What is High Performance?

We all have a desire to perform well, succeed at something, whatever it is. Have you ever felt the high of success and then the low of failure? It doesn’t need to be like that.

So, what is high performance for you?

I would love to hear how you define this in your own words. I will get you started with what High Performance means to me, firstly it all comes back to a personal philosophy, a way of living with a focus on being better tomorrow than I was today.

High performance is failing with courage and succeeding with curiosity. Take a moment to think about that.

We have all been through a challenge at some point in our lives. How did you react? Have you thought about the journey being more important than the end result? Could you recover?

So why is High Performance Mindset important? We all have intrinsic needs and want to be happy, this is defined by constantly evolving, really think about the why and finding solutions.

Do you have the mindset to fail and keep coming back stronger?

Focus on what you want and why, not the obstacles to get there. I was listening to a podcast recently and the morale of the story really stuck with me, imagine for a minute you are an elite Skier, and your coach provides you with a challenging course, with turns and obstacles you are not used to. The elite Skier has in-front of him/her trees on every straight and bend, it is a course you have never been on before and the trees are really close together. Subconsciously you say to yourself there are a lot of trees…. All you can visualise are the trees everywhere on the course, with the only thing on your mind the trees.

If all you can see are the trees, you will never navigate the course, as soon as the coach said to the skier after several failed attempts focus on the path in-between the trees, they started to improve.

The message of the story, look further than the problem, discover solutions and what you are trying to do and why, the skiers goal was to get round the course to improve and prepare them for races, not think about trees! The coach didn’t solve the problem, he reminded the skier of why he was on the course and how to focus on the goal, he guided them to a potential solution.

I am sure you can come up with examples of your own, where all you see is the problem, rather than the way to come up with solutions.

There are 3 things you can start doing today, don’t hesitate, try them, what have you got to lose, instead think what could you gain?

1. When something doesn’t work, see it as a learning opportunity. If everything was successful the first time you wouldn’t have any experience to call upon to do better. Instead when something fails, think about what you gained from the experience and how you can use it to improve, continuously.

2. Practice, practice, practice and learn empathy, walking a day in someone else’s shoes before you judge them, essentially can you remain curious longer.

3. When you get it wrong, don’t s*** yourself, get up, seek advice, speak to one person who you can trust,

listen to what it is you really want, what the real problem is. Don’t seek too many opinions, or it will turn into loads of noise, focus on the why. This will lead you to the solution, if you understand the why you can transform.

What do you hear or see when the word ‘Fail’ is used? Start seeing First Attempt In Learning, why, if you focus on anything else the opportunity to learn is lost.

Empathy is so important, why? Empathy wins over opinion all the time - walk a day in someone else’s shoes then you can understand… ask questions and listen to understand, not respond…..

Start focusing on what can work, not what can’t.

Key take away, start challenging your mindset, never settle, keep improving – doesn’t matter how good or bad you are at something, you can improve. Focus on your strengths, if you try to do everything, you will become average at many things, rather then really good at a few things.

The biggest thing that is going to knock you down is life.