The Mind and High Performance Strategies

The mind works in an amazing way. We get "conditioned" throughout our lives to do certain things. Our brains have a great ability to lock things in, so that we don't have to give too much thought to executing them, like driving.

Having studied Psychology, Neuro Linguistic Programming and Brain Science, I'm fortunate enough to be in a position to create a model of how parts of our minds work. Whether or not the mind and the brain are two different things, I'm in no position to determine, so we'll refer to the whole process in this article as the mind. Because of our capacity to embed information deep into our minds, for easy future access, I've found that strategies work really well in the mind. For example, setting goals is a bit more confusing then creating outcomes. If you set 20 goals, you may have to create all of the sub goals that help create the larger goal. If you set a couple definite outcomes, and then segment the actions you'll have to take into 20, 30 minute actions for example, the mind processes the information differently. To me this is the difference between being overwhelmed and having something in place to guide you to action.

I also believe that questions are high performance strategies in themselves. Let me explain. If you ask yourself a question, for example, "How do I reach this specific outcome," because of the belief built into that question (the outcome is definitely possible), your mind wanders off into exploration and tries to look for ways to answer the question. A question like "why doesn't this work," in many cases doesn't serve us.

Overall, I think directing the mind in a strategic way, consciously, is a great way to induce high performance activity, and get things done. For more Strategies and Mind talk, check out Inside the Mind of the Elite, my new E-book on the psychology of personal achievement.