Building a high performance mindset isn’t about quitting your job to live a slow life or stressing over flawless daily protocols.
The real secret of how to build a high performance mindset is ignoring the online scaremongering and focusing on realistic, bite-sized consistency instead.
When you look at the actual mindset of high performers, they don’t chase impossible perfection, they just know how to protect their energy, work intensely when they want to, and leverage tools like technology to their advantage.
True mental resilience isn’t about enduring needless suffering or pretending to know everything; it’s about clearing your mental RAM so you can perform at your absolute best.
[This DrP article was first published on Next Evolution Performance]
Slow down, slow life, just quit your job and live somewhere else. If you aren’t just focused on the present, there is something wrong with you. Ambition is a sign of someone insecure and seeks outward approval.
Don’t compare, it just means you are insecure. Sugar, carbs, meat are evil, and if you don’t cut that out altogether, you are screwed.
Yadayadayada.
Are you tired of that already? I am.
My clients laugh when I tell them, if you work across timezones and global markets, of course you can’t have two hours of zero blue light before sleeping.
Much less time to have perfect nutrition everyday. But there is so much scaremongering, and that hurts our peace and performance we start to second-guess our actions. So let’s break down and reframe some ‘gospel truths’.
Related: 6 Books to Help You Find Yourself When You Feel Lost
5 Ways To Build A High Performance Mindset
1. You don’t need the perfect protocols everyday.
#BetterThanNothing inputs compounds to your benefit.
Sure, it would be fabulous to walk 10000 steps per day, eat zero cakes and burgers, or have time for long meditation sessions everyday — if they tickle your fancy.
But you could be a very fast walker, so you take less than 10K steps daily despite walking alot. To anyone who says that sugar is as addictive as cocaine, you are not snorting sugar, and sweetening your life a little is a lovely thing. And 3-5 breaths correctly done is enough to reset your brain.
Aiming for the perfect protocols everyday is setting yourself up for failure, because it overwhelms.
Instead, choose the ones that are easiest to commit to, that you can do bit-by-bit.
Because choosing perfection inputs leads to paralysis as an outcome.
But choosing #BetterThanNothing inputs— a 10-minute walk here and there, a few healthy meals a week, deep breathing a few times a day— leads to excellent outcomes.
2. If you genuinely enjoy working, then work.
I know many people who genuinely love their work. It fuels them, and gives them some sense of purpose. Outside of that, they love their free time and relaxed time.
Or as Zach Pogrob writes, “The best people are relentless in work, and relaxed in life. It’s a rare combination of intensity and calm. They are barbaric killers with their goals, but teddy bears with their friends. They tap into either side, whenever they need. By doing so, they live life to the fullest- in achievement, and experience.”
And of course, I also know those who work to medicate themselves— these people will fill up spaces in their calendars with menial tasks because they are scared of their headspace the moment they can slow down.
That, is not healthy. That is often a symptom of high-functioning anxiety.
If you fall into the first group, maybe you are on a mission to accomplish something that requires some period of intense focus. Or you are simply in a certain busier season. That’s great.
If you know your why, and you are at peace outside your work, then don’t let anyone detract you.
3. You don’t need to tolerate needless suffering, misery or inefficiency; that doesn’t make you less resilient or capable.
When you close most of the background apps in your phone or computer, the system runs faster. That’s because more RAM is free.
In the same way, when you can remove or finish off tasks that you have to hold in your mental RAM, your processing capacity increases. Both your effectiveness and efficiency are enhanced.
Just because you have built systems in your life that create smoother processes, doesn’t make you less resilient or capable.
Because the myth is that busyness and being clogged up means you can relate to high performers.
Busyness doesn’t directly translate to useful outcomes, sometimes it’s just performative or social signaling, and the exhaustion is compound interest that works against you.
So if you can delegate and delete, do that. Move tasks to your Nice To Have List, so your main lists isn’t clogged up and you can prioritise.
Batch activity types and meeting locations together. And just because something can technically easy be done, doesn’t mean you have to do it.
Because the clearer your head is in your daily life, the less new messes you create. The better your outcomes. And the stronger your mental fitness.
4. You don’t need to act overly mature or pretend to know everything
A curious thing I observe with younger people is the need to act overly mature especially when they are interacting with older people.
The deal is, pretending you know everything flops— sometimes it is way too obvious that one is acting, and that is disingenuous if you get called out.
It is understood that someone younger simply has less life experience or even cultural capital. It is worse if you try to make smart mouth comments that end up offending others.
Being young has its benefits— you are tapped into the current zeitgeist and trends, and you are generally more open to what is going on today. There are plenty of ways that you can teach or inspire others just based on that.
That is a precious commodity for the older people you are working with, so make good use of that. As I tell young high performers, you are only young once, so use that asset well.
More importantly, regardless of your age, it is perfectly acceptable to say you aren’t aware of something, or to ask someone to clarify a question.
5. Tech is not evil
Sure, you can get addicted to social media, doomscrolling is terrible for your mental health, and AI may displace you.
And yet, human beings have always been able to use tools, from fire to weapons. So do crows and monkeys, by the way– technology will always be part of our lives.
Instead of decrying technology and doggedly taking detoxes for 3 days to a week, before returning to your old habits, why not ask yourself how you can use tech more thoughtfully?
Maybe it is about rigging your feed to inspire you better. Maybe it is about setting rules to read or learn a skill every 2 out of 5 times you touch your phone. Or maybe it is using your phone to set an alarm to remind you to sleep.
Because tech can make your life so much easier, down to how ChatGPT— especially with the right prompts— can speed up research or other forms of Generative AI can significantly cut down your admin load.
Related: 7 Signs Of An Infinite Player (And Why You’ll Never Look At Life The Same Again)
Takeaway
I get it that it is hard to discern what is healthy for you these days. Remember that fundamentally, there are guidelines on how to live life, enhance your mental health, or work more efficiently.
But guidelines are merely guidelines, and sometimes oversimplified. Test it out with an open mind, and see what works best with you.
Ready to skyrocket your performance, productivity and peace without working more hours? Book your free Chemistry Call here.
Written by Perpetua Neo
Originally Appeared on Perpetua Neo
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