As a performance psychology consultant, I’ve learned a lot from my clients over the years, but perhaps the strongest lesson is this: developing great thinking lags far behind developing great technical skills. At all levels, too much emphasis is placed on grades, spreadsheets, standardized test scores, and production statistics—the visible and easily measurable aspects of performance. But the people who consistently finish at the top have more than that. They develop the “intangibles” of success: confidence, focus, healthy commitment, and a host of other talents that lie within.
Fascinatingly, research is beginning to show that traditional psychological “therapies” that address these internal measures of performance, such as relaxation and goal setting, lose their effectiveness once people reach the middle class. To go beyond mediocre, to go beyond average, you most likely need to begin to stop thinking about what you already know.
Here are some tips from my book “SUPERIOR ACHIEVEMENT” to help you get started.
hard work is overrated
Winners know when to stop working and start playing. Too much organization and preparation can turn them into “overmotivated underachievers,” a classic grinder who chokes when the bottom line really counts.
Many middle managers were overmotivated underachievers, who climbed the ladder logging more hours than anyone else, working hard on their modest talents but falling short of greatness. They tend to be interested in the volume of effort and overlook efficiency. They tend to encourage meetings, paperwork; tend to reward long hours of work.
But ask yourself: what is the true essence of your work? What tasks and projects are the keys to your success? Then enjoy those things – act on them most of the time instead of consuming yourself preparing and organizing.
Setting Goals is for Couch Potatoes
The long-standing practice of setting goals can actually be a major roadblock to vigorous, sustained motivation and being great.
Goal setting focuses you on the outcome: rewards, promotions, bonuses, prizes, even cars, houses, and vacations. But those things are ultimately out of your control. Trying to manipulate the future like a puppet will increase instances of frustration, impatience, and discouragement. It will distract you from the important tasks at hand, especially the task of enjoying your work.
Yes, it is important to have a compass. High achievers, however, set their compass and then essentially put it away. They stay focused on the present. They are passionate about what a great day feels like and they chase that feeling, day after day, not the outcome of the feeling.
Using your head is stupid
In a high-stakes performance, the real genius is someone like Yogi Berra. On his way to 10 World Series rings and a spot in the Hall of Fame, Yogi thought nothing of it.
You shouldn’t either. Whether you’re giving a presentation to the board, making a sales pitch, negotiating a merger, or simply interacting with a client, you’re “onstage.” In such moments, brain science reveals that humans perform best when they trust their training, experience, and instincts, not their heads.
In other words, stop evaluating your performance and turning it into a conscious mental exercise. Think less; act more. That’s how Robert Redford got so good: Even when he was still honing his craft, learning how to be better, he put aside thinking and evaluating him when he took the stage. You also should.
There is no such thing as overconfidence
The best in every business probably seem irrationally confident to most people, but that’s how they got to the top.
Richard Branson, Bill Gates, Michael Dell: they believed in themselves first, completely, and let their belief be their guide. You must have experienced numerous obstacles, setbacks, and failures. Confidence allowed them to continue getting up and looking for a way to get ahead.
Most importantly, leaders like Branson and Gates prioritized believing in the people around them. Confidence isn’t arrogance either, and unless your employees think they’re better human beings overall than everyone else, let them believe they’re good enough to do exceptional things.
Legends never say they’re sorry
Having a long or frequent memory for mistakes and a short or infrequent memory for successes is a guaranteed way to develop fear of failure. High achievers focus on what they do well and spend very little time evaluating themselves and their performance.
Learn from your mistakes? Of course. The road to success is littered with adversities from which we can gain meaningful insight. However, the key is to reserve specific and deliberate times for the evaluation. Process mishaps, mistakes, and your overall performance only at times you have planned.
The alternative is to get caught up in doubts, doubts and worries every time things look a little gray. You excel during tough times by having a positive plan to look at, and to have a positive plan, you need to spend a lot of time looking at the picture of success.
The best stress out of necessity
Classic breathing and relaxation tend to undermine performances, eliminating the possibility of setting records. Think of stress as the high level PowerBar. By relaxing, you slow down your heart and prevent much-needed blood, oxygen, neurotransmitters, and adrenaline from stimulating your senses and cerebral cortex.
The so-called stress detriment is the psychological interpretation you give to critical situations, not the stress itself. If you want to perform at your best, change the lens through which you view stress, don’t reduce it; in fact, increase stress more often.
Put all your eggs in one basket
Unlikely achievements are born of single-minded determination. Future superstars don’t get there with a piece of their heart in reserve.
I often tell executives to stop multitasking. Multitasking is simply doing a lot of half things at once. Isn’t the idea to perform at your best? If you really want to discover what your potential is, you have to do everything you have in one thing at a time. If you hold back, you’ll never know.
What if you put all your eggs in one basket and let the basket fall? Guess what: they’ll make more eggs, and there are plenty of baskets to choose from.
Put the “I” in “Team”
A team is made up of individuals, and as a manager of a great team, you must encourage individualism: by definition, strive to be exceptional, make a unique and beneficial contribution to the whole, think outside the box, find new solutions to difficult problems.
Also, if you encourage a group to all line up, you’ll have a pretty boring atmosphere in the office. And the creativity that is necessary for innovation, the lifeblood of progress, will be lost.
what limits???
There is no ideal; there is no perfect. Striving for either one is a sure way to get entangled.
I tell artists all the time: perfectionism is simply putting a limit on your future. When you have an idea of perfect in your mind, you open the door to constantly comparing what you have now with what you want, how you are doing now with how you want to do. That kind of self-criticism is significantly determining.
Plus, the idea of perfection closes your mind to new standards – just ask Roger Bannister about breaking the 4-minute mile. When you strive for an ideal, you lose opportunities and paths, not to mention damage your confidence.
Believe in your potential and then go out and explore it; don’t limit it.
Only the weak weigh the risks
For exceptional people, the risk equals the reward. The challenge of uncertainty is the fun of doing the work in the first place, and where the ultimate achievement lies.
A winner does not look for the safest, most comfortable or secure solution. That would not push them or their companies to grow. Growth is the key, something shareholders certainly understand. But growing up requires going to new places and thinking new things, not succeeding in the new, but learning from the process, regardless of the outcome.
Michael Jordan, perhaps the most legendary basketball player of all time, based his entire acting philosophy on the notion, “I am a success because I have failed more times than anyone else in history.”
Maybe you can find something of Michael in you?
