What high performance should look like

When you hear the words “high performance” or “success”, what picture/vision comes to mind for you? Is it something you aspire to, or something totally unattainable? What does it actually mean to be high performing and successful?

I was delivering a workshop recently focusing on energy and how to structure your days, weeks, months etc. for performance. We were discussing the physical attributes of what makes up our energy and one of the attendees asked if it was all just a little too much to try and focus on everything – nutrition, movement, environment, the people around us etc.

Fundamentally our brains are wired for survival rather than high performance. So we always joke in a kind of serious way, that high performance isn’t that hard given the benchmark is actually kind of low.

Ah – accountability. Most people think they have it, very few people do, and even fewer know how to coach it in others. But if there is one thing that businesses need in order to have a high performance culture, it’s accountability.

I often get a lot of comments or questions about how to manage unscheduled work – or work that you have no control over. And the truth is, whether you are working in an office environment, travelling regularly, working from home or doing manual labour, there is always going to be an element of your day that you can’t control. So, how do we manage this for better performance and productivity?

Do you ever find that your most creative ideas and strategies come to you at the oddest times? Like when you’re in the shower, walking home from the train station, or in bed at 3:00 am!

Let’s face it, as a society we love a good list of things to stop, start, change etc. And generally, we try to steer clear of the “one-size fits all” approach, as we now know from neuroscience no two brains are the same, so we can’t expect one size to fit everyone.