When 85% is enough

I woke up this morning full of a head cold. One that I knew was coming. The type of sick that comes when your body shuts down after something ends. With a contract ending last Friday, and my travelling to Madrid for my anchoring break early on Saturday, it took a little longer than it may have otherwise done.

Madrid in itself was energy consuming in its own way - through rich conversations, the brain was still mentally active. The habit of walking that I have gotten myself into over the last few months, that any opportunity to walk is met with a 'yes' rather than a default 'no' and that over a 3-day period 30KM were clocked up through strolls and chats

Diet wise things were also good, however what let loose on 'vacation' was the timings and discipline of consumption. Good intentions of dinner around 8pm, became later and the general tiredness that was catching up, meant hitting the sack without a gap.

My first full day back in the UK being hit with a message to slow down meant that I didn't get as much done that in my head I needed to. I was however honest with myself about operating at 85% and this translated as:

• Walking to the gym to simply hit the steam room and sauna for 15 mins rather than a full session and swim

• Dropping my accountability chums a voice note about our small wins and what I would do today

• Following through with a podcast recording after some cheerleading from the hosts that inspired the title of this post! Watch out for the episode of Our Medtech Lives in March!

Sometimes we beat ourselves up about not operating at peak performance, when in reality listening to your body and the odd day operating at 20, 50, 70 or even 85% is more than enough!