Delivering your own Gold-Medal Winning Performance

Key Takeaways

• Techniques on staying focused
• Maximizing your productivity

The year 2020 will usher in yet another rendition of the modern version of the Summer Olympics.. Some will walk away with gold, silver or bronze medals, and some will walk away with disappointment.

Among those leaving the games empty-handed without a medal, there will be those among them who nonetheless will not be leaving with disappointment because they know they delivered the very best they were capable of.  These are the athletes who provide us with the very best examples from which to learn.

Olympic history is filled with would-be champions who succumbed to the pressure and for one reason or another did not have the ability to stay focused on the task at hand. They ultimately faltered when their big moment came. The history of the games is also filled with athletes who found a way to stay focused on their best personal performance by measuring their progress against their own personal best performances. Those who stayed centered on developing themselves and displaying their best talents for all the world to see are the ones that leave with no regrets.  Their concentration remained focused on the sport, on their technique and on the thrill of competing. It is not simply focused on the end result as they know It is not just about them.

In business, it is so very easy to get caught up in comparing ourselves with others that we lose sight of what is most important.

It can be easy for people to become lost in the melee and lose sight of the basic practices and behaviors that got them into the game in the first place. Most people achieve their initial level of success by staying focused on that which is most important, and by realizing it is not about them.  It is really about making a significant contribution to the company on a daily basis, and getting up, showing up and delivering their best.

Experience has taught me that there are a few simple techniques that can be applied to help ensure that, as an individual, you stay on course and always deliver your very best. Some of these techniques are so common-sense oriented that they are often overlooked by those trying so hard to become the consummate professional.

The first technique I employ is that on a daily basis I remind myself that there are two days in my life that will always have the greatest impact on my success and the results I ultimately achieve. That’s it: just two days. Those two days are today and tomorrow.

While it may sound a bit glib or even sophomoric, I assure you it is not.  If you will focus all of your efforts on making sure that you get as much good done today as you possibly can, while also attending to what you will need to have on hand to achieve as much tomorrow, your productivity will soon soar over anything you have done in the past. Remember, measuring your current performance against your own personal best is the surest path to building a life of continued improvement and higher results.

Next up, as you focus on only delivering your very best today and tomorrow, be sure to take that extra step to ensure you are only spending your valuable time and effort on those mission-critical items that are most important to achieving your goals. Most people spend an inordinate amount of their time on issues of little or no consequence to those mission- critical items.

I suggest for each day (today and tomorrow) you have listed the top three things on which to focus your efforts and attention. If you can train yourself to stay focused on the top three items most critical to your missions’ success, and if you do this every day, your results will soar.

One last thing: Pick a time every day where you shut it all down and walk away from it. Make sure you have at least two to three hours to yourself where you do nothing work related before bedtime. This will allow you to get a very good nights’ sleep, and you won’t have numbers or issues running through your dreams all night long.

By having a certain time set where you know you have to walk away from it, over time you will become much more astute at getting as much done as possible during your designated hours for work because you know you must shut it down at a certain time.

Keeping yourself focused on only those items which are most critical to your success and by limiting your strategy to maximizing your effectiveness to only today and tomorrow, the weeks, months and years will still fly by, but your performance will fly right along with them.

Good luck!

Additional techniques on maximizing personal performance:

https://www.iris.xyz/development/20-ways-improve-your-performance-work