pro’ that caused me to look at how I was approaching the things I care about in my life. The idea is centred around the notion that if you have a career or are working on something significant that you should by all means be approaching it as if you were a professional athlete.
You can take this idea as far as your conviction will let you but the base concept that stuck with me was originally centred around the work and focus an athlete puts into their preparation and training. An athlete has a training plan, specific nutrition, focussed practice and all the boxes checked that give them the clearest path towards peak performance. It’s all about the work you put in to gain the 1 percenters, those marginal gains that separate good from great, and great from legendary.
As a speaker, the things I began to look into were along the same lines; Measured practice, film review, coaching, nutrition and mental preparation to name a few. I think it’s easy to fall into a place where you think you have your story and presentation down pat which can lead to a level of complacency. Whilst I’m still experimenting with the outcomes of this approach (a post for another day), it makes total sense for me to put stock in this if I’m to reach the lofty goals I have in the speaking space. I’m committed to sticking to this so I can continue to improve and grow however this leads me to another concept that is the real reason for writing this post today.
The professional approach that has led me to the commitments I’ve outlined above got me thinking more about the life of an athlete and there was one piece that I hadn’t considered when looking at the differences between professional athletes and most ‘regular’ people (me).
Professional athletes have an ‘Off-Season’.
This may sound way too simple but it did create a sense of intrigue. Athletes work incredibly hard and are unmovingly focused when they are working towards their goals. Whether that be a championship, a World Series, the Olympics or the Super Bowl. Athletes have a defined season where their work is condensed into and their season is invariably followed by this ‘off-season’ that I speak of.
So I set out to see if this was a concept that I could fit into my own work. I am going pro after all. Luckily for me, this was a pretty easy spot to find. There’s always a quiet period over Christmas and into January where bookings generally drop off and this gives me the best opportunity to get away, unwind and relax. So that’s what I tried to focus on over that time and I learned a few lessons that I think are worth sharing.
The first lesson was that it’s not possible to just label this period an ‘off-season’ and expect it to happen as anticipated. I learned that it takes an approach of intention and planning to actually take a step back because it’s so easy to fall into the habits that you spend a large portion of your time creating. Because of this, you need to have an idea of what you want to get out of the time that you have. Whether that be reflection, relaxation, goal setting or planning, you have to label it to focus on it.
I can already tell what you’re thinking. “How can it actually be an ‘off-season’ if you’re labelling things to work on?”. And I agree because in the beginning, I pictured this time period as a total switch off where I could sit around, relax and come back more energised than before. The only problem is it doesn’t exactly work like that.
Going back to the professional athlete, they don’t often do absolutely nothing in their off-season. They still train, they still work on their skills and they often take this time period as an opportunity to figure out what they want the next season to look like and plan how that’s going to happen. The beauty of the off-season from my experience is the lack of distraction, the lack of commitments and the chance to make the required improvements without the consequences and pressure of the game itself. Whilst this is a quieter period and a good chance to relax, it’s still worth taking that opportunity to do the things you don’t usually get the time to do.
My personal experience with the ‘off-season’ I just had is one that wouldn’t necessarily lead me to recommend it to you, nor would it lead me to completely discredit it. This isn’t a very definitive answer but I do think that the way I approach each year, I naturally incorporate time and space for reflection, planning and goal setting. I’m well aware that I’m in a privileged position where I can take the time to experiment with something like this and the fact that a lot of people don’t often have the possibility to do this makes me think there are people that would love the idea of an ‘off-season’.
If my job was more physical I could absolutely see some greater benefits coming from the healing you’d experience but upon reflection, there are two major positives that I took out of this experiment for myself.
The first is that it allowed me to be more present and to take the opportunities to ‘live’. I tried to incorporate freedom, say yes to as much as possible and a lot of that led to some amazing trips and adventures.
The second and probably the most tangible positive is that I didn’t feel anywhere near as rusty as I usually do with that first presentation back after weeks away from the stage. So at the very least, I’m grateful for that and the momentum that’s seemingly created as I’ve begun this new year. I’m in the middle of a great stint of 5 gigs in 6 days which is something I’ll be writing about soon enough.
Damn, it feels good to be back!!