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5 healthy habits every professional should practice

This article originally appeared on Fast Company.

The week before I started my dream job at Google, a deep dread overwhelmed me. I wanted to prove to everyone that I not only deserved to be there but also was the best of the best. I reasoned that if I worked hard enough and said “yes” to everything, my boss and co-workers would never question my abilities. I would be seen as in the top 10% of performers.

I took on so much that by the end of my second year, I ended each week feeling both confused and destroyed. I loved what I did but was so exhausted that I spent Saturdays laying in bed and binging Suits before repeating the cycle. Then one day after finishing work at 1 a.m., I didn’t notice an oncoming car while crossing the street. I almost got hit.

That moment reminded me of the sense of physical fragility I felt after getting a sports injury in college. The physical recovery was tough, and the fact that my injury ended my career as a college athlete was painful. But what was most difficult was that I couldn’t be my full self.

Years later, I could now see how my approach to work was now injuring my health. Even worse, I was doing this to myself. Instead of striving to be in the top 10% of performers, I decided I wanted to be in the top 10% of my health—physically and mentally. Instead of packing in more 25-minute Pomodoro productivity hacks and sleepless nights, I needed to care for my well-being.

Here are five healthy habits I now teach professionals and students to practice early in their careers. Building them into my daily life has helped me not just accomplish short-term goals but sustain my performance over time in and out of the workplace.

Find where you get your energy and protect it

Whenever I used to take breaks, I’d feel guilty that I wasn’t being productive. Reading a novel seemed less relevant than analyzing the latest industry news. Why do yoga when a HIIT workout could burn more calories?

What I was ignoring was how these “less productive” activities were the most beneficial because of how they recharged me. Novels introduced new perspectives and were fun to read. Yoga helped me relax and enjoy the peace away from the chatter of my phone. Hobbies supplied the energy I needed to refill my emotional and physical tank.

Just as important as finding what activities gave me energy was giving myself permission to prioritize doing it. It was easy to crank out one more email before going to the gym, only to get roped into more things and run out of time and energy to go at all.

Because no one else knows when or what I need to recharge, I now create the space for myself. I schedule my mornings to start with 20 minutes to read and stretch and end my days being active outdoors or calling a friend. In a world that demands my attention, I protect my energy because I’m the only one who can.

Build an intentional information diet

Growing up, I loved reading. But when teachers and professors stopped assigning and recommending books, I stopped thinking about the content I consumed. I let infinite scrolling capture my attention for hours, often as a distraction. Just as you are what you eat, I was what I read. So I created an information diet to curate what I put in my mind.

I audited my sources of information and chose what to consume across books, news, and social media. I picked topics I’d always wanted to learn more about like environmental science and journalism. I also indulged in personal favorites like podcasts on human behavior and happiness.

I now curate this list twice a year across mediums and allow myself to choose anything that piques my interest. It has ranged from memoirs of people in different industries like basketball coach Phil Jackson to a docuseries on political borders to a children’s book on art history.

Curating my own content has helped me create a personal syllabus of learning that’s both eye-opening and fun. Now when I have downtime, I don’t wait for algorithms to decide what I consume and go to my information diet instead.

Audit your values every year

In my mid-20s, I struggled with decisions in my career. Should I stay on the same team since I was close to a promotion? Or move countries for a new job that would reset the clock? Deciding was difficult because my values—what I judged to be important—often conflicted.

As professor Luke Burgis says, “Humans learn—through imitation—to want the same things other people want, just as they learn how to…play by the same cultural rules.” I, too, wanted the same things as the people around me, like the promotion pay bump.

But I also wanted to pursue new challenges and invest in my growth. Each value I had was shaped by influences in my life, ranging from my parents’ decades-long dedication to the same company to friends’ sabbaticals around the world and timelines for marriage and kids. I needed to audit my values to decide what was intrinsically important to me versus what seemed important because of others.

For three months, I journaled every morning to understand why I cared about learning and having experiences that stretched me. I asked mentors how they made tradeoffs between career growth and money. Reflecting on my values helped me see that taking on new risks was true to me despite the “downsides” that others saw. I moved countries for the new role six months later.

Checking my values and evolving them as I grow each year has clarified my decision-making, from where I live to the work I do. I still have anxiety and sometimes question if what I’m doing is right for me. But the uncertainty quiets when I remember and have confidence in my values to always be learning.

Curate your community like you’re building it from scratch

When I moved to San Francisco after college, my social life revolved around people who were convenient and accessible—colleagues from work and friends from school. A year later, I relocated to a new country where I knew no one.

Starting over forced me to build a new community from scratch. For the first time, I considered who I wanted to surround myself with. I sought out friends of friends, asked for introductions, and met people in classes. I followed up whenever I met someone I admired, such as people writing a screenplay for the first time or solving problems for the community. By virtue of who they were, they encouraged me to become a better version of myself.

As author Jim Rohn once advised, “You are the average of the five people you spend the most time with.” In every new city I’ve moved to since as well as places I’ve lived in for years, I keep the mindset like I’m starting over again and look for and invest in people who inspire me.

Experiment with routines

I always assumed that I’d be productive as soon as I sat down at my desk in the morning. But it took time to ease my brain into a creative thinking mode or tackle a problem I’d been avoiding. I underestimated the influence a routine could have on my performance.

To create a routine that worked for me, I experimented. After years of trying numerous productivity tools, I’ve resorted to no-fuss pen and paper to organize my tasks. Before I begin work, I reflect on my priorities between big challenges to solve versus small errands like follow-up emails. I put my phone in a drawer while doing deep work to reduce context-switching. To create momentum for the day, I knock out my least favorite work first. Just as an athlete does a ritual to get ready for a game, I now have a routine to get into the best headspace to get things done.

Better performance doesn’t always mean more effort. These five healthy habits have helped me, my students, and my clients care for our bodies and minds. I practice them not just when things get overwhelming but from when I wake up to when I put my phone away for the day. Following these habits and routines has been essential to helping me become better each day. Like all habits, building healthy ones takes time and starts with the first step: see what works for you.

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Ten things I wish I learned before I started my career

This article originally appeared on Perspectives and Business Insider.

I still remember the day the recruiter called me with a job offer from Google. I danced around my dorm room for hours celebrating what was to come. Landing a position in Google’s coveted Associate Manager program was a dream, and all the years of late-night problem sets and internships were finally paying off.

However, as summer passed and my first day neared, a deep sense of unease and anxiety began to set in. Leaving the structure of school introduced a new, overwhelming kind of freedom. I imagined myself struggling to both fit in and stand out among people who were older and more experienced than me. I kept wishing for a guide to entering the workplace for the first time.

Almost a decade has passed since I got that call in my college dorm. Today, I’d like to share some of the lessons I wish I had learned before starting my career, lessons that I now teach my team. This is the result of hours of 1:1s, books, and trial and error. It’s the guide I wish I’d had when I began my journey. I hope it will benefit you in the ways that it would’ve helped me.

1: It’s your job to find a good manager

One of my best managers, Paul, spent a lot of time with me early in my career. He wasn’t just great because he did things I valued in leaders, like inspiring others with bold ideas and celebrating his team instead of himself. I’ve had plenty of managers who did (and didn’t) do that.

Paul was great because he loved to teach. Our 1:1s covered a lot, from the more straightforward, “How do you frame a problem for an executive?” to the more complicated, “What should you do with your life?” He taught me to be curious and look for signs of rising stress, and how to reset if a meeting didn’t go the way I wanted. He taught me skills and ways of thinking that a college degree couldn’t have. But connecting with Paul didn’t happen by accident.

When I first started my career, I heard how important it was to “have a good manager,” but I had no clue what that meant. I assumed that someone who was likable and tenured also managed well. I also assumed I had no choice in who became my manager. I was wrong. If I wanted a good manager, it was my job to find them.

I started by meeting with managers I admired and seeing if how they dispensed knowledge resonated with me. In my first 30-minute chat with Paul, I learned so much, and to my surprise, he said that he did, too. It was clear he was a good teacher but also that it was a two-way relationship. Learning from him compounded like an investment, one that continues to grow to this day. I owe it all to finding a great manager.

2: Check your values instead of boxes

My whole life, I operated like a box-checker. Get into college, get a good job, get promoted, and become a manager. After I checked one box, I moved on to the next one. Things changed when the next box, like writing a book, started conflicting with things that weren’t on the list.

It took me almost a decade to stop forcing myself down the “correct path.” Of my most consequential life decisions, the best ones were driven by my gut rather than my brain. I did a fellowship, worked abroad in Asia, and studied Chinese. These were decisions defined by my values, and not necessarily what “made the most sense.” I pursued these experiences to become one percent better and to give back to others. Each time, I didn’t know how, or even if, these experiences would impact my career. It’s only now, as I look back, that I can connect the dots.

It was easy to go down paths that were well-lit but just weren’t for me. Asking myself what I valued was challenging because it meant being honest about my definition of success. I sometimes still struggle with this, but when I get stuck, I know to check my values. Only once I understand what matters to me can I chart a path to get there.

3: Measure yourself with your own yardstick

I decided to switch roles a few years into my job at Google. I wanted to work on a new product and move from Asia back to the US, but doing so meant I would forego a promotion. It felt like a huge setback to watch my peers progress up the ladder while I didn’t. I still went through with it, but for the next year, I worried that I had stunted my career. For a while, it felt like I had because the next promotion took time.

But promotions are an arbitrary yardstick based on someone else’s definition of growth. I wish I had clarified to myself earlier what my yardstick was and reminded myself to run my own race. This would have saved me from a lot of late-night angst and rumination.

Through that decision, I achieved growth by working on a product I loved and living in New York in my 20s. I might have made a move that seemed like a step backward to others. But to me, that decision put me three steps forward because of how I defined progress.

4: Plan to learn instead of over-planning

I’ve always been an over-planner. I used to map out my five-year plan every six months on a legal-sized sheet of paper and bring it to my managers to discuss. I thought the only way to reach my goals was to plan them out step-by-step.

But overplanning stressed me out when things inevitably didn’t go according to plan. I would take every blip as a sign that I hadn’t worked hard enough. Then I would overcorrect by planning even more when, in reality, many things were out of my control.

In fact, overplanning almost made me miss unexpected opportunities. Had I stuck to my original plan to go to business school at 26, I would have missed out on working in China and building Google Translate within Google Maps, which ended up being the experiences I learned from the most.

Of course, preparation and self-discovery are necessary tools to plan your career. But there is a balance between thoughtful planning and getting stuck in over-analysis. Careers are long, and they can take many shapes. Instead of approaching each decision as right or wrong, I now use my values to reframe it as, “How much can I learn from this opportunity?”

5: Give sponsors a reason to help you

I often used to be—and sometimes still am—shy to reach out to people whom I respect and admire. I used to watch my more confident peers go up and introduce themselves to senior leaders, while my default was to stay in my seat and assume that senior people wouldn’t help me because I had nothing to offer.

I’ve stopped holding myself back by realizing that help can take many forms. For my second year of Google’s new grad program, I wanted to learn about potential teams to join at our Asia headquarters in Singapore. To be helpful, I offered to contribute to an internal newsletter that one manager, Jon, published each week. Though Jon wasn’t hiring, that relationship opened doors to another team.

I continued to volunteer to help with anything I thought was interesting or could be beneficial. I raised my hand to run a development training for the region, led an international study trip, hosted women’s ERG breakfasts, and organized a hackathon. Two years later, I ended up joining Jon’s team. He then helped me land an opportunity to work in Shanghai with a director I had met during the training I’d organized.

By contributing to the community, I built relationships with people like Jon, who became one of my biggest sponsors and catapulted me to my next goal. I now always try to help others first before asking for help myself.

6: Take the risk and show up

Throughout my career, I’ve cared about supporting young women, but I never used to publicize it. I cringed sharing about it on social media, thinking it was calculative and self-inflating. But then I saw how peers who shared their work were more effective at achieving their goals because people remembered who they were and recommended them to others.

My reputation existed, whether I liked it or not. By staying quiet, I was creating one that was neutral at best and forgettable at worst. I was sabotaging myself because people wouldn’t be able to help me on my journey if they didn’t know what I was trying to do.

I finally took the plunge by sharing my learnings onstage at the Women In Product conference and posting about it online. I was surprised by the amount of interest and new connections I made by taking the risk and showing up. I still hesitate to put things out in public—including this article—but I am only able to make the impact I want by sharing my work with others.

7: See your team as real people

I love getting things done. Early on, I focused on my work and assumed my colleagues’ way of working was the same as mine. I then got frustrated when they didn’t stay as late as I did or reply as soon as I wanted. I rolled up my sleeves and did things myself, thinking I was proving that I was capable.

But by not collaborating, I was redoing work and creating knowledge silos. One peer mentioned that despite my work ethic, I could be a “bulldozer.” I was both shocked and humbled. It wasn’t only what I got done that mattered; it was how I did it with others. I hadn’t earned my team’s trust. I didn’t know about their families or what they cared about because I had never asked.

I spent the next year learning who my co-workers were outside the office and beyond their work goals. Getting to know my team as real people helped me not only get things done but also become a better teammate and leader.

8: Manage your energy, not your time

Many have called me a “productivity junkie.” I used to schedule my tasks in 25-minute increments per the Pomodoro technique, including replying to texts, going to the gym, and reading the news. My output increased, but I somehow felt that I had less time. By the end of the day, my energy was depleted.

Then I heard Naval Ravikant, the former CEO of AngelList, say that his number one priority in life—above his happiness, his family, and his work—was his health. The maxim that “you can’t pour from an empty cup” finally made sense.

Energy, not time, became the currency that I started to save and protect before I decided where to spend it. Things I thought I had no time for—exercising, taking walks, socializing—became my top investments to recharge my mind and body. I became aware of unconscious things I did that were sapping my energy and taking up valuable mind space, like ruminating. Managing my energy helped me use my time more meaningfully and productively.

9: Make your call to action clear

For one of my first products, I created a deck with robust data and facts on how to grow market share. My manager, Carissa, was curious about some trends, but she also asked me, “So what?” Despite my many slides, I hadn’t communicated what I wanted my audience, the engineering lead of another team, to do. Did I need them to help me secure more resources or agree to collaborate with us?

When I didn’t make my call to action clear, nothing I said landed with my audience. To get them to buy into my idea, I needed them to feel like they were part of the journey. To get them excited, I needed to tell a story around my data that would motivate them.

My ideas and plans were only as good as how I communicated them. Carissa wasn’t able to do anything with what I said because she didn’t understand what I was trying to say—or even why it was important. Now I always start every presentation not with what I want my audience to take away, but with what I want them to do.

10: Celebrate your wins

I recently looked at a five-year plan I made when I was 23. I was surprised that I had accomplished most of the things on the list. When my partner, Marty, jokingly asked if I had forgotten about my achievements, I had to admit that I rarely recognize what I’ve done. Because I’ve always equated celebrations with complacency, I’ve always set new goals to strive for next rather than celebrating my wins.

This is the success trap of moving goalposts, or what Harvard professor Dan Gilbert calls the “Impact Bias.” You’re never as happy as you think you’ll be when you achieve a goal because the mind adapts to your current circumstances. This “hedonic adaptation” created an endless cycle of me being dissatisfied with my progress and feeling like an imposter.

I was skeptical when my coach, Inbal, insisted that celebrating my wins could help me better achieve my goals. After all, it was my constant determination to achieve that had gotten me to where I was. But she showed me how celebrating could help me pause and pinpoint patterns, which I could then recreate. Remembering how I had prevailed in the past helped me strengthen my conviction to overcome current challenges.

Thoughtful celebration wasn’t self-indulgent; rather, it was a powerful tool for sustaining my long-term growth. I’ve learned to be aware of when I fall into this unforgiving cycle of striving for perfection. I now ask myself if the “me from a decade ago” would be proud of who I am today, and I celebrate that the answer is yes.

Navigating the beginning of my career felt intimidating and isolating at times, but I felt less alone when I met others who were on the same journey. When I was recruiting in college, my brother gave me a card with a quote from Ralph Waldo Emerson: “Life is a journey, not a destination.” The start of your career is the beginning of your journey, and I hope that this guide helps you with yours.