The Pace of Performance
Calibrating the right level of effort for the results we’re chasing.
Without haste, yet without rest.
Johann Wolfgang von Goethe
Endurance athletes obsess over their pace.
Minutes per mile, miles per hour, pedal strokes per minute, and many others are critical metrics for judging effort and performance.
When an athlete has a complete understanding of their capabilities they know how long they can sustain different paces. This knowledge gives them the ability to run their own race and pace themselves to get the best performance given their current level of fitness.
Pacing is powerful information in the world of endurance sports, but we don’t always have the same knowledge and understanding of how to pace other areas of our lives.
Without a clear understanding of what we’re capable of, it’s harder to run our own race and we fall back on comparing ourselves to others, giving up before we reach our potential, or burning out too soon.
To properly allocate our talent and effort we need a deep understanding of what pace we’re capable of in each area of our lives.
Too fast or too slow
Our default tendency when searching for the right pace is to look at what others are doing.
Invariably, the pace others are performing at will be different than what’s optimal in our own lives. More than likely, the people we choose to emulate are blindly following someone else who also hasn’t thought critically about their pace for their pursuits.
Copying someone else’s pace in life is as likely to succeed as showing up to a marathon and choosing someone at random to follow for the whole race. They may have a similar level of fitness to us, but in all likelihood we will end up running much faster or slower we should.
Just as detrimental is pushing ourselves too hard too soon. Whether rooted in excitement or insecurity, if we come out too hot it’s only a matter of time before we burn ourselves out.
There are no trophies for completing the first half of something faster than everyone else if it burns us out and prevents us from finishing the initial objective.
The most insidious pace is not moving fast enough or not moving at all. Often rooted in fear or uncertainty, if we never push hard enough, we’ll never see what we’re truly capable of.
Not pushing hard enough or never trying something at all is such a common regret at the end of our lives it’s become a cliché.
If we can’t push too hard and we can’t take things too slow, then the best thing we can do for ourselves is find a pace somewhere in the middle. The ideal pace is one that we can maintain for a long period of time, but also pushes us to create results we’re proud of.
Sustainably aggressive
Two people with the same talent and effort will produce different results if they work at different paces.
Developing talent and learning to work hard are prerequisites for creating incredible results, but the pace at which we pursue these results is what really matters.
In the worthwhile pursuits we choose for ourselves we should aim for a pace that is aggressive but sustainable. It should be something we feel confident we could continue indefinitely, but if we pushed a little harder we would begin to burn ourselves out.
As we become more comfortable with this pace and get closer to our objectives, we can begin to push harder and slowly improve our optimal pace of performance.
The worst things we can do are push too hard too soon or never push ourselves at all, but if we can continuously maintain a pace that’s sustainably aggressive, we will be able to achieve incredible things for a decades to come.
Prompts
In what areas of your life are you moving too fast? In what areas are you moving too slow?
What is a sustainably aggressive pace for you in your most important pursuit?
Which areas of your life are worth a sustainably aggressive pace? Are there any areas in which you’re allocating too much energy?
Deep Dive
Slow Productivity by Cal Newport
A guide to finding a sustainable pace to create incredible results.
Thanks for reading! I’ll see you next Sunday.
Kevin