By Jim Loehr, Ph.D.
Even the most successful business trip can become a deflating and chaotic experience due to the inevitable stress of travel. However, ritual, recovery, and reflection can cure many of the post-travel ills that befall consultants. After working with elite performers in sports, medicine, and the military for decades on achieving peak performance, I have seen how their success provides valuable lessons for all of us on how to feel healthier and be more successful both on and off the road.
The Vital Role of Ritual
I've never met a surgeon that decided, "Let's just wing it in the operating room today." Nor have I encountered a single great athlete that took his or her first glance at a playbook on game day. Similarly, your experience during a business trip can be made easier, and better, by strategically adhering to rituals before, during and after your trip. On a purely biological level, the predictability offered by planning and sticking to rituals helps keep cortisol levels—which increase with stress—low, helping the body to be more flexible in responding to sudden changes during travel.
One surefire way to help keep stress at a minimum through ritual is to personally plan out or at least review your entire itinerary in advance. Get to know your schedule and the details of your transportation arrangements. Are you flying first class as you'd hoped? Has a car service been secured?
And how far are your commutes from airport to hotel to meetings? Is your flight home scheduled at a reasonable hour or will you need to rest during the flight? Walking through the logistical questions that matter most to you every time you travel means that you're not relying on airlines or hotels to make life comfortable. Rather, you're doing what you need to make your life comfortable and reducing the undue stress associated with leaving these questions unanswered until the last minute.
Planning rituals also opens the door to greater consideration of alternative travel and client presentation options. Once you're feeling confident about the tangible elements of your business trips, try to begin answering these questions: Can I wait for a more convenient flight and still make my meeting on time? Is there somewhere I can rehearse my presentation just prior to the meeting? How can I inject some fun or relaxation for myself into this trip?
There is a misconception that detailed planning hinders spontaneity; however, quite the opposite is actually true. Incorporating rituals into the travel process enables us to identify opportunities for improvements, ultimately creating free time and the confidence to work in activities—whether planned or not—that you need to make travel both fruitful and fun.
Working in Recovery
Much like the calming effect of preparation on stress, recovery is highly beneficial to our physical, emotional, and mental states. As most people know, physical fatigue has a profound effect on our emotions, concentration, and motivation. Over-exerting the body without adequate recovery almost always leads to a domino effect of personal and interpersonal issues with co-workers, family, and clients. While my colleagues and I promote frequent doses of movement and exercise, rest plays just as vital a role in both short- and long-term health.
A few questions to get you thinking about how you can work exercise and rest into your work trips:
• How long is your flight? Can you work in one or several naps? Can you take a walk up and down the aisles every 30 minutes?
• What exercises can you do in your seat?
• What is your ideal workout environment? Can you find lodging to match it?
• Do you have long commutes between meetings in different locations? Can you divide this time between responding to emails or calls and taking a quick nap?
• Can you exercise upon arrival before scheduled meetings?
While in Tokyo, Japan several years ago, I was required to commute via taxi several times a day. My commutes were over 30 minutes each, and while all I wanted to do was get to my next meeting, I had to accept that I was going to be stuck in a cab. I needed to make the best of it, so rather than becoming restless and impatient, I decided to capitalize on this "free" time by working in a nap in one of the cabs each day.
Every time I utilized this time as a rest period, I ended up with a clear head, more relaxed and re-energized for my next meeting and the rest of the day. Once you begin seeing downtime as moments to recalibrate, your mind will get into the habit of seeking these moments out regularly. Where can you carve out rest time during your next trip?
Our energy management research with world-class tennis players also revealed the power of recovery. We have found that the majority of a tennis match is actually filled with down time, like pauses between points and breaks between games. We also found that the steps a player takes between one point and the next offer vital periods to recover throughout the match using breathing exercises, mental check-ins, and other relaxation techniques. If a tennis player can find that much time for recovery during a championship match, think of what you could uncover during your next business trip.
Always Reflect
Honing your best ritual and recovery practices can only happen with a healthy dose of reflection. Much like a business plan, modifying or adding new practices relies largely on how well you measure your current practices once business trips conclude. Examine how your rituals affected your overall performance and health during and after the trip.
A good place to start after your next trip would be to rate your performance in:
• Developing and executing your pre-, mid- and post-travel ritual(s)
• Capitalizing on free time for exercise and recovery
• Meeting your travel goals, whether personal (fun, connecting with family, sightseeing, etc.) or business-related
• Consider what you need to add or modify for your next trip
Keep a journal or check-in with yourself throughout your next trip to make this reflection process easier. And be honest with yourself! Every trip can be an opportunity to improve.
Ritual, recovery, and reflection help us perform better in all stages of travel, whether in the office, on the road, or at home, so we can truly own every moment. Integrating these practices into your business travel experience can help you turn the undesirable elements of travel into energy and performance assets to ensure you walk away from each trip growing your business—on and off the road.
Jim Loehr, Ph.D., is the Co-founder of the Human Performance Institute Division of Wellness & Prevention, Inc., a Johnson & Johnson company. He is a world-renowned performance psychologist, and the author of 16 books. He is also co-author of the national bestseller, The Power of Full Engagement and The Corporate Athlete Advantage. Dr. Loehr has personally trained many of the most recognizable leaders in business today, as well as elite performers in sport, law enforcement, and medicine. His latest book, The Only Way to Win, is currently available from Hyperion.
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