Awareness is a foundational component of personal growth, innovation, and peak performance. It involves understanding your own mindset, including your strengths, beliefs, passions, stressors, and limits.

Identify your thoughts, stories, and self-talk

As a high achiever, it's crucial to understand that your mind is constantly fabricating stories. When something happens or someone says something, your mind immediately makes a prediction and crafts part two of the story. This new narrative is often built on assumptions rather than real facts, which can lead to unnecessary stress and hinder your performance.

Your mind's tendency to create stories originates from a survival mechanism designed to prepare for potential surprises. While this was beneficial in ancient times, it can now result in misplaced anxiety and decreased efficiency. Thoughts are driven by beliefs or emotions, and your mind reinforces these with an array of thoughts, stories, and self-talk.

Imagine you overhear a conversation at work:

"Things don’t look good right now; it’s really challenging the economy. We have no other choice but to make some tough decisions. When should we break the news?"

Instantly, your mind starts filling in the gaps:

"Will I lose my job? What if our department gets cut? How will this impact my career plans?"

Your mind has now constructed a storyline filled with worst-case scenarios based on limited information. This mismatch between reality and your internal narrative can create unnecessary stress and anxiety.

These self-created stories are a common occurrence. Your mind generates around 12,000 to 60,000 thoughts a day, driven by the primal urge to survive and protect yourself. This vast number of thoughts makes it easy to fabricate numerous stories in your mind.

Thoughts can stem from beliefs or emotions such as fear or anger, and your mind supports these emotions with additional thoughts, stories, and self-talk. Sometimes a thought can trigger an emotion like guilt, anger, sadness, or anxiety. While thoughts reside in your head, emotions are felt throughout your body, and they are intrinsically linked.

Most emotions arise from four primary feelings: love, fear, joy, and anger. Often, people are not aware of their thoughts and emotions, and therefore, they lack control over them. Without this control, you become a victim of your own mind.

Your thoughts and self-talk can either elevate or undermine your performance. Becoming conscious of your thoughts and self-talk involves catching nonproductive thoughts before they inflict damage. Be wary of these common self-talk traps:

• Awfulizing: Focusing on the worst aspects of a situation.
• Absolutes: Thinking in extremes (always/never).
• Condemnation: Blaming others or yourself.

The faster you can intercept negative thoughts, the sooner you can avoid the emotional cascade that follows. This practice reduces overall stress and allows you to benefit from positive emotions like achievement, love, and appreciation.

Common Negative Thoughts

• Meetings: "Oh great, another meeting. What a waste of time."
• Emails: "I can't keep up with all these emails."
• Travel: "Traveling is such a pain."
• Change: "Here we go with another pointless change."

Recognizing and addressing these thought patterns will enable you to maintain focus, reduce stress, and ultimately achieve greater success in your personal and professional life. By becoming aware of the stories your mind creates, you can ensure they are based on facts rather than assumptions, leading to more informed decisions and better outcomes.

Exercise: Write Down Thoughts As They Occur

Carry a notecard for two days and write down negative thoughts as they occur. This increases your awareness of your self-talk.

Exercise: The Paper Clip Exercise

To gain awareness of your negative self-talk, try the paper clip exercise:

1. Take 10 paper clips and put them in your front pocket.
2. Each time you have a negative thought, move a paper clip to your back pocket.
3. Track how long it takes to move all clips. As you practice reframing, the time between moving paper clips should increase, indicating progress.

Exercise: Thought Journaling

Set aside 10 minutes each day to write down your thoughts and the stories you've noticed your mind creating. Reflect on whether these stories are based on assumptions or facts. This exercise will help you identify patterns in your thinking and develop greater self-awareness.

Exercise: Fact or Story?

Challenge your internalized stories that not only sabotage your success but also often destroy your health. Ask yourself:

• Is this story absolutely true?
• Do you absolutely know this to be true?

Challenge the Status Quo

When you are unaware of your thoughts, you don’t have a chance to consciously ask yourself “is this thought or story really true?” Can you imagine making a decision based on half facts or even fiction?

"Don't believe everything you think. Thoughts are just that—thoughts." — Allan Lokos

Humans are creatures of habits. We create stories in our minds that helped us survive when we were young, inexperienced, and ill-prepared to deal with the situation. For example, abusive parents or other verbal abuse may have left lasting impacts. Statements like "You’re so lazy" can lead to a compensatory pattern of never feeling like you can work hard enough or take a break. Or “Eat this and you’ll feel better” can lead to a pattern where certain foods are used as comfort foods to take away the pain. “Money is the root of all evil” can lead to an aversion to financial success where you always sabotage yourself.

You do whatever it takes to survive in the moment. This survival mechanism often leads to keeping deep-rooted, distorted stories that continue to play in your mind, which then prevent you from achieving your potential. Becoming aware of these patterns, stories, and the thoughts they generate is crucial to developing new high-performance patterns and creating optimal health (mental and physical).

Exercises to challenge your thoughts

1. What’s the dominant thought or self-talk you are struggling with?
2. Is this thought really true?
3. What is the benefit of keeping this thought?
4. How can you reframe this thought to be more high-performance?
5. What is the benefit of doing this reframe?
6. What affirmation will help you rewire your brain to be more high-performance?

Exercise: Reality Check

Whenever you catch yourself imagining the worst-case scenario, ask yourself:

• What evidence do I have that this will happen?
• What are some alternative outcomes?
• How likely are these alternatives compared to the worst-case scenario?

Reframe Negative Thoughts

What will you do to change your thoughts, self-talk, and stories to develop a high-performance mindset?

By reframing negative thoughts, you can change your attitude. Turn stressful situations into something you can handle. Your thoughts change your entire physiology. Everything is influenced by your thoughts—your body, health, outlook, actions, and performance. Have you ever stepped outside and felt sad for a moment because it is raining? Suddenly your posture changes, you become tense, you lose a little bounce in your step. These physical things you can actually see and feel, but think about what is also happening on the inside of your body. What impact did this have on your brain chemistry, blood pressure, hormonal balance? The fact is, your thoughts definitely influence all of these things, big and small.

• What impact are your thoughts having on your physiology?
• Are your thoughts making you more healthy or sick?
• Are your thoughts giving you energy or destroying your energy?
• Are your thoughts making you a high performer or keeping you stuck in mediocrity?

Reframing is a fundamental strategy for reducing the negative impact of non-productive thoughts. Your inner dialogue runs constantly throughout the day, so being able to quickly stop nonproductive self-talk and replace it with positive thinking is crucial for sustaining a high-performance mindset.

Capitalize on Your Personal Strengths

“The key to winning is to know your strengths and then to use them mercilessly against your opponent.”

In "The Truth About You: Your Secret to Success," the concept of the "strengths revolution" emphasizes the importance of employees focusing on their strengths. By doing so, you increase your confidence, develop your talents, become more passionate, and enjoy your work more. This is the key to finding the most effective route to personal success and the missing link to the efficiency, competency, and success for which many companies constantly strive.

For leadership, a common theme is to be the best version of yourself. Successful leaders consistently work on improving themselves, embodying their values, and setting an example for others by being authentic and striving to be their best selves in every situation. Becoming aware of who you are, your strengths, what you like, and what you’re good at is critical in this! For example, an introvert who is quiet and passive may also be a great listener who knows how to bring out the best in everyone around them, encouraging others to step forward, take ownership, and rise to each occasion. Everyone has different strengths!

To capitalize on your strengths, you must become aware of your strengths, communication styles, things that sabotage success, and approaches to solving problems. There are many different behavioral and psychological evaluations available that are simple yet effective.

There are various tools available on the internet like DISC assessment and MBTI that can help you gain valuable insights about your strengths and personality.

• DISC Assessment (TTI Success Insights): Price varies by provider, typically around $75 - $150 per assessment.
• MBTI (Myers-Briggs Type Indicator) (The Myers-Briggs Company): $49.95 for the online version; professional versions can cost $150 - $200.
• Big Five Personality Traits (OCEAN) (Understand Myself): $9.95 for the standard test.
• Enneagram (The Enneagram Institute): $12 for the RHETI test.
• StrengthsFinder (CliftonStrengths) (Gallup CliftonStrengths): $19.99 for the Top 5 Strengths report; $49.99 for the full 34 Strengths report.
• VIA Character Strengths (VIA Institute on Character): Free for basic results; in-depth reports start at $20.

Knowing how to use your strengths to your advantage will set you up for success.

Exercise: Questions to Discover Strengths

Answer the following questions to discover and develop your strengths:

1. Are you introverted or extroverted?
2. When you’re socializing with people, do you get energized or fatigued?
3. Do you need details, or do you prefer focusing on the big picture?
4. What was your favorite job or position, and what specifically did you like about it?
5. When you work on a team, what role do you wish you always got?
6. What is the one thing that your boss always compliments you on?
7. What are you really good at?
8. What are you really bad at?
9. If you could design your perfect job, what would it be? Why?

How Stress-Resistant Are You?

There are three specific characteristics that people who manage job stress effectively and continue to perform well often share:

1. Commitment: These individuals are deeply involved in various aspects of their lives. They find meaning in their work, family, and life experiences, viewing them as worthwhile and interesting. This sense of commitment has been a key factor for many in surviving extreme hardships, such as torture, starvation, and disease.
2. Challenge: People who cope well with stress see change as a constant and view it as an exciting challenge to embrace and master, rather than a stressor to avoid. They welcome new opportunities to learn, grow, and change, perceiving these as opportunities rather than threats.
3. Control: A feeling of control and ownership is fundamental to almost every theory of effectiveness and motivation. By developing the discipline to focus energy on events within their control, rather than on situations beyond their control, these individuals become more resistant to stress and more effective and fulfilled in their lives.

Exercise: Questions for Stress-Resistance

By reflecting on the following questions, you can examine your approach and your resilience in life. For many, the initial answers may be superficial, but with honesty and deeper reflection, you can improve your mindset and performance.

• Commitment: What are you committed to? What’s the purpose of your job? Why do you get up every morning and go to work? What in your work makes you passionate? Where do you find meaning in what you do?
• Challenge: Do you see things as problems or as challenges? Do you resist change, or do you see it as a challenge? Where do you find challenges in your life? When you are challenged, do you get excited or do you immediately feel overwhelmed?
• Control: Do you spend energy worrying about others? Do you find it difficult to let others handle their problems? How often do you worry about things that are out of your control? What things are within your control?

Issues around these three areas constantly arise when working with clients. By developing more positive ways to deal with these issues, you can significantly improve your energy, outlook, ability to bounce back after setbacks, and resistance to stress.

Exercise: Focus on What You Can Control

Recognize that you can’t control everything. Focus on what you can control:

• Be aware of what you can’t control.
• Accept what you can’t control.
• Take action on what you can control with unmatched excellence.

Think of your mind as an old-time slide projector, where each "slide" represents an experience you've had or imagined. When faced with a new situation, your brain quickly flips through its "carousel" of slides, looking for something familiar to guide your response. Mental imagery is powerful because it allows you to create new "slides" in this carousel.

By repeatedly visualizing detailed mental images, you engage the same neural pathways and muscles as if you were actually performing the activity. Studies with athletes using electromyography have shown that visualizing an action, like a tennis serve, activates the same muscles as physically performing it. This mental practice prepares your brain and body for real-world scenarios, making your performance feel natural when the time comes.

How to Harness the Power of Mental Imagery

1. Understand the Technique: Learn how mental imagery works and why it’s effective.
2. Appreciate Its Impact: Recognize its potential to significantly improve your mindset and performance.
3. Practice Consistently: Dedicate regular time and effort to mental rehearsal.
4. Create Detailed Visualizations: Develop multi-sensory, realistic images focused on high-performance outcomes.

Practical Applications of Mental Imagery

Mental imagery is more than just daydreaming—it's a practical tool for enhancing energy, clarity, creativity, and overall effectiveness. Here’s how to apply it:

1. Preparation for High-Stakes Situations:
• Examples: Big presentations, crucial negotiations, daily performance boosts.
• Application: Visualize yourself in the scenario, focusing on every detail—your posture, tone of voice, eye contact, and demeanor. Imagine yourself calm, confident, and in control, mentally preparing your body and mind for when the moment arrives.
2. Improving Physical and Emotional State:
• Examples: Transitioning from solemn to energized, cautious to confident.
• Application: Use visualization to mentally rehearse the state you want to achieve. Picture yourself as energized, confident, and fully engaged, helping shift your physical and emotional state throughout the day.
3. Enhancing Specific Skills:
• Examples: Listening, presenting, negotiating.
• Application: Mentally rehearse these skills by visualizing yourself executing them successfully, refining your performance when you need to apply these skills in real situations.
4. Revisiting and Reframing Past Performances:
• Examples: Reframing a past performance that didn’t go well.
• Application: Replay the scenario in your mind, but this time, visualize a successful outcome. For instance, if you lost your temper during an appraisal, imagine yourself calm and composed, providing constructive feedback. This builds new, positive patterns for future situations.
5. Daily Mental Imagery Practice:
• Examples: Visualizing how your day will unfold.
• Application: Every day, consciously visualize how you would like your day to go, from handling meetings to transitioning from work to home. Regular practice trains your mind to focus on positive outcomes, enhancing your energy, resilience, and performance.

Inspiring Story: The Power of Mental Rehearsal and Imagery

When the stakes are high, as they were in this client presentation, there’s no room for error. First impressions are crucial, especially when trying to convince top executives to invest in your company.

Before the presentation, the lead presenter visited the boardroom to note every detail—room size, seating arrangements, screen positioning, and lighting. This walk-through laid the foundation for mental rehearsal. That night, the presenter spent hours in their hotel room visualizing the presentation, imagining it at least 100 times in vivid detail.

They mentally rehearsed every element: the delivery of the message, posture, tone of voice, audience reactions, and team transitions. They also visualized handling potential challenges, like disengaged participants or technical issues. The next day, this preparation paid off with a flawless presentation, securing a multimillion-dollar deal. This story highlights the effectiveness of mental rehearsal and the power of visualization in achieving success.

Visualization Performance Review

How do you mentally review your own performance? After an important presentation, do you go back to your desk and review how you did? Do you focus on what didn’t go well and what you did wrong? When you get into an argument with a co-worker, do you take a moment to reflect on what happened, how you reacted, and what you were feeling?

Every interaction and performance throughout your day is a learning opportunity. It allows you to learn about who you are, what you feel, and how you react. It's an opportunity to see your diverse choices and develop new patterns, new solutions, and a new mindset. For instance, Tiger Woods reviews his performance after every round of golf, focusing on the mechanical, tactical, and mental aspects.

Reviewing what went wrong is important, but it's equally crucial to review what went right. Why? Because by reviewing what went right, you are mentally rehearsing (practicing) high performance over and over again.

What are people practicing when they focus on their mistakes? Poor performance! So what will they get good at? Poor performance! Does this mean you should ignore your mistakes? No.

So how do you deal with your errors? The key is to identify the error (awareness) and then mentally correct it immediately. Imagine what the shot would have looked and felt like if done correctly. The next day, when Woods is faced with the same hole, he is more likely to repeat his rehearsed high performance rather than his poor performance.

Practicing this at first may be challenging and requires conscious effort, but as you continue, you'll improve, and your performance will significantly enhance.

Exercises to Visualize Victory

Exercise: Daily Mental Imagery Practice

Every day, consciously visualize how you would like your day to go, from handling meetings to transitioning from work to home. Regular practice trains your mind to focus on positive outcomes, enhancing your energy, resilience, and performance.

Mental Imagery Exercise

1. Define Your Purpose: Clarify your goal and set your intentions. What is the best possible outcome, and what do you want to accomplish emotionally, mentally, or physically?
2. Choose Your Perspective: Visualize the scenario through your own eyes (internal perspective) or from an outsider’s viewpoint, like a movie (external perspective). Experiment with both to see which works best for you.
3. Engage Your Senses: Incorporate sensory details: sight, sound, touch, taste, and smell. Develop the events in a logical, step-by-step sequence.
4. Use Positive and Affirmative Language: Use strong, positive language in your visualizations. Avoid negative phrases or language that suggests uncertainty.
5. Create a Script: After visualizing, write or record a script describing the scene. Regularly listen to or read your script to reinforce the imagery.
6. Tap Into Past Experiences: Recall a time when you felt the way you want to feel now. Use these memories to enhance your current visualization.
7. Practice Regularly: The more you practice, the more naturally these images will come to you, leading to sustainable peak performance.
8. Use Disassociated Perspective if Needed: If you struggle, start by visualizing a mentor or idol performing the action, then step into their shoes and visualize yourself doing the same.
9. Embrace the Power of Practice: Continuous practice is key to mastering mental imagery and achieving your goals.

Exercise: Personal Review Process

Review your recent performance and improve your mindset:

1. Write down 5 things that you did well. Read over them five times to boost your confidence.
2. Write down 2 things that you could have done better.
3. Rewrite these 2 things to have high-performance outcomes, imagining yourself performing them perfectly.
4. Read these high-performance statements (rewritten experiences) 10 times to mentally rehearse success.

Achieving consistent high performance requires intentional actions. Here’s how to build a strong, sustainable mindset using anchors, rituals, and habits.

Use Anchors as Mental Shortcuts

What Are Anchors? Anchors are mental triggers—words, phrases, or visual cues—that help you quickly access the mindset you need. Think of them as shortcuts that take you straight to the desired state of mind.

How to Implement:

• Choose Your Anchors: Select simple words like "FOCUS," "BREATHE," or "CONFIDENCE" that resonate with you.
• Practice Regularly: Use these anchors daily. For example, say "FOCUS" when starting a task to eliminate distractions, or "CONFIDENCE" before a presentation to boost your self-assurance.
• Visual Anchors: Use objects like a bracelet or a photo to serve as physical reminders. For instance, looking at a sailboat photo could remind you to adapt and find new opportunities, reinforcing a flexible mindset.

Anchors don’t create change on their own; they trigger the mindset you’ve built through awareness and practice.

Create and Implement Performance Rituals

What Are Rituals? Rituals are consistent actions that help you transition smoothly through different parts of your day, bringing order and structure.

How to Implement:

• Work-to-Home Transition: Before entering your home, finish work-related calls or take a brief walk to mentally shift from work mode to family time. This ensures you’re fully present with your loved ones.
• Morning Preparation: If overwhelmed by tasks, get off the metro a few stops early and walk to your office. Use this time to mentally prepare, visualize your day, and build a calm, controlled mindset.

• Lunchtime Reset: Instead of working through lunch, take a 10-minute walk outside or find a quiet spot to meditate. This simple ritual can refresh your mind, reduce stress, and boost your afternoon productivity, ensuring you return to work with renewed energy and focus.
• Pre-Meeting Routine: Before entering a meeting, take a few minutes to review your goals and visualize a successful outcome. Whether it’s a high-stakes negotiation or a routine check-in, this ritual can help you enter the room with confidence, clarity, and a clear purpose.

Rituals require initial effort but quickly become effortless habits that support your performance.

Integrate Mindset with Physical Habits

Why It’s Important: Your mindset is supported by physical health. Integrating nutrition, movement, and recovery habits enhances your mental performance.

How to Implement:

• Daily Practices: Combine mental strategies with healthy eating, regular exercise, and adequate rest. This holistic approach strengthens both your body and mind, boosting overall performance.

By implementing these anchors, rituals, and habits, you’ll build a sustainable high-performance mindset that empowers you to excel in all areas of life.

Objective: Evaluate your mindset by rating yourself on each of the following key elements of high performance. Use a scale from 1 (Needs Improvement) to 5 (Excellent).

• Concentration: Rate your ability to manage distractions and maintain focus.
• Creativity: Rate how often you use creativity to solve problems.
• Positive Attitude: Rate your consistency in maintaining a positive attitude.
• Optimistic Outlook: Rate your ability to stay optimistic in challenging situations.
• Fun: Rate how much enjoyment and fun you find in your work or tasks.
• Control of Emotions: Rate your ability to manage and control your emotions.
• Vision: Rate the clarity and detail of your vision for success.
• Goals: Rate how meaningful and inspiring your goals are.
• Discipline: Rate your ability to stay disciplined in your actions.
• Resilience: Rate your ability to bounce back from setbacks.
• Focus: Rate your capacity to strategically concentrate on tasks.
• Confidence: Rate your confidence level under pressure.
• Solution-Oriented Approach: Rate how well you focus on solutions rather than problems.
• Flexibility: Rate your ability to balance flexibility with discipline.
• Plan: Rate the effectiveness of your planning.
• Action-Oriented Approach: Rate your ability to turn knowledge into action.

After rating yourself, identify the areas where you scored the lowest. In those areas, start building awareness, visualize victory and build sustainability, aiming to move your ratings closer to a 5 across all elements.