Its been an interesting week for me this week reflecting on performance. The question I am left asking myself is when is good, good enough? Should we be willing to settle for 7/8 when we could achieve 10?
Instinctively I know that most of you reading this will say NO – if you can achieve 10 you should go for 10. My heart tells me you are right, yet so many people actually deliver less than they could. So many people settle for Ok when good or even great is possible without any change to current capability.
The growth of personal training professionals is testament to this human character of being willing to settle for less than we are capable of. The role of a PT is to push you to give that little bit extra that will ultimately deliver the outstanding levels of fitness you say you want. Yet, everything a PT does we have the capability to do for ourselves and yet we choose not to.
In business whatever your current level of performance there is more out there for you. Even in the most saturated of markets there is still market share that you can go after and growth that is possible – IF you change your attitude and willingness to settle.
It is easy to come up with a hundred reasons not to – the real stars find the one reason to do what needs to be done. The difference between those who win and those who do OK is the willingness to change the way they think about their own performance. It actually takes no more skill or ability – it simply takes the individual or organisation to change their level of tolerance for the performance they achieve.
Here are my top tips for moving from 7 to 10!
1) Believe that 10 is possible – until you believe that you can you won’t
2) Accept that 7 isn’t good enough – change your Mindset and change your view of what is acceptable
3) Focus on your performance data – look at where your results come from and more specifically where your results don’t meet expectations. Look fo the gaps in what you do and what you could do.
4) Throw out the excuses – every one of us can find a reason why x or y didn’t happen but the winners don’t allow excuses to limit their performance.
5) Set yourself a significant challenge – we are goal driven machines and only stretch beyond when we have something to reach for.
Haydn Bratt, Pioneer, Mindset Associates
