Be brave. Take risks. Nothing can substitute experience. – Paulo Coelho

One of my all-time favorite books is The Alchemist by Paul Coelho.  If you haven’t read it please do.  It’s a great story that I believe many people can relate to.  The basic premise is a young boy goes in search of his own personal legend – his treasure.  I wont’ tell you if he finds it or not – you’ll have to read the book.

The reason I love this book so much is I feel as though I’m Santiago – the main character.  I’m not the only one who feels this way when reading the book.  This has influenced me as well as millions of other people around the world.  In my bedroom I have a painting of what I think the desert would look like to Santiago in search of his treasure.  It’s a reminder to me everyday to heed Paulo’s message.

Yet we’re not here today to discuss The Alchemist.  We’re here to talk about the man behind the book – Paulo Coelho.  He didn’t start out as a writer although that’s what he wanted to do.  He started out attending law school for one year before leaving.  He then began his spiritual quest to find out who he was.  Long story short, he found himself after walking over 500 miles on the Road of Santiago de Compostela.  He became a writer.

Paulo’s first few books did not fair well.  It wasn’t until he went to a larger publisher with the Alchemist that things really took off for him.  Since then the Alchemist has been translated into a Guiness World Record 71 languages selling more than 65 million copies (one of those purchases was mine!).  That’s amazing!

Yet, even though he could have stopped there and lived a comfortable life, he chose to keep writing.  He now publishes a book every two years or so.  Here’s his notable list:

• The Pilgrimage
• The Alchemist
• Brida
• Veronika Decieds to Die
• The Devil and Miss Prym
• By the River Piedra I Sat Down and Wept
• Eleven Minutes
• The Valkyries
• The Fifth Mountain
• The Warrior of the Light
• The Zahir
• Aleph

That’s a lot of books.  Each one of these have made an impact on the world.  None of them are about who out performs the person next to them.  That’s not true performance.  Their about finding out the person on the inside and using love to improve themselves and their situation.  You don’t need to force things all the time.  In fact that can be detrimental.

It’s about quality.  Each of his books has a message to the reader.  Through his power of story he communicates that message in a way we can understand and apply.  Paulo shows that we can use a different approach and see a better result.

(photo credit: chad_d_stud)

Water changes everything. – charity: water

My birthday is coming up!  Every year for my birthday I am blessed to celebrate with friends and family.  Some birthdays are more eventful than others but I love them all just the same.  This year though, something is different.

I came across a Foundation interview Kevin Rose did with Scott Harrison at charity: water.  After listening to what they are doing over at charity:water, I decided to give up my birthday this year and help raise donations instead (here’s my charity:water campaign page).  For those of you who don’t know what charity:water is, here’s a short video for you:

Giving up your birthday is a difficult thing to do.  It means you won’t be the focus on “your” special day.  However, once you make the decision to give up your birthday, the team over at charity: water made it easy to tell everyone you know that you want them to donate for your birthday gift.  The best part – they can write off your gift on their taxes!

I don’t expect anyone reading this blog to get me a gift this year.  That’s expected.  I also don’t think anyone will donate to my birthday campaign this year either.  That’s fine.  (Although if someone does that would be fantastic!)  I’m just letting you know that there are other ways to help people even if you think you can’t.  Studies show that when we contribute to the world we feel more connected.  This leads to a better mindset which helps with our daily performance.

(photo credit: charity: water)

Laws control the lesser man… Right conduct controls the greater one. – Mark Twain

Our lives tend to get a bit chaotic from time to time – if not all the time.  We’re like little kids running around doing whatever we want to do.  At times in life that’s certainly needed.  I do that whenever I take time off from my business.  Yet, when I’m back to business I create a certain level of control around me to run things smoothly.  I think this is something more people should do not only in their business but also in their daily lives.

Mindset

How well are you controlling what goes on up there?  Do you even notice that you put yourself down because you got stuck at a red light?  Scientists believe that we have 50000 – 90000 thoughts per day.  There’s no possible way to be aware of all of them.  There will always be thoughts that creep up in your mind that you cannot control.  However, what if we focused on a handful of thoughts that we can control and focus more of our attention on them?  This is not a “positive thinking” discussion.  What I’m suggesting is creating a handful of thoughts that you can repeat in your mind that guide you to where you want to go.  For example, let’s say you want to buy a house.  One of the thoughts you begin giving more attention to could be “I need to earn $20,000 for my down payment.”  That thought provides you with direction to your goal of buying a house.  The more aware we become of our thoughts the more helpful they become.  But we can take it a step further and direct our thoughts towards those things we want out of life.

Character

Character is something we all know we need to live in alignment with.  But how many people actually do?  I heard a quote once that said “How you do one thing is how you do everything.”  I find this is true in my own life.  If I’m out walking my dog and he decides its time to make some room for dinner, then it’s my job to clean up his mess.  If I decide not to pick it up and leave it, I know that I’ll leave other things in my life unattended to so I plug my nose and scoop up the mess.  If you want to keep your character in check, keep this quote in mind.

Body

Being able to control your body is a powerful way to gain more confidence in life.  If you head down to the local McDonald’s or Burger King you’ll find people who’s bodies are controlling them.  You know who they are.  I’m not saying that just because they eat fast food their body’s in control since I eat fast food once in awhile.  What I’m pointing out is that most of them are already way overweight yet they keep shoving in food that makes them fat.  You can tell that these people having something that they don’t like about themselves.  They’ve chosen to compensate for this by eating.  Their body is in control because their mind doesn’t want to deal with whatever it is it doesn’t like.  The body wins.  Controlling your body means accepting yourself and giving it the nutrients it needs to perform at its best.  This isn’t about getting six pack abs or bench pressing more than everyone at the gym.  Those can happen but they are merely by-products of controlling your body.  The easiest way to gain confidence is to gain control of your own body.

Time

What did you do today?  Did you create something that moves you closer towards your goal?  How much time did you spend checking email or Facebook?  The idea of time is something many of us are delusional about.  Since we don’t know when we are going to die we don’t concern ourselves with the fact that it could be tomorrow.  (I hope nobody reading this dies tomorrow but you never know.)  Our time should be treated like an ice cube in the middle of the Sahara desert.  If you find that ice cube, that’s great – but it won’t last long.  Every drop counts.  Why do we let other control our time?  If you check email all the time you are giving your time to others.  You are not taking control of your time/life and doing what you want.  I’m sure you’ve heard this somewhere else before but a huge way to take back control of your time is to only check your email two times per day.  I have done this for years now and so far no one’s complained about it.  You’ll be fine.

Taking control of certain areas of your life has its benefits.  You’ll find yourself performing better everyday just by taking these tips here and trying them for 30 days.  Just keep in mind that we’re also built with the need for uncertainty.  By this I mean we need to experience things where we aren’t sure how they are going to turn out.  So don’t try to control everything, just the important things.

(photo credit: felieacan)

Look for your choices, pick the best one, then go with it. – Pat Riley

Deciding what to eat these days can be a full time job.  Everyone is telling us to eat this, not that.  How do they know?  It’s frustrating.  There are so many pills out there today that are supposed to give us the best body or the best brain we can imagine.  But what about the other nutrients we know our body needs?

I’m sure you’re already aware that we need carbohydrates, protein and fats in our foods in order to survive. How you mix those three is up to you? (Did you know there are ~ 88 diets out there that say their the best?)  These three are grouped together and called macronutrients.  Yet, there are many other nutrients the body needs but in much smaller portions.  These are called micronutrients.

Micronutrients provide our body with with all the odds and ends that it needs to keep alive.  They’re like the front-line employees of a call center.  They answer any call and without them the big guys (macronutrients) don’t have a chance to be successful.

Most of our micronutrients can be found in our multivitamin pills.  Yes, that’s right.  More pills.  The ironic thing about these pills is  they are necessary if you are eating well.  Case in point.  Vitamins have been stripped from many of our foods (such as flour).  Then scientists recreate these vitamins in a lab and put them in pill form so you’d get the real nutrients you need.  It’s like giving you a piece of cake without the frosting, putting the frosting into a pill and giving that to you.  What’s the point? (A cake example is probably not the best for an article on nutrition but hey – my birthday’s coming up.)

All micronutrients are necessary in their own way.  Be sure to do more research on your own to ensure you are getting the proper amounts.  The four I talk about here are listed specifically to improve how your brain functions  Your mental performance will increase if you are deficient in any of these micronutrients and you begin consuming them.  Do not consume more than you need as there is not enough research showing the side effects of what can happen.  But as you recall from the last bachelor(ette) party you went to, too many people jumping off a roof into a pool is not a good thing.  (Don’t ask.)

• Vitamin B complex.  – Deficiencies in the vitamin B complex have shown to impair the nervous system as well as increase the rate of mental confusion among other things.

• Vitamin E. – Plays a role in neurological functions.

• Vitamin D. – Plays a role in neuropsychological functioning.

• Magnesium. – Decreases the length and strength of migraines.

As you read through this blog you’ll notice that I am not a doctor or a nutritionist.  Shocking, I know.  I am not telling you to go and take these supplements.  Merely, I am helping you understand what is needed to have a better mental performance.  You should seek out your doctor or nutritionist and get tested before beginning any supplementation.

(photo credit: The Hungarian Girl)

A truly good book teaches me better than to read it. I must soon lay it down, and commence living on its hint. What I began by reading, I must finish by acting. – Henry David Thoreau

All great performers in life were readers.  They discovered ideas through books, newspapers and cave walls.  Today’s performers have the internet which is the ultimate content machine.  There are so many ways to consume information these days.  You can read, listen or watch information.  Yet, if you don’t read then you’ll be left behind since most of our information is consumed in written form.

Things are changing all the time.  If you cannot consume the right information in the right way then you’ll miss what everyone else is learning.

The top performers in the world know this.  We’ve already learned about Theodore Roosevelt and how much he read.  Other great performers such as Tony Robbins read over 700 books in about 8 years.  That’s a lot of reading!  Even Warren Buffet is famous for saying the one super power he wished he had was the ability to read faster.

I’m sure you’ve already heard about speed reading.  But is that really the answer?  I think it can be when done effectively.  However it can also be a waste of time if you’re unsure how to read intelligently.  Speed reading says this, read everything as fast as you can.  Reading intelligently adds a piece to this by saying, read everything necessary as fast as you can.

Reading intelligently means skipping over the content that will not benefit you right now.  There’s no need for it.  You might need it later in which case you can come back to it later.  But for now, focus on the relevant information.  With all the information these days, consuming all the important information can be difficult to do.  Fear not!  I’ve made it easy for you.

How to Read Intelligently

• Identify the reason you are going to read the information.  Write your purpose for consuming the material before you begin reading.  This ensures that what you’re reading is necessary information for you right now.  You can save a lot of time by no reading content that is not immediately relevant.
• Skim over the material table of contents, headings, graphics, etc.  Don’t read word for word at this stage.  Simply go through the material and get a sense of what it’s all about.  This will help you read the content faster.
• Identify keywords to look for in the material based on the purpose you stated and what you’ve skimmed over.  Picking out keywords to look for will help you focus on certain areas of the material that will help you now.
• Don’t read every word.  Train your eyes to read three words in from the left and three words in from the right.  You will need to use your peripheral vision to view the entire line.  This will take some getting used to as most of us read word by word across the line.  (You’ll read faster by doing this one technique if you aren’t already using it.)
• Eliminate saying every word in your head.  Have you ever noticed this when you read?  Most people don’t know they do this.  Yet, reading this way slows you down.  In stead of vocalizing every word try to turn that part of your mind off and just absorb everything you’re reading.  (This is the hardest thing to do on this list.)
• Skip passages that don’t relate to you purpose.  Many people think they need to read the entire book in order to understand what the book is about.  I’m telling you that you don’t need to.  Focus on understanding ideas and concepts rather than reading every word.  This will rapidly change your reading speed.

What’s next?  It’s time for you to act.  What would you read now that you know how to read intelligently?  What would you stop reading?

If you’re looking for a way to consume more information use the steps listed here.  They will give you the framework necessary to read intelligently.  What are you going to read today?

(photo credit: DeFerrol)

Probably the toughest event on the planet. – ToughMudder.com

These days there seems to be a lack of excitement.  There’s a downward trend of happiness. We are all confused what happiness really is.  I believe there are certain things we must deliberately put in our lives in order for us to find happiness.  One of those things is challenge.

Challenges allow us to stretch ourselves and find that part of us that we don’t use very much.  It’s what makes us energized when we see someone doing something that inspires us and moves us emotionally.  It’s why we have people we look up to.  They’ve challenged themselves in ways that we would like to challenge ourselves.  If we don’t continually challenge ourselves then we end up miserable and bored.  Our happiness is nowhere to be found because we continue to live a comfortable life of mediocrity.

Most people don’t bother challenging themselves.  It’s easier to turn on the TV and see who the next American Idol is.  The people on American Idol are challenging themselves but the millions of people watching the show are not.

The more we challenge ourselves the better our performance becomes.  We might not pass every challenge we setup for ourselves but over time we begin to get better at the challenges.  This breeds confidence and happiness in what we are doing with our lives.  To not challenge yourself is to give up.

There are lots of ways to challenge yourself.  Some challenges can be mental, physical, spiritual, etc.  It’s typically easiest to challenge yourself physically first.  Being able to control your body with your mind, rather than your body control your mind, you gain confidence to do other things.  For example, if you challenge yourself for 30 days to eat vegetables with every meal you’ll see a boost in energy and a reduction in weight.  This will breed confidence and happiness.

Recently I challenged myself to the Tough Mudder in Beaver Creek, CO.  If you’re not familiar with the Tough Mudder, it’s a 7-12 mile run with 20+ obstacles in your way.  The course at Beaver Creek was 12 miles.  The purpose of the Tough Mudder is to help raise money for the Wounded Warrior Project.  I have never ran 12 miles before in my life so this was a big challenge for me.  I’ve done other races before but nothing like this one.  Typically in races it’s you against the course.  The Mudder was different.  It was you against the course but it was also your team against the course.

Even though I was challenging myself against the course, I felt compelled to help others who were on my team, and even some who weren’t.  There was a camaraderie that was formed between everyone going through the course.  We were all challenging ourselves.  We were all happy to be giving our all to the course in order to finish and say we were a Tough Mudder.

Helping others through the course gave me an added challenge.  Not only was I determined to finish but I was also determined that our entire group would finish.  Some people struggled during parts.  But in the end we all finished – together.

There’s something to be said in seeing the faces of everyone who finished.  They all knew they accomplished something they didn’t think they could.  They all knew that they helped each other through the entire course and they couldn’t have done it without one another.  They knew that they were different people when they finished the race than when they started.  All of this because they challenged themselves.

I’m a different person now that I’ve finished the race.  I challenged the belief I had that I couldn’t run 12 miles.  I have an added confidence now that I can take on things I didn’t think I could.  My performance will no longer be hindered because of the story in my head.  I challenged it.

How could you challenge yourself in a new way?

What would your life be like if you met that challenge and beat it?

Miracles are a retelling in small letters of the very same story which is written across the whole world in letters too large for some of us to see. – C.S. Lewis

When we reflect on what happens throughout our lives, we look at both the good things and the bad things.  We like to remember the happy moments, the moments when we were unstoppable, and the moments when we helped others.  Those memories lift us up.  Yet, we often focus on the bad moments with more intensity.  (Remember the time when you checking out the prettiest girl in school and you walked into a wall?  I do.)  We repeat those unfavorable moments in our minds because we are looking for an answer to the question “What could I have done better?”  When we ask questions our brains are determined to find an answer.  The more often we ask the question, the more often we relive our bad moments.  It’s not a great situation for improving our daily performance.

A critical piece of the performance puzzle is the mind and how it works.  If we can optimize how the mind works then we can enjoy our improved daily life.  Seems easy, right?  Most things that seem easy usually have a bit more to them to it.  Same goes for this.  Being able to deliberately move your thoughts towards a daily target is what we’re going for.  If we can command our thoughts then we can command where we go in life.

An easy way to guide our mind is to tell it stories.  It loves to hear great stories!  Its a main reason why stories have been vital since the beginning of time.  The human race has used the power of stories to communicate with one another throughout history.  Stories offer both intrigue and excitement.  They are like a PowerPoint presentation but with an emotional aspect.  That’s why they work.  It’s easier to remember a feeling and what causes that feeling than to remember every bullet point on a slide.  The stories others tell us impact our lives greatly.  They can inspire us to take action in our lives or to avoid certain situations because of an undesired outcome.  Our friends become influential to us because of the stories they tell us and the actions they take in life.  Yet there’s someone else who can inspire us even greater than our friends – ourselves.

The stories we tell ourselves every single day guide how we live our lives.  They can help us or hurt us depending on what the story is.  Think about it.  What was the last thought you had?  (Maybe one with a story involved.)  How did that impact you?

Our stories have a powerful impact in our lives.  They can shape what our lives look like to ourselves and to others looking in. I’d be willing to be that most of us have a story or two that we tell ourselves on a consistent basis.  Those stories can have either a negative impact or they can have a positive impact on our lives.  For example, say that you experienced something traumatic in your life such as a divorce, a death of someone close, or a job layoff.  Now one person could go through that experience and come up with a story about the event that stops them from moving forward.  “I can’t believe they laid me off.  I worked hard for them and this is how they repay me?  I hate what they’ve done to me and to my family.”  Another person could have a totally different story, “It’s unfortunate that this job didn’t work out.  I liked working for them.  However, just because this job didn’t work out doesn’t mean that a different one won’t be better.  I’m still valuable.  I can still make a difference.  It’s up to me to control what happens next.”  These are two different stories based on the same event.  The first story is a pity party.  Nobody cares – especially not your family.  Your identity is not your job.  Your family needs you to grow up and provide for them just like the second story illustrates.

Each of us has  past story that guides what we do in life.  Most of the time this story is negative.  We blame someone else for what happened.  We don’t take responsibility for our own life. We don’t step up up and make something of ourselves.  The key for a better performance is to take that negative story and turn it into a positive one.  Here’s a personal example of mine.  Growing up I had a friend who pushed me to play better basketball.  I loved to play basketball but the way he tried to help me was by demeaning what I was doing, ignoring me around better players and trying to make me look foolish.  This ‘coaching’ left a scar with me emotionally that was tough to overcome.  Later on I realized he was treating me this way because that’s how he was treated in his home.  He didn’t know another way to push me.  Once I realized that, I was able to change my internal story to “He believed in me so much that he wanted to push me, he just didn’t know any other way.  I forgive him for that and I am grateful that he wanted to help me.”  Once I changed my story to myself I felt a huge weight lifted.  I felt powerful because someone believed in me that much.

It might be difficult to think back to the story or stories that are holding you back in life.  Don’t push them aside and make an excuse for why they need to stay the same.  Those are the ones you need to look at the most.  When you identify each story take the time to think about it.  Then make a new story for the same event and guide your performance.  Each story can build you up and they can build upon one another.  The better stories you tell yourself the better performance you’ll see in your daily life.

(photo credit: Ben Oh)

It is not the critic who counts; not the man who points out how the strong man stumbles, or where the doer of deeds could have done them better. – Theodore Roosevelt

Ah, success.  It’s something most of us strive for everyday.  The definition of success varies from person to person but we are all moving towards our own definition.  Whether that’s a lot of money, raising a great family, or living life on our own terms. Success is the target we are trying to hit.  Most of us know what it looks like, however few ever hit the bull’s-eye.  Why is that?

To get the things we want out of life, we must put in the work to get them.  This is where most people fall short.  The work seems to be too difficult so they never even try.  That’s lame.  You only get one shot at creating the life you’ve always wanted and you are going to give that up because of a bit of work?  What else are you going to do with your time?

I came across a blog post that I think explains this idea of hard work nicely.  Scott Young recently wrote a post called Do What Others Won’t or Can’t Do where he uses this mantra to make decisions in his life.  I like this statement.  It encompasses what we need to do in order to have the life we want.  It also implies the work that needs to get done won’t be easy and that’s why others shy away from it.

After reading the article, I was reminded of part of a speech given by Theodore Roosevelt.  The part of the speech is referred to as ‘The Man in the Arena’, you can read it here.  Teddy Roosevelt embodied the strenuous life and only he was fit to give this speech.  He talks about doing things in life that are difficult, having set backs, hearing what critics on the sideline are saying about you, and then getting up to do it again.  The only person who matters is the man (or woman) who is out there working hard and doing something.  Those who sit around critiquing what you are doing do not matter if they are not in the arena themselves.

I find this happens to me quite often.  There are people who are always giving unsolicited advice as to what I should be doing or judging how I live my life.  In hindsight, this has happened for most of my life.  I wasn’t aware of this until I came across Teddy’s famous speech.  He helped me understand why most people don’t get it and why most people are comfortable with mediocrity.  Those who don’t settle for the norm are the ones in the arena.  They are the ones who will make our world a better place to live.  They are the people who inspire others.  They leave a legacy just like Teddy.

Roosevelt did what others wouldn’t or couldn’t.  He is a model of what one’s performance can look like.  Here is a list of activities he accomplished in his life as posted on the Art of Manliness blog:

1. Worked as state legislator, police commissioner, and governor in New York
2. Owned and worked a ranch in the Dakotas
3. Served as Assistant Secretary of the Navy
4. Fought as a Rough Rider in the Spanish-American War
5. Served as President for two terms, then ran for an unprecedented third term
6. Became the first President to leave the country during his term in order to see the building of the Panama Canal
7. Wrote 35 books
8. Read tens of thousands of books – several a day in multiple languages
9. Explored the Amazonian rainforests
10. Discovered, navigated, and named after a completely uncharted Amazonian river over 625 miles long
11. Volunteered to lead a voluntary infantry unit into WWI at age 59

This is quite a list to accomplish in 60 years, but Roosevelt did it.  Everyday he did what others wouldn’t or couldn’t do.  Do you know others who are like Teddy?  If so, then it would benefit you to get to know those people better and study their daily performance.  How do they work?  What do they put their attention to?  The more you can get inside their minds the more you can begin to raise your performance.  You can also ask them for advice.  Meet them for coffee and ask how they started out.  What did they do in the beginning?  Then take their strategy and replicate it.  You don’t have to do the exact steps they did but understand the strategy they used and implement it into your life.

If you wanted to improve your level of performance in everything you do, how would you do that?  How could you use Roosevelt’s strategy and apply it to your life?  What would your list of accomplishments look like if you used the same strategies to begin making decisions in your life?

Do not look for approval except for the consciousness of doing your best. – Andrew Carnegie

“Sit.”  His eyes are focused intently on me.  “Shake.”  He immediately brings his leg up and places it in my hand.  “Other paw.” He quickly balances his weight and changes to his other leg and places it in my hand.  “Down.”  Now he slams his body down to the ground lying down on the floor.  My dog, Memphis, has just completed a routine that meets my approval.  He get’s rewarded for doing the things I ask him to do.  The same thing happens with people.  We are conditioned by completing a task and expecting a reward.  We also believe that the reward we receive will be worth the task we are asked to do.  This is our pesky need for approval in action.

The need for approval stems from our early childhood when our parents were teaching us about the world.  If we did something that they didn’t like then they’d let us know.  We were conditioned to please our parents or risk being punished.  Our actions would be corrected to meet the standards of our parents and society.  We didn’t know we were being conditioned to meet the approval of everyone we encountered as we grew up.  Can you remember your elementary school teacher(s)?  How many times did you try to please them?  If you’re like me it was quite often.  I didn’t want to get into trouble because I knew it wouldn’t please them and they’d in turn call my parents who wouldn’t be pleased either.

This conditioning also found its way into making new friends.  With my family in the military we moved around a lot and making new friends was commonplace.  I became really good at this from all the practice.  However, one thing I began doing was trying to win their approval.  I would go out of my way to make them happy in hopes that they would be my friend in return.  This worked for me as a kid and continued to work throughout my teenage years.

Then something funny happened.  When I became an adult and went into the workplace the same tactic worked for some people but not for others.  I was at a loss as to what to do next.  For most of my life I had been winning people’s approval and having them be my friend in return.  It always worked until now.  I needed a new strategy.  The confusing part is some people still want you to win their approval.  It can be a chore trying to figure out who those people are.  Instead I began focusing on my performance.  Rather than placing all my energy on winning people’s approval, I focus on living up to my standards and doing what I want to do in life.

If any of this talk of need for approval sounds familiar then you might have some of the same symptoms I had.  Here are the ones I found on LiveStrong.com that stood out to me:

• Work hard at being good: (1) at their job, (2) in their home life, (3) with their spouse, (4) as a parent, and (5) as an adult child with their own parents.
• Wait for others’ permission to give themselves recognition for what they do.
• Depend on others to give them a sense of self-worth.
• Are poor at solving problems.
• Avoid conflict because of the fear that the “other” will not approve of their point of view.
• Work hard at keeping “peace at any price” in a relationship.
• Are “People Pleasers” doing, acting and being for others what they think the others want.
• Have a problem letting others know how they think or feel about things.
• Have a tendency to be “over-responsible,” taking on the responsibility of others (children, spouse, co-workers) in order to get things done.
• Lack self-confidence in their skills, abilities and knowledge. They tend to see themselves as “incompetent.”
• Have a tendency to “hide the truth” when it is more convenient to tell a lie, especially when they think conflict will arise by telling the truth.
• Do anything to avoid hurting the feelings of others, even if it means swallowing their own feelings or denying the reality of things.
• Fear rejection, neglect, abandonment and disapproval so much that they give up their own wants, needs and rights subjecting themselves to the wants, needs and whims of others.
• Have a keen sense of obligation and act on this sense in all aspects of their life.
• Suffer from “paralysis of analysis” and fret so much over what the possible consequences of a decision will be that they never make a decision or take a “stand.”
• Are convinced no matter what they do it “isn’t good enough” to gain approval so they either work harder or give up

I’m sure some of these ring a bell with you.  If so, don’t beat yourself up about it!  Simply acknowledge that these symptoms exist with you.  Becoming aware of them and admitting them is a great first step. (This is starting to sound like an AA meeting but thankfully it’s not!)

Take the first step in faith. You don’t have to see the whole staircase, just take the first step. – Dr. Martin Luther King, Jr.

Your daily performance is tied to these actions.  Your need for approval can hinder your performance by making you do less than what you’re capable of because you don’t want to do anything that makes somebody not like you.  Alternatively you can work your ass off trying to do so many great things to make everyone like you.  This route usually ends up making you unhealthy as you neglect to take care of yourself and perhaps those closest to you.

There are things you can do to get over the need for approval.  First, you can begin believing that what you do matters.  It can be scary to let yourself become vulnerable to the world. 

• What if I stop trying to please everyone and nobody likes me?  If that happens, then those people around you weren’t your friends they were just using you because you did what they wanted to do.
• What if I can’t make new friends because I am not winning their approval?  If this happens, then perhaps you’ve been conditioned to look for types of friends who aren’t actually people you want to be friends with.  Try looking for a different type of person.  The more you act in a way that represents who you are the more you begin to believe in yourself and except who you are.  Also remember that you can change who you are if you aren’t living up to the standards you want for yourself.

Second, find new ways to determine you self worth.  For a long time now you’ve been linking your identity to winning other people’s approval.  It’s time to cut that cord and find something that can directly relate to you.  Maybe it’s linking your daily performance in your life.  Since you can control how you perform at any given moment throughout the day it is an ideal metric to link to who you are.  Whereas the need for approval is based on someone else’s opinion which is something you can’t control.  Chose links where you have complete control.

Lastly, begin to condition your new link.  Get excited about this change!  It will help establish that link and make the change quicker.  Your enthusiasm will carry over each day and you’ll end up performing better because it’s becoming a part of who you are.  People will begin to notice and more opportunities will open up for you.  You will begin to earn respect from other people rather than their approval.

Any other thoughts on the need for approval?  If so, please share below.

photo credit: krissen

The idea of performance has been around since the beginning of time.  In order for humans to survive, they had to find food.  Whether they lived or died was completely based on their performance.  Some things have changed since the beginning yet performance is still around.  The concept of human performance is still around but the circumstances have changed a bit.  To explore what human performance means today we need some definitions.

Here’s how About.com defines it “Human performance uses that and tells us what the body is capable of and how efficient it is at it.”

Here’s a quote from the International Society of Performance Improvement on Human Performance Improvement also known as Human Performance Technology, “Human Performance Technology (HPT), a systematic approach to improving productivity and competence, uses a set of methods and procedures — and a strategy for solving problems — for realizing opportunities related to the performance of people. More specific, it is a process of selection, analysis, design, development, implementation, and evaluation of programs to most cost-effectively influence human behavior and accomplishment. It is a systematic combination of three fundamental processes: performance analysis, cause analysis, and intervention selection, and can be applied to individuals, small groups, and large organizations.”

These definitions imply a pure scientific approach to improving performance. While I agree there needs to be some science involved, there also needs to be a balance of artistic involvement.  As humans, we tend to either become overly scientific or overly unscientific.  The key to human performance is the balance of the two.

“One of the extremes would be unscientific, another end of it, will turn you into a mechanical man, no longer human. It is through the combination of both where you can express yourself truthfully.” – Bruce Lee

Much of the research these days focuses on human performance in corporations.  It’s appealing to companies to get more out of their employees each and everyday.  This makes sense, intuitively.  However the more research and the more companies apply the research, the more people become unhappy.  Why is that people are more productive and yet more people leaving corporations these days?

The idea of pushing people to exceed their limitations is nothing new.  Even in the beginning of the Industrial Revolution this concept of human performance existed.  The science behind measuring performance has grown rapidly since the revolution.  There are numerous tools and techniques anyone can use to identify how well their employees are performing at any given time. Yet, there still appears to be a disconnect between the company getting the most out of their employees and employee satisfaction.

My thoughts on human performance includes a scientific approach.  Comparing how well you performed this time compared to the last time is essential for monitoring your growth.  I also like to include an artistic approach to performance.  With art, there is a feeling – a sense of being.  This is something that science cannot provide.  (Unless of course what you do in science is artistic to you.  For most people, science does not give them any creative feelings.)  How do you track artistic values?

With consistent daily reviews.

Performing is not something left to actors and athletes.  Human performance is something we already do all the time.  Each and everyday we are performing our lives.  We don’t always think of today in terms of a performance, but it is.  Here are some examples of what I mean:

• How you interact with your family
• How well you fuel your body
• How much you learn
• How much of a difference you make in the world

Everything we do is a performance.  It can be for an audience of one or one million – a performance is still a performance.

When was the last time you took the time to reflect on how well you lived today?  Did you think of yourself as a performer?

Whether you are conscience about it or not, what you do impacts someone else in one way or another.  You may be going through something that is emotionally taxing yet, someone else may be inspired to change something in their life for the better because of how you are responding.  This is something you’d never realize in that moment.

All around us people are doing something.  Some of them know what they are doing because they have conscientiously thought about what they are doing and why they are doing it, while others have no idea what or why they do anything.  It’s a choice.  The choice to be responsible with your life and to perform your best at all times in every situation.

This doesn’t mean to follow the rules all the time.  I certainly don’t.  There are a lot of rules out there that have been around for ages that no longer apply to our world today.  Being responsible means to life your life on your terms.  Don’t go around blaming anyone or anything.  While something may have a negative impact on your life, the way you respond to that event is something you can control – this is your performance.

If this concept is new to you, why not begin to think about how you perform day-to-day?  It will be challenging and perhaps revealing at first, but the more you consistently review your performances the closer you’ll be to living an extraordinary life.

(photo credit: rachel_titiriga)