Mental Bandwidth | 120 Seconds to Better Leadership

*Video Transcription*

So just wanted to give a real quick touch on mental bandwidth.

Mental bandwidth is one portion of stress.

Stress can be emotional. It can be physical. It can also be a bandwidth issue.

Which is that we just don't have the brain space to handle everything that we're in charge of.

So one of the ways this can happen is that, is there too much workload? Yes, that's part of it. But if the workload is primarily centered around things that you're good at, your mental bandwidth should stay pretty good.

Right? But it's when people take on tasks that are too far out of what they're naturally really good at, that are too far away from their zone of genius, then it just it's like a battery that's just being drained, like at double the rate.

So your mental ability to focus and prioritize and make decisions will all be stymied if you get to that point where you're just out of bandwidth.

And so if you're someone who's, for example, very extroverted, very good with people, loves being out and networking and that kind of thing, and doing more of that is not going to fry your bandwidth. But if you're introverted and that stuff stresses you out, and for whatever reason, you're forced to be doing a lot of that right now, your mental battery is going to drain awfully quickly.

Same as the reverse. If you are bad with details and planning and all of a sudden your job requires you to manage all these details and planning. You know, working an eight hour day isn't going to feel like an eight hour day. It's going to feel like a 12 hour day.

Keep track of your mental battery.

So just be mindful that the number of hours that you work don't have that much, they do, but they don't have everything to do with how mentally fried you feel.

it's how many of our activities align with our strengths and if we're playing to our strengths.

We don't get as tired. We have more patience, we have more hope. We have more optimism. And when that gets too drained, it's very difficult to maintain those same positive mental attitudes.

So pay attention to where you're spending your time, not just how much time you're working, but what kind of work you're asking yourself to do.

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