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Dec 06 2017

Motivation Gets You Started- Habit Keeps Your Going. But Only This Quality Enables You to Finish and Succeed

 

“Motivation is what gets you started. Habit is what keeps you going.”

Jim Rohn

There is much wisdom in the much-shared quote from Jim Rohn; but it is only two thirds of the picture. The third element is essential when it comes to achieving great things. It goes by the name of resilience.

Not as sexy as motivation. Not as easy to give practical advice for, as the concept of habits is. But if you don’t have resilience – then you’re unlikely to succeed. Just look around at the many individuals and organizations that started out with great energy, enthusiasm and promise but failed to reach the finishing line.

But I Did Everything Right

You may be highly motivated, have done the detailed planning with your Gantt chart, collated the necessary resources and done all of the right things at the right time and in the right way. But you can bet your bottom dollar you are going to face unexpected setbacks that push you to your limits.

There seems to be an equation which is something like the greater your goals and ambition, the more obstacles you will face along the way.

A Well Trodden Path

Most people are familiar with the account of Colonel Sanders and his bid to bring his Kentucky Fried Chicken recipe to the world. He was reportedly turned down 1009 times. Yes, you read right- 1009 rejections.

Agatha Christie faced 5 years of continual rejections and J K Rowling’s Harry Potter manuscript was rejected by 12 publishing houses. By contrast in terms of activity and time frame you might remember the resilience displayed by Kerri Strugg in the 1996 Olympics. If you don’t here’s the clip

I could go on with examples from the battlefield or the world of startups but you get the picture. It is rare for there to be gain without pain.

Prioritize Resilience

There is a debate amongst experts as to what is extent people are born resilient, how much is developed during childhood and what can be learned and developed. While the debate continues, what remains clear is that with effort and a willingness to experiment you can increase your resilience.

Whether it’s incorporating a daily practice of stepping out of your comfort zone, upgrading your mindset or using brain entrainment technologies there are plenty of options. One size doesn’t fit all hence my reference to a willingness to experiment.

At the end of the day, whether your planning to put a ding in the universe or want to provide a good lifestyle for your family, give as much thought to becoming resilient as you do to motivation and habits and your chances of crossing the finish line will increase dramatically.

Martin Soorjoo works with individuals and teams to improve their Performance, Focus and Pressure Management

Written by martin soorjoo · Categorized: performance, Resilience, success · Tagged: Martin Soorjoo, mindset, performance, pressure management, resilience, success

Aug 30 2017

How to Improve Your Performance Under Pressure

under-pressure

 

“Everything can be taken from a man but one thing: the last of the human freedoms—to choose one’s attitude in any given set of circumstances, to choose one’s own way.”

Viktor E. Frankl, Man’s Search for Meaning

Your Response to Pressure is a Choice

How we respond to pressure is a choice. For most people, however, their response is in line with a ‘threat response’, which unless you are about to experience actual physical harm, is not only counterproductive to our long-term well being but also to performing well under pressure.

This is because when we activate our threat response, hormones including adrenalin and cortisol are released, speeding the heart rate and slowing digestion while our blood vessels constrict to minimize blood loss and increase inflammation. People may also experience fear and anger, while our Amygdala causes us to focus on the negative.

Choose the Challenge Response

The field of pressure management is changing rapidly with exciting new findings challenging old assumptions about and solutions to pressure. An effective response to non-physical pressure is the ‘challenge response’[1]. When we decide to frame an engagement as a challenge, we are typically more able to effectively access the cognitive resources necessary to perform well under pressure. When we ‘rise to the challenge’ we typically feel energized and excited in addition to experiencing a degree of anxiety.

Research has consistently demonstrated that when choosing the challenge response, students attain higher exam grades, surgeons operate with greater concentration and athletes perform better during competition.

Putting This into Practice

Long term the objective must be to bring about a mindset shift that leads to your default response to high-pressure (non-physical) situations being the challenge response. This can be achieved through mindset interventions.

If, however, you are facing an imminent high pressure challenge e.g. a public speaking engagement, job / promotion interview or a difficult negotiation, implement the following steps:

  1. If you have advance notice of the high-pressure challenge, spend a few minutes seeing it for what it really is, focusing on the positive aspects which may include:
  • It is not a life-threatening situation.
  • It is an opportunity to advance in some way.
  • You are capable to rising to this challenge.
  • You have done something similar before and received positive feedback.
  • You have faced and overcome more difficult challenges.
  • People want you to do well.
  1. Generate feelings of excitement and enthusiasm and commit to approaching your challenge in this emotional state.
  1. Spend a few minutes visualizing yourself performing well under pressure and feeling energized and focused. Contrary to popular but disproven belief, it’s important not to focus on the outcome but on your actual performance e.g. how you deliver your presentation or deal with questions. Focusing on the outcome simply increased the pressure you feel.

It’s important when visualizing to engage all your senses, so see what you will be likely to see, hear yourself speaking and feel how you want to feel.

If you want to take your visualization to the next level then take a leaf out of the books of special forces operators and world class athletes and anticipate things not going to plan e.g. being asked a question you didn’t anticipate but handling the situation calmly. In other words, expect the best but prepare for the worst.

Remember Pressure and Stress Save Lives

It’s important to acknowledge both our threat and challenge responses as assets that can serve us well and even save our lives. Pressure and stress have got a bad rap over the past few decades and there is some basis for this.

Recent exciting research, however, has proven that the mere act of choosing to perceive and indeed recognize pressure and stress as having the potential to be a good thing rather than something to be avoided at all costs, not only mitigates long term adverse consequences but supports better performance.

[1] The model of challenge and threat was developed by Blascovich and Tomaka (1996 & see also Blascovich & Mendes, 2000& Mendes, Blascovich, Lickel, & Hunter,2002& Mendes, Blascovich, Major, & Seery, 2001 & Tomaka, Blascovich).

Martin Soorjoo works with individuals and teams to improve Performance, Focus and Pressure Management

Written by martin soorjoo · Categorized: performance, Pressure management, Stress Management · Tagged: peak performance, performance, pressure management, resilience, stress, stress management

Aug 28 2017

How to Harness Fear, Failure and Frustration to Dramatically Increase Motivation

 

fear and motivation

Motivation is frequently linked to optimism and positivity. The 1952 classic and bestseller ‘The Power of Positive Thinking’ by the Reverend Norman Vincent Peale, was translated into 15 languages and to date has sold more than 7million copies. It is still very popular today.

Positive thinking dominates the fields of self-help and human performance, from images with inspirational quotations (the sort that I frequently share on social media) to the use of tried and tested mental performance tools such as positive self-talk and visualizing success.

To be clear, these tools are not used by hippies in fields of flowers living a vegan, organic lifestyle, but by Olympians, special forces operators and other elite performers, as well as being a management tool used by many Fortune 500 companies.

In ‘Thinking, Fast and Slow’, Nobel Prize-winner Daniel Kahneman described optimism as the “engine of capitalism” stating that:

“Optimistic individuals play a disproportionate role in shaping our lives. Their decisions make a difference; they are the inventors, the entrepreneurs, the political and military leaders — not average people.”

Professor Martin Seligman, former President of the American Psychological Association and credited as being the ‘father of Positive Psychology has repeatedly demonstrated that optimism promotes both resilience and persistence.

Seligman consulted with the Pentagon on the development of the military’s Comprehensive Soldier Fitness program, which sought to assess and enhance soldiers’ ability to cope with all of life’s challenges, including the mental rigors of combat.

The authors (one a retired Navy SEAL) of ‘Stronger: Develop the Resilience You Need to Succeed’ identify active optimism as the leading factor in personal resilience—the ability to tolerate stress, see opportunities in adversity, and keep pushing forward.

So it’s clear; being opimistic and focusing on the positive increases motivation, resilience and achievement. However


The Downside of Being Upbeat

Over the past few years researchers, neuroscientists and psychologists have begun to demonstrate that focusing on the positive can be detrimental to motivation and achievement.

New York University psychology professor and author of ‘Rethinking Positive Thinking’  Gabriele Oettingen, persuasively contends that visualizing a successful outcome can make people less likely to achieve it.

Researchers have also found that people in a negative mood develop more persuasive arguments than people in a positive mood, and that negative moods can improve memory.

Perhaps this is why so many lawyers are negative and suffer from disproportionately high levels of depression than other professions. Although never suffering from depression, as a Barrister practising at the Bar of England and Wales for 14 years (arguing cases rather than making coffee), I certainly spent much of my career focusing on the negative.

Denial can also be a consequence of positive thinking. Barbara Ehrenreich, journalist and author of ‘Bright-Sided: How Positive Thinking Is Undermining America’, argues that the 2008 economic crisis was partly a result of people’s refusal to consider negative outcomes, like mortgage defaults.

The Upside of Focusing on the Negative

Focusing on the negative can have two distinct benefits. The first is the avoidance of denial and enabling of more effective planning. The second benefit is that negative emotions, possibly triggered by painful memories, can fuel determination and action.

One effective technique for utilising the power of negative focus is that of the premortem. Here you imagine things have gone wrong before they have and then analyse all of the reasons you might have failed.

Brad Stulberg, author of ‘Peak Performance: Elevate Your Game, Avoid Burnout’ and Thrive With the New Science of Success’ explains

“It may seem like the negative thinking inherent to a premortem would work against self-belief and confidence. But if anything, it actually works toward it. When you force yourself to become aware of all that could go wrong, you become more likely to take the necessary steps to ensure that things go right.”

Using the Dark Side as Motivation

Elite performers will frequently access their painful memories, dark thoughts and negative emotions to fuel their motivation during extreme challlenges.

Robert Wicks, psychologist and author of the book ‘Bounce: Living the Resilient Life’, talks of the angry resolve frustrated athletes feel as “sweet disgust”. This refers to the determination to fight back which goes hand in hand, in this context, with anger.

Tim Grover, coach to legends such as Michael Jordan and Kobe Bryant and author of the compelling ‘Relentless: From Good to Great to Unstoppable’ refers to controlled anger being a deadly weapon that

“can ignite our competitive intensity, laser focus, and a relentless craving to attack and conquer.”

Retired Navy SEAL and ultra-marathon runner, David Goggins, described as ‘the hardest man alive’ uses his difficult experiences to fuel his motivation as well as thinking some very dark thoughts. His achievements are truly remarkable. Watch this interview with him and you’ll immediately understand what I mean.

Last week I had the privilege of interviewing Ret Navy SEAL Commander, Alden Mills, for my podcast show. In addition to having operated in the SEALS, Mills also overcame asthma, going on to win a gold medal for rowing, went on to lead his first company to $90 million in sales in just three years and authored the excellent ‘Be Unstoppable: The 8 Essential Actions to Succeed at Anything’.

During the interview Mills describes how, in times of challenge, he would intensely visualize himself failing and the attendant painful consequences of doing so. These negative visualizations would help propel him forward to crush the obstacle or challenge.

Key Takeaways

  • Mental performance techniques and strategies that focus on positivity and active optimism can be powerful solutions for increasing motivation and action.
  • For some people, in some contexts, positive thinking can undermine motivation and achievement.
  • Anger, painful memories or future visualizations of negative outcomes can be very powerful tools for increasing motivation and driving performance, particularly when facing extreme challenges.
  • One size does not fit all. Which strategy works will depend on who you are, what is going on in your life at the time and what challenge you are facing.

Written by martin soorjoo · Categorized: Goals, Motivation, performance, Resilience · Tagged: achievement, goals, motivation, peak perormance, performance, resilience, success

Dec 14 2016

05 Nick Littlehales​ -​ Using Sleep to Maximize your Performance and Productivity

Nick Littlehales on Inside Mastery with Martin Soorjoo

Today’s guest is sleep coach to elite performers and the leading sport sleep coach in the world, Nick Littlehales.

Nick is the author of the phenomenal bestseller Sleep: The Myth of 8 Hours, the Power of Naps, and the New Plan to Recharge Our Body and Minds.

He is also the former chairman of UK Sleep Council, and his clients range from international sports teams and athletes to major companies. Today I’m talking to Nick about how to make sure our sleep provides us with maximum recovery so we can perform at our highest level.

You can Subscribe and Listen to the Podcast on iTunes, and be sure to leave me a Rating and Review!

Inside Mastery on iTunes

“It is still a little bit of a void in our days, in our weeks, where we wander into this area, and once we’re in it we have no control over what we’re going to get.” – Nick Littlehales

Show Notes:

  • How Nick became the guru of sleep
  • The importance of understanding sleep
  • How important sleep is for performance
  • The problems you’ll face if you don’t get good sleep
  • The most common myths about sleep
  • Why we believe we should only sleep in one block
  • The danger of trying to catch up on sleep
  • How blue light helps and hinders us
  • Why you can’t overstimulate your brain
  • The importance of planning and creating a routine
  • Why naps are worth taking
  • Why it’s important for your bedroom to be cool
  • What is the R90 sleep system?

“When you keep pushing blue light into your system, you’re just looking in the mirror and saying ‘stay awake.’” – Nick Littlehales

Links Mentioned:

  • Get Nick’s book Sleep
  • Learn more about R90 Sleep Coaching
  • Connect with Nick:

Facebook | Instagram | Twitter | Website

“Every ninety minutes throughout the day, give your brain a chance to download and deal with all the information you’re getting.” – Nick Littlehales

Written by martin soorjoo · Categorized: Inside Mastery, Podcast · Tagged: blue light, circadian rhythm, myths, napping, naps, Nick Littlehales, performance, rest, sleep, temperature