Future Performance Training
Congratulations on setting out on your journey with a well-stocked kit bag and clear coordinates! If you continue to review your progress at each milestone, achieving your whole-life goals seems easy and effortless.
When events test your resolve, remember the promise you made yourself to achieve your goals. In this section, we show you some simple things you can keep in mind to help you see your promise through.
Thinking like a hero
You don’t have to scale mountains or fight dragons to be heroic. You are the hero in your own life. Your unique brand of heroism lies in living your life with your own sense of integrity in the way you want to live it. That may mean huge goals or small adjustments, yet the courage and commitment you need to do either are of the same quality. Your promise to yourself is ultimately accountable only to you, even though you may also choose to share your goals with others to garner support. All true heroes know that they have the highest standards for themselves.
Part of the deal with being a hero is that you are probably tested along the way and sometimes you may falter. This quality of courageously reaching for your goals over and over again marks you out as the hero in your own life, a quality that is a long, long way from any absolute standard of perfectionism. Thinking like a hero in this way can sustain you at the toughest of times.
The following activity is a fun way to help you think about your heroic qualities.
Imagine your favourite movie director has phoned you up with the great news that he or she wants to make The Film of Your Life. You get the first option on how the script is written and who plays you.
How does The Film of Your Life play out? Is it an action adventure with lots of cliffhangers? A warm romance? A joyful comedy? A thoughtful reflection on serious issues? Or a mind-expanding fantasy/sci-fi extravaganza?
If you could choose anyone, famous or not, to play you, who would you pick? What qualities do they have that you see in yourself? What would be the peak performances, the scenes that take your breath away? What advice would you give to the main actor about how to approach the role?
What does this activity reveal to you about how you approach the drama of your life?
When life gets in the way of living
Taking steps towards your goal feels easier when life goes on around you in a fairly predictable manner. You’ve prepared well, so you have contingency plans for lots of eventualities along the way and you find that not a lot can deflect you from your course. And then you have One of Those Days. Every crisis you can possibly imagine rains down on you all at once – you collect parking tickets from nowhere, final demands turn up for bills that you thought you had dealt with, and the people around you seem unwilling or unable to help you out with any of it. On top of that your energy levels are low because you’ve been working hard and missed out on your usual quota of sleep and you’re coming down with a nasty bug that makes you feel weak, fed up, and sorry for yourself. The final straw is finding that you can’t get a signal on your mobile to warn an important new client that you’re stuck in traffic and are running late for the presentation.
Everyone has these days – sometimes they turn into weeks or even longer – and when you’re in the middle of a challenging goal sustaining your efforts is tough. Something has to give. Trouble is, if your goal gets sidelined, you find it really easy to beat yourself up and that can create an even bigger setback.
At times you’re playing the long game in your life. If you have to put aside your big goal in order to get through a bad run of luck or unusual series of events, then so be it. Accept that setbacks are a normal part of any change and keep focused on what you can do to deal with your current crises as best you can and get out the other side to the clear open terrain of your journey again. Think about ways to make progress, even in very small ways, such as looking for any unexpected opportunity in the situation.
During her nine-month journey to health and fitness, Louise encountered several setbacks and temptations along the way as other aspects of her life provided distractions. During the times when she had to miss her gym sessions to deal with other priorities, she kept her focus by writing in her journal for five minutes a day, considering a different benefit of maintaining her goal each time.
Exploding the myth of willpower
Suppose your setback happens because you succumb to temptation. You can often give in to temptation when you’re making a change in your health – quitting smoking, getting fit, losing weight – but it can also happen in your other goal areas. Perhaps you’re focused on getting a promotion at work but suddenly you find yourself slipping back into old, comfortable habits of procrastinating on essential tasks. Again, your inner critic is happy to berate you for your lack of willpower and causes you to wonder, ‘What’s the point in trying for this new role?’
You may be surprised to discover that the people who are most successful in achieving their goals in life often don’t believe in willpower. Successful people often behave as if they have no willpower at all and make sure that they set up conditions around them to avoid temptations most of the time. When they do give into temptation, they shrug their shoulders, enjoy the moment of indulgence, and get straight back on track without any self-recrimination.
Think of willpower as a trait you can develop as you gain momentum and start to see results. If you’re blessed with strong willpower then that will certainly help to get you started with your goals. For most people though, seeing great results helps them to maintain their enthusiasm and progress.
Accept that you’re human and that you’re going to ‘fail’ from time to time. Don’t accept that one failure is an excuse to carry on with a habit that takes you further away from your goal.
Dealing with jealousy from others
Setbacks can occur when people around you withhold approval or even express disapproval about you coaching yourself to achieve a goal. Sometimes this stems from jealousy that you are doing so well with your goal and it can be very unsettling.
When this happens, look for the positive intent behind the jealousy from the other person. She is probably afraid that by achieving your goal she may lose something valuable that she got from you. Perhaps you were the one who joined her for a cigarette at break time and she is unsettled by your new non-smoking conviction. Or it may be a family member who has gotten used to joining you as a couch potato in front of the television and feels bereft because you’re spending more time down the gym. Maybe you used to be the person in the office who always seemed to sympathize when a colleague wanted to have a good old whinge about the boss, and now you’re taking a different attitude to be a team player – your new approach takes the fun out of it for your colleague.
In all of these examples, the people close to you miss the rapport they formerly had with you and the sense that you were ‘in it together. Your new habits are changing your behaviour and change is what you want. It may take a little time to readjust the relationships you had before you started making these changes. Some of those relationships may never be the same again and you can take the lead in changing your relationships for the better too.