PEAK PERFORMANCE...ON DEMAND

When your opportunity to perform presents itself, will you be nervous and falter, or eager, excited and ready to perform to your best? Will you take full advantage of the opportunity? Peak performers are always ready when their opportunity comes. Champions rise to the occasion and their best comes out when it is needed. How does this happen? Are some people just luckier than others?

The answer is simple...I didn't say easy, just simple. Peak performers, champions and those that sustain peak performance and enter the Hall Of Fame in any industry, have no secret formula. They didn't find a short cut to success. It doesn't exist.

They do possess a special ingredient...One that average performers lack. They develop and depend on self-discipline, they know it's what separates average performers from peak performers. Self-discipline...The will to prepare, the ability to do the work to be at their best when their best is needed. You can become a peak performer, a person who finds and stays in the 'zone' but you'll have to do the little things to be prepared.

You have to put in the time and do the work to know that you're ready. Preparing to perform requires your commitment to do the things that most people avoid. Peak performers invest in themselves by doing the things they don't want to do, that produce the results they want. This is the difference between average and excellent, winning and losing or peak performance and 'choking' when your opportunities present themselves. In addition, opportunities come more often to those who are prepared than to those who are waiting for them to happen. So, self-discipline leads to more opportunities and peak performance.

Peak performance requires preparation spiritually, mentally and physically and this requires self-discipline and the understanding that these stay in that order of priority. Preparing to perform, being healthy and whole, demands all three in the proper order. Until you learn this, and practice the self-discipline to prepare, you will not become a peak performer. When you do, you'll reach new heights and set new standards for yourself.

Self-discipline is the first requirement if you are to be prepared. It is the key step to developing your attitudes and skills. It is the driving force to taking action when others become paralyzed or 'choke'. Self-discipline leads to self-control which creates self-confidence and produces the self-realization of your peak performance. It is the human power that allows us to overcome the odds, perform the incredible and accomplish the amazing.

Because peak performers are prepared to perform they have an unwavering belief they were meant for the key moments in their lives. They have the confidence and faith to take the risk to fail because they know they can perform. In fact, they believe it's their purpose and their mission to be their best when their best is needed. This makes them eager, excited and ready when their time comes. They enter their peak performance zone easily and execute what they believe they were meant to do. They perform to their peak on demand!

Develop your self-discipline, prepare yourself spiritually, mentally and physically and become a peak performer!

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ACCOMPLISHING YOUR GOALS...THE MISSING STEP

We all have wishes, hopes and dreams but to turn them into goals and unleash their power, they have to be put in writing with a date to be completed.  


Wishes, hopes and dreams rarely come true while goals are often accomplished. 


Setting your goals is actually step three in accomplishing them. Step two is creating an action plan. You’ll need to start at step three and work backwards to create the first step to accomplishing your goals.

When people set goals they often don’t make an action plan for how to accomplish them and set themselves up to fail. For those who set goals and make an action plan, they’re still missing the most important and powerful step. They’re missing the first step and real driver behind accomplishing their goals. Most people fail to accomplish their goals because of this missing step!

Deciding who you need to become, the person who will take the actions in your plan is the powerful first step in accomplishing your goals. If you don’t change who you are, you won’t change your behavior. If you don’t change your behavior, you won’t achieve your goals.

To accomplish your goals, think in terms of these steps…Start at step three, setting your goals. Then take step two by making an action plan. Be aware that if you stop there and start trying to take actions you have set yourself up to fail, become frustrated with goal setting, and eventually stop setting goals altogether.

After setting your goals and making your action plan, take step one…decide the person you have to become to take the actions in your plan. Decide what attitudes, intentions, beliefs and character traits are needed to be the person who would naturally take the actions you’ve planned.

Now use these three steps to accomplish your goals. Start at step one, working on becoming that person. This may also give you insight to a better timetable to accomplishing your goals. If it does, then re-write your goals with a new date for them to be accomplished. This will help make your action plan and goals more realistic and more achievable.

Starting with this missing step will create less frustration and help you start working on the core cause of your accomplishing your goals…YOU!

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TIPS AND TRAITS OF TOP PERFORMERS

There are no secrets to success. Learning, modeling and preparing yourself with the time tested traits, attitudes, skills and actions used by top performers is the best way to achieve your best results in your work and life!

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TOO COMFORTABLE TO LEARN, GROW AND IMPROVE

Past success and achievement often breeds comfort. It's also in our human nature to seek comfort even before improvement. It’s this comfort that causes people and leaders to stop improving and protect their success in good times when they get comfortable or reach their desired level of success.

In tough times, like we're now experiencing, it will make people and leaders dig in even deeper to survive and wait until things get back to normal instead of taking the actions to improve and create a new normal.  While this make slow the decline or fall, it certainly de-motivates and demoralizes people and organization. This mind set will enable the final decline and move them or their organization backwards at a time when energy and enthusiasm for the challenges, change and new innovative thinking are desperately needed.

Over the years I have met many people and business executives who seemed to be comfortable with the status quo. These same people and leaders often agree it is time for change, time to improve, but go back to what is familiar and wait for change to overtake them or their organization.  After years of observing this mind set and behavior I am left with only one conclusion.  This happens because they have achieved a personal goal and become a too comfortable with their position or life. This causes them to look to protect their position or possessions instead of using all the attitudes, skills and actions that help them achieve or grow in the first place. 

When things get tough and leadership and changes are needed, their comfort level motivates them to wait until things get better rather than look for alternatives to make things better.  I have never believed these same people or executives achieved their personal goals with this mentality. Rather, they only stopped moving forward, being innovative thinkers and advocates for change and personal growth after they achieved a personal goal and reached a comfort level.  

When bright, aggressive people and leaders, who were able to lead their organization to great achievements, start using language like "hunker down" and "wait", it is most often a sign of comfort or fear and it’s happening too regularly.

When the time comes that people or leaders would rather be comfortable than grow or lead the movement for improvement in their life or organization, it is time for the leader to step down and find a new challenge to get reenergized.  This is true in our personal lives as well...complacency or comfort are our greatest enemies to a happy successful life. Leaders stepping down or finding a new challenge rarely happens in a timely or productive manner and usually occurs after much of the success achieved has been lost.

As a leader...Do you have a plan for stepping down or creating new challenges? In your personal life,...Are you aware when you get too comfortable? Good habits lead to good results but when a habit becomes a rut that drains you of your energy beware. Look for the new challenge to reenergize the achiever in you. 

How will you know when it's time?   One major indicator is when the changes required to keep moving you or your organization forward aren’t energizing but a chore! When our attitudes as leaders are right then change is always energizing. 

Most leaders have the heart of a great competitor. Great competitors usually lose the will to prepare before they lose the desire to perform. When this happens performance suffers.

Often in business, leaders get comfortable with their past achievements or the position they hold and it creates an unwillingness to embrace the changes needed for their organization to move forward to new accomplishments.

Too often achievers or leaders are like the performing artist that can’t let go of past accomplishment or the thrill of the performance and try to perform after their performance deteriorates. Except people's performance in life don't have to deteriorate if they stay committed to learning, growing and change. 

For people, leaders and their organizations, it is best to get reenergized by becoming change advocates.  It is never best to wait for things to get better… Be careful that your life and leadership strategy isn’t to hunker down, wait or survive until things improve.

Don't hide behind the idea of going, back to basics, I've always done it this way, or it's worked this way before. Be ready to make changes, learn, grow and keep making changes to learn again. Remember it's what you learn after you know it all that matters the most and makes the biggest difference.

We are all experiencing a new economy and a new way of life. If you want a happy successful present and bright future then wake up everyday looking for what's possible, what's new.

It's time for people in general, and leaders specifically, to get back to their first loves…challenge, change, innovation and improvement.  This is the best solution in good times, tough times and the best way to re-energize yourself or your organization.

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