Top Tip #10

Tip: Don’t go through your life as an underachiever; instead maximize your success at achieving goals by training yourself in the life skill of HIGH PERFORMANCE.

LEVEL I – The technique

The following sequence of steps is useful in pursuing your goals:

1. Get the goal (the strategic phase)
2. Get ready (the planning stage)
3. Get set (the preparation stage)
4. Go (the launch)
5. Go on and on and on (the progress / production stage)

Step 5 or the progress / production phase is where and when performance in how to keep progressing towards goals effectively and efficiently becomes an issue. It is the skill of how to become skilled, much like good study skills are the way to the goal of achieving higher education.

Some of the important ingredients for high performance include: Mental and physical health and strength, commitment, dedication, determination, persistence, courage, focus, resilience, desire and motivation, smart thinking about continuous improvement, tenacity, energy, enthusiasm, spirit, vigor, willingness to sacrifice, endurance, positive thinking, success visualizing, composure, self discipline and will power, inspiration, consistency, personal responsibility and others you may think of. Notice the other life skills in this program (numbers 1 to 9) are also among the essential ingredients for high performance.

It is important to realize the ingredients for high performance listed above are choices and characteristics of high performers. I believe we can all be High Performers in our own right with whatever endowments we received genetically, if we so choose. High performance seems to get people further ahead than natural talent and endowment alone.

LEVEL 2- The Training Tool Template

On a blank sheet of paper, label the page “Performance Ladder.” Make a stick diagram of a ladder with you on one of the lower rungs, or wherever you think you are. Draw an arrow pointing up the ladder representing the forces you need to bring to bear in order to climb further up the performance ladder. Draw another arrow pointing down representing the forces pulling you down or draining your energy, such as perhaps basic human laziness, distractions, toxic relationships, addictions, and so on. Also include barriers impeding moving upward. Work on removing your barriers, enhancing your upward forces, and rising up to whatever achieving your goals demands.

Next, think of you on the ladder. On another sheet, on the left hand side make a list of all the elements of high performance we outlined above in level 1 that you need to strengthen. Think about each one carefully. Focus on developing them and chart your daily efforts and improvements.

LEVEL 3 – Try a Trial Test and see what happens

Start towards a goal using the above ingredients. You may want to try an easy short term goal to begin with.

LEVEL 4 – The target

The target is to acquire the characteristics of a high performer able to apply the skill to whichever endeavors you choose to pursue. Remember that for the sake of balance, not every endeavor requires high performance. Save your efforts for where it counts the most.

LEVEL 5 – Typical cases in point

Many of my patients are underachieving due to poor goals or lack thereof, or becoming discouraged and overwhelmed by downward forces and barriers. Some have given up. As such, they are not using the potential capacities they have for achievement.

Looking back, my observation is that those who were persistent high performers with good goals have achieved more in their lives than others who seemed gifted with the prospect of a good future that never happened.

LEVEL 6 – The theory

High performance in pursuing your goals increases your chance of achievement and success in accomplishing them. It is not just what goals you choose that is important, but the skill with which you pursue them: your style and means to the end goal.

Essentially, nothing comes for free. High performance comes at high cost and you need to be willing to pay the price in terms of input of all that is required. This might include sacrifice, stress, and pain.

We can learn a lot about high performance and achievement from the world of sport. All sports and games reflect elements of real life such as luck, skill, win or lose, adversity, challenges, rules, goals, strategy, and so on. That being the case, we can learn about some elements of high performance in real life from the world of sport and games people have created and play.

World class athletes are trained in both physical and mental high performance skills which enable them to successfully accomplish astonishing feats. The recipe for high performance in pursuing mental skills (as we listed above) is the same as for physical skills. High performance athletes also know what it really means to try with all their might for as long as it takes to achieve a goal. Such athletes are role models in high performance but you may not want to dedicate yourself to that extent in pursuing your own personal goals. The point is we can train ourselves in those same high performance skills to whatever extent we choose in order to achieve our own goals, while still maintaining life balances.

LEVEL 7 – Try more Tests and Trials

There are many applications for high performance skills if you make all your activities into goals. That can make what you do more interesting, challenging, or even fun, and your achievement potential can rise. For example, if you exercise by walking, you can set goals to achieve in your walking. You can also apply your high performance skills to setting goals to improve your performance skills, by always striving to do better at whatever you choose to do well. Of course, not everything has to be a goal and I believe not everything worth doing is worth doing well. Some things can be worth doing, but not particularly well. Remember to stay balanced.

LEVEL 8 – Tracking your progress

If you were born with an engine (brain) powered by eight cylinders, how many of them are you using? If your answer is less than eight, you can think about the ones you are not using. Do they need repairs such as developing appropriate life skills, or are they just not being used? How many do you need or want to use? Keep track of how many cylinders you think you are using and become capable of using all eight when the need for them arises.

LEVEL 9 – Take off

Use this life skill to launch yourself away from the problems it can help you solve or resolve and to go on to a better way of living in which you can feel good and function well. Make an extensive list of the specific problems and issues this life skill empowers you to rise above and leave behind. Visualize yourself doing so.

Bonus Tip

Tip: You can expect that the power of all ten life skills working together would be more than the sum of their individual powers.

Developing and practicing any and all of the life skills is well worthwhile in spite of all it takes to do so. Moreover, I observe that top performers not only have the individual skills they require, but that they put all their skills together in ways that make them extra successful. That is something we can all train to do with life skills for our individual lives.

Please note: Books are not available at this time.