Cruise Control and Parks N’ Rec

It’s ridiculously easy to coast. We all do it every single day in everything that we do. Work, relationships, you name it and we hit the cruise control from time to time and believe it or not, I am a big believer in its usage. If you are constantly upgrading your effort levels and sprinting then you’re going to burn yourself out, or in the case of non-physical effort, you’ll drive yourself insane with the standard of “always do better.”

It’s like Chris Trager from Parks N’ Rec, always moving from one challenge to the next in his constant quest for his immaculate self.

I’ve lived this as a gym owner, the ruthless obsession over always making things better and moving forward. It’s not only exhausting to you and those around you but it’s counter productive and it’s a big reason why I can say that I flatly did not enjoy owning Performance360 from 2017 – 2019. Far too focused on the next thing, the next big implementation and I nearly had a complete burnout from it. After all, perpetual improvement is impossible. Nothing is always improving…Nothing. Everything gets better only after periods of thoughtful reflection and careful examination, not constant firing and reloading.

It’s okay to ease up after some success and assess what comes next. Allow yourself time to enjoy what you’ve created or achieved, let your progress curve flatten for a bit, and you’ll usually find that you stay refreshed and continue your upward trend much more so than wearing out that gas pedal.

-Dave