Peak Performance. It means being at the top of your game, feeling supremely confident, feeling like everything you do is effortless and acheives its goal, feeling resilient and detached from the outcome, being in the flow, being in the zone, feeling relaxed, feeling happy and joyful, having a sense of clarity and certainty about everything that you do, feeling a sense of fullness in your life, indeed feeling fulfilled. How much of your time do you spend in this state? Probably not as much as you would like. In informal surveys I have conducted over the last several years I have found that only 10 percent of people I interviewed experienced this state about 30 percent of the time. The rest, on average could only claim to having had this experience less than 10 percent of the time on average. With these figures it becomes clear that most of us are missing out on tapping into our full potential. How much of the time would you like to be experiencing this state of peak performance? Well if you're like me you'll probably say 100 percent of the time. Now I know that some might say that that would be boring or that it would take away some meaning to life. Those individuals likely think that there is pleasure to be had in working hard and trying to achieve this state. For those individuals I ask them to reflect on the hard work and notice how much joy they feel they are actually experiencing while they are doing it. Indeed there are many negative beliefs and emotions that we hold onto that actually "block" us from being in this state of peak performance "all of the time". Here are some of them: a) Its not possible, b) It would take the meaning out of life, c) The fear of success, d) The fear of failure, e) The need to succeed, f) I don't deserve it, g) The need to win, h) This reality doesn't work that way, i) It takes a lot of effort, and so on. Now I know that some of these may surprize you. For instance many of you may "think" that the "need to win", if anything, should be helpful rather than detrimental. I would like to show how indeed this is not the case. Let's say you are on the golf course and you find yourself among a group of very experienced golfers. Suppose also that you are feeling a need to really prove yourself i.e. you are caught up by the "need to win". What are you likely to notice happening inside you? Well with the need to win comes a definite emotional attachment to the outcome of the game. This means that your emotional state has just become "dependent" on the outcome of the game. Another way of saying this is that your mood state, and ultimately your performance, is now going to fluctuate throughout the game based on whether you feel you are doing well or not. Hence when one of your opponents makes a good shot you are likely to feel somewhat anxious. What impact is this going to have on your ability to focus on your game. Well, I think it's obvious that when you are distracted by such anxiety you find yourself making more mistakes. Now because your mood state is dependent on the outcome of the game, making mistakes is only going to cause you more anxiety. You run the risk of plummeting into a vortex of negative emotions and multiple bogeys. So so you see, the "need to win" can become one of your worst enemies. So how does one address this and other problems that block us from achieving our full potential and therefore our peak performance. The negative beliefs and emotions I mentioned earlier that block your performance are not only detrimental, they are totally unnecessary! In other words it is possible to eliminate them, yes, eliminate them completely and forever. Can you imagine what this even feels like? If you would like to know more you can visit the web site listed below. |
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