The Five Pillars of Elite Performance

[Average read time: 5 minutes]

Tony Robbins, Zig Ziglar, Les Brown, Deepak Chopra, and many others teach people how to reach their full potential in all aspects of their lives.

When it comes to achieving and sustaining elite performance, similarities begin to surface regardless of who your go-to guru is.

Taking a holistic approach to your life is the foundation on which you can optimize your performance. As you fine-tune these drivers of performance, you will become extremely aware of the areas in your life that are slowing you down.

PILLAR ONE: HEALTH

If you’re eating poorly, avoiding exercise, not getting enough sleep, and generally neglecting your body and mind, it becomes very difficult to perform at a high level. Some decisions may take years before the consequences become evident and others have a more immediate impact.

I’ve been guilty of this. Most people’s default excuse is I don’t have time. I never had enough time until I made the time. There’s always time if something is a priority.

My biggest challenge was not setting specific and action-oriented goals. I would tell myself “my goal is to lose 10 lbs.” How? By when?

For the month of March, I set very specific goals and I went as far as post these goals on my Facebook page to add another layer of accountability.

Goal #1: Go to the gym 10 times.

Goal #2: Cook 20 meals at home.

Goal #3: Be able to hold a plank position for 60 seconds.

There is no gray area. I have until March 31. Either I achieve my goals or my friends and family will know I didn’t do what I set out to do.

That’s motivating to me since I don’t like to be seen as a failure. That’s a very real thing to me.

I should have done this sooner. I already have an enormous amount of energy, but as my health and well-being improves, I can only imagine where I go from here.

PILLAR TWO: RELATIONSHIPS

This is a common struggle. You have a business or career that you’re trying to grow and it can consume you. Even though your motivation is for a good cause, don’t allow yourself to create a widening gap between you and your loved ones.

I have two kids. A son and a daughter who are 7 and 4. The highlight of most days is when I’m able to FaceTime them throughout the day, which is second only to playing Minecraft with my son and Shopkins with my daughter.

This may be difficult, but give yourself a day off. I surround myself with high-achievers and working too much is common for driven individuals.

This month I’m committing to not working on Sunday – all month.

Take this time off to enjoy the company of family and friends. Life is short and time is something we can never get back.

If your relationship with your spouse, kids, family, and friends is solid, your energy can be used to propel you towards achieving greatness.

PILLAR THREE: SPIRITUAL FULFILLMENT

Whether it’s religion, the environment, or eliminating homelessness, if it brings joy to your heart and mind, make time for it in your life.

I’ve researched many successful individuals, titans of industry, political leaders, and I have not come across one extremely successful individual that doesn’t have a philanthropic cause or mission they care about.

Generosity, humility, and business success go hand in hand.

PILLAR FOUR: YOUR ENVIRONMENT

In the peak-performance and self-improvement world, there’s a theory that you are the average of the five people you spend the most time with.

If you are in an environment that has low motivation and little support, it is very difficult to overcome that. For example, if the five people closest to me play video games 8 hours a day, eat junk food, and stay up late, guess what might happen? I may resist it at first, but there’s the probability that I will slowly enjoy video games a little more, go to sleep a little later, and eat more pizza and burgers in between.

On the other hand, if you surround yourself with people that push you to be better, discuss new ways to reach goals, and want to be successful, your potential for peak performance is infinitely greater.

Besides your kids, who are the five people you spend the most time with? Are they making you better than you were yesterday?

PILLAR FIVE: ACHIEVE FLOW

I was listening to a James Altucher podcast a few days ago and the topic of “FLOW” came up. Flow is a fancy, behavioral psychology term for being “in the zone.”

It’s the feeling of a “runner’s high” for those that run, or when Kobe Bryant would enter a state of total domination on the court, and we couldn’t explain it, but there was a look in his eyes that said something big was about to happen.

I’ve experienced it.

There was a very specific instance when I was writing my first book that a continuous flow of thoughts and ideas would go straight from my head to the blank page. I shit you not – I vividly remember looking down at the time and realizing I had written for a full hour without so much as pausing to think about the next sentence. At the time, I believed only 10-15 minutes had passed, but I was wrong. To this day, I have not been able to recreate that experience.

The next logical question would be how do we trigger flow?

Some experts believe that in the right environment and the proper incentive, anyone can theoretically control when they enter flow.

The most important thing to remember is if your health, relationships, spirituality, and environment are in sync, you will be in an optimal position to perform at an elite level.

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