How I Work 14 Hours a Day (Without Getting Tired)
Summary
- I enjoy working 14 hours a day and don't consider it unhealthy if it aligns with someone's goals and energy.
- The key to handling long work hours is largely mental, with an 80/20 split between mental and physical capacity.
- Building work capacity involves not shying away when the hours get long. Eventually, the body and mind adapt.
- I don't rely on extensive routines or caffeine; my one cup of coffee in the morning is sufficient.
- Belief 1: Remember that work is a choice, not a necessity. Thinking "I have to do this" creates stress. Recognizing that it's a choice and that no one else needs me to reduces this pressure.
- Belief 2: Aim for imperfection in work. Trying to achieve perfection slows down productivity and increases self-judgment. Accepting imperfection speeds up work and reduces stress.
- Belief 3: Work capacity is like muscle; it grows under tension. Regular and consistent challenges allow you to adapt and increase your work capacity.
- Changing your beliefs around work can help you work longer hours without draining energy.
- I've shared my calendar to show how I manage my time and handle a heavy workload.
- If you're struggling to maintain productivity, examining and adjusting your attitudes towards work might be the key.
Video
How To Take Action
I would suggest starting by adjusting your mindset about work. Think of work as a choice you make, not something you're forced to do. This shifts the pressure off and reduces stress. If work feels overwhelming, remind yourself that it's an option you're choosing.
Aim for imperfection in your tasks. It may sound strange, but trying to be perfect can slow you down and make you critique yourself more. Instead, set a goal to do the work imperfectly, which can help you move faster and feel more confident as you'll often exceed your own expectations.
Remember that work capacity is like a muscle that you can grow. Don't shy away from long hours. Start by taking on a little more work than you're used to, and gradually, your mind and body will adapt to this new normal. This change won't happen overnight, but with consistency, you'll get there.
Lastly, know that you don't need a lot of routines or caffeine to boost your work hours. One cup of coffee can be enough. It’s really about how you view your work.
Here's how you can apply these insights:
- Whenever you feel stressed, pause and remind yourself that you've chosen to work and that people don't rely on you as much as you think. This can make the workload feel lighter.
- When working on a project, don't aim for 100% perfection. Instead, go for "good enough" and move on. This will help you progress faster and take on more tasks without feeling burnt out.
- Challenge yourself with slightly more work regularly. Just like exercising, it gets easier the more you do it.
Give yourself a few weeks to adapt to this new approach. It won't be easy at first, but like any new habit, it gets more manageable with time. If you feel tired, recall that it might be your thoughts about work—try to change them and see how your energy levels adjust.
Quotes by Leila Hormozi
"I like working 14 hours a day and a lot of people like to tell me that's bad for my mental health"
– Leila Hormozi
"If you're going to start a business remember it's a choice"
– Leila Hormozi
"The goal is to be imperfect"
– Leila Hormozi
"Work capacity is built under tension"
– Leila Hormozi
"The mental drama that you have around work is what's preventing you from working 14 hours a day"
– Leila Hormozi
Full Transcript
about is how i work 14 hours a day without getting tired or overdosing on caffeine and so this subject came about because i talk about the fact that i like to work 14 hours a day and a lot of people like to tell me that bad for my mental health it's this is tiring it's stressful like and here's the thing if you only want to work eight hours a day i am happy for you because a lot of people think that by me saying i like working 14 hours a day then i'm putting down people who don't work 14 a day so in another video that i had i referenced work capacity and a lot of people said layla how do you raise work capacity because that's part of the job of being a ceo so if you want to run a company you typically need to be able to increase your work capacity and a lot of people have asked me how i've done that and there's part of it that's physical and part that's mental and i think that more of it is mental i would say 80 of it is mental and 20 of it's physical part of it is physical in terms of if you want to build physical work capacity you can't back down when your hours are stretched what i have is a lot of times it sounds stressful but the reality is that if you commit yourself for long enough it becomes normal and eventually you adapt both physically and mentally that's the first piece of it the second piece of it is that a lot of people ask me in order to work those hours you must meditate and walk and journal and use nootropics and caffeine dosing and alternating you must have a crazy meticulous routine to allow you to physically work those hours and here's the thing i don't have anything i don't do i drink one cup of coffee in the morning and that's it and here's why it's because most the reason you can't work 14 hours a day is because it's in here it is not your physical being is your mentality around work and so i want to break down for you the three beliefs that i have that serve me so that i can work 14 hours a day without feeling tired or stressed the first belief that i have about work that allows me to work 14 hours a day is that i don't need to do this when we were running gym launch and it got to a point we were doing about 4.5 million dollars a month and i felt incredibly stressed and i didn't know why i was so stressed like we're making all this money do all this stuff it's going really well i felt so much stress in my head because of the thoughts i had about work and the thoughts that i had were if i don't do x y and z this will happen i had all these what ifs and that i believe relied on me and here's the thing that i realized is i don't need to do this one is i choose to do this if you're starting a business you don't need to start a business you choose to start a business it's a very different delineation you could go have a job you could go sell something on etsy there's so many other things you could do besides start a business if you're going to start a business remember it's a choice the side consequence of that is that oftentimes when we get into it we have all of this pressure we put on ourselves because we're like people are relying on us and what i've come to realize is that's a very selfish point of view if you constantly are putting yourself in a place where you're putting so much importance on you then you're going to feel so much pressure when you're working it's almost debilitating and i can tell you that because i've been there that's what it used to be like for me and the moment that i realized i was putting that pressure on myself and putting this elated level of self-importance on myself that's when i realized oh my gosh i'm creating this false reality or false narrative in my brain that's actually making work way more stressful for me and so now my motto is i don't need to do this and they don't need me the second belief that i hold about work is that the goal is to be imperfect so often what slows us down and it doesn't allow us to work long hours is that we constantly monitoring ourselves as we're working to make sure that work is perfect the thing is that if you're constantly checking for perfection everything takes longer and you have a ton of judgment on yourself but if the goal is to be imperfect think about how much faster you'll move so now every time i catch myself going slower or i keep judging myself for the fact that something isn't 110 i just remind myself like girl the goal is to be imperfect and so remove so much the mental drama that we have around work that doesn't allow us because if you have all that mental drama going all day you're gonna feel sluggish you're gonna feel tired you'll feel like i can't keep doing this all the time but if you feel like hey i'm exceeding my goal my work wasn't even just imperfect it was like pretty decent because you're exceeding the expectations you've set for yourself and if you can set expectations for yourself that you can constantly exceed you're going to feel better and you're going to want to sit higher and higher and higher and over time you're going to constantly be exceeding them and building confidence the third belief that i hold about work is that word capacity is built under tension the same way that you build muscle which is time under tension people talk about time under the bar and i come from a fitness background so i use this as an analogy so what that means is that if you want to grow a muscle you need to create more time under tension and at first that muscle won't adapt but then eventually that muscle will succumb to the work that you've put into it and it will grow the same goes for work capacity people often think well that sounds so stressful to commit to speaking and to get to meetings and to give it to travel and all these things of course it's stressful if you only do it every once in a while think about it if you only work out really hard once a month then every time you do that workout it feels terrible but if you do that workout every day it's just normal and it doesn't feel terrible you actually adapt both physically and mentally and so i believe that when i have to take on more work i don't look at it like oh that's gonna be horrible and terrible i'm thinking i'm leveling up my new level of normal and so if i want a new level of normal overall i wish that i'd have these beliefs when i first started working and what i used to think is all the stuff that everyone else does right and everyone else is probably not where you want to be which is you know don't work so hard working long hours is bad for you all these things the reality is that the mental drama that you have around work is what's preventing you from working 14 hours a day it's not necessarily the physical aspect of work it's the thoughts you have about work it's the meaning you give to working long hours if you're able to change the beliefs that you have about work and about yourself and your output and your results then you're able to work much longer hours because it's not sucking your energy it's actually giving you energy and so that all being said um a lot of people have actually requested to see a screenshot of my calendar so i'm going to share that here so you can see i do work long hours i do have lots of things going on i do have lots of things i have to switch between and i'm okay with it the thing is that in the beginning switching between things working long hours it's hard but guess what i get used to it within two to three weeks and you can too and so if you found this useful i actually have another video which is how i learned not to procrastinate so if you like nerding out on productivity and efficiency hacks go ahead and check out that video and let me know what you think in the comments
