We recently had a great interview with Devin Burke about the latest sleep science (linked below). He also has a lot of experience coaching high achievers, and I asked him to come back to talk to us about what we can learn from his experience working with people who are extraordinarily successful in various walks of life. Devin identified 8 characteristics he has noticed in these individuals, and shares how you can implement these health habits in your own personal development and health journey.
What Devin Burke did before Sleep Science Academy
Before Sleep Science Academy I was helping people that were running companies like entrepreneurs and executives. Basically anyone who had a lot of responsibility while also running families. I worked to help them find the balancing act between how not to go bankrupt in their life while they continue to be successful in their professional role(s).
Through this work I started to really understand the psychology with what gets these people stuck in certain areas of their life. This is something I still do a little bit of though, most of my focus is on Sleep Science Academy.
The 8 Health Habits of a High Achiever
1. Sleep
Unless your prioritizing and protecting your sleep, no matter what you’re eating, no matter what training you’re doing, mentally and physically, you’re not going to show up with the amount of energy, presence, creativity that’s possible to have.
Sleep is really the biggest lever that you can pull to increase your overall performance and yet, it’s the last thing most people think about and prioritize. When you prioritize and protect sleep, it makes every other aspect of your life better.
** Prefer To Watch? Check Out Our Livestream, The Top 8 Habits of High Achievers with Devin Burke Here!**
2. Eating for Energy
What you put in your body is going to make a huge difference with how you show up on the day to day. For me, health really come down to energy and when you’re operating from a high level, you’re going to be able to think clearer and be more resilient.
Eating for energy basically means eating foods that give you energy. I don’t believe that there is a perfect diet. I believe that there is a perfect diet for you, which takes experimentation. Though, there are some basic principles that I think people often overlook such as, eating foods that have life forces in them. The fresher the food, the more energy, nutrients, and life it will provide you.
For instance, you will get more energy from an apple you pick off of a tree and eat versus a store bought apple that was sitting on the shelf after being shipped across the country.
At the end of the day, most people are not eating enough life-enriching, fresh, green foods. Even cooked high quality foods are an amazing energy source. Discovering the right balance of cooked foods, raw foods, fats, proteins, etc all depends on what you find to work best for you through experimentation.
Nutrition doesn’t have to be that complicated if you stick to the basics.
3. Personal Movement Plan
A personal movement plan is something that is designed for your unique goals, lifestyle, and genetics. It’s really looking at what your body needs to keep you in alignment and flourishing where you are right now. Your PMP evolves as you evolve.
As you evolve through life there will be certain things to change. One of them being, your movement. If your movement plan doesn’t evolve as you evolve, you will get injured and not live as long. For instance, as you age, you’re going to want to focus more on mobility and flexibility while a younger person might focus more on strength and speed.
Experiment with different ways of moving and push yourself to find ways to enjoy the forms of movement that you don’t like as much. There is a huge variety when it comes to moving your body and doesn’t have to be as complicated as it might seem.
4. Checking In and Checking Out
You need to make sure that you’re not only checking in with yourself on a regular basis but also checking out of things like technology, making sure to take vacations, etc.
It’s so important to check in on how you’re feeling, what’s going on with your body, so that you can understand and start to listen more to what your body is telling you.
The check out process is getting away from everything. Creating the space for your mind and spirit to expand and change. Checking out could be a change of an environment whether it be a vacation, a workshop, or a retreat but ideally it’s something that is away from technology. We’re so attached to our technology and we need to have intentional times where we check out of it and hopefully for at least a day, if not longer, to allow yourself to really be able to fully check in.
5. Creating Systems and Delegating
This health habit is not only important in running a business but also for your health. Creating health systems and delegating things so you don’t have to think about them can be very helpful. This can look like having a private chef, a meal delivery service, having a personal farmer, hiring a fitness coach, using a meditation app, having a supplement subscription auto ship, etc.
When we start to implement health systems, it makes it easier to stay consistent which helps with longevity. Make optimizing your health easy!
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6. Have a Community
Really make an effort to be apart of a community whether that’s through a church, a neighborhood group, or a volunteer committee. This is so important for mental health and longevity.
If you can’t seem to find a community, make the effort to create one and invest that time into yourself and the people around you. If you put this on the back burner, you will suffer mentally and physically. It is important for humans to have human connections!
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7. Measure in Progress with Your Health Habits
You can measure your progress in any of these areas that have already been mentioned: your sleep, fitness, nutrition, connections, your emotional wellbeing, etc.
Get some data on what you’re working on so you can reevaluate and make better decisions that allow you to continue to grow.
Not only is this an essential health habit to have, it also is really encouraging one because it helps you realize what needs to shift before things get out of hand, which can often happen if you don’t take the time to come back and see what’s working and not working.
8. Know Thy Self
To know thy self is to really connect with who you are as a person, your purpose, your desires, where you are now, what you need, what you’re resisting. Doing some self inquiry goes a long way. This could even be taking a Myer Briggs Disk Assessment or apersonality test. Find ways to get to know yourself better regularly so you then can work more efficiently in your day to day.
It can be so common for people to get so attached to a goal that they end up disconnecting from themself and lose touch which doesn’t make the goal as worthwhile at the end of the day.
When you take the time to get to know yourself more and stay connected it will yield quantum leaps in your decision making process to better your health and all the other areas of your life.