You can’t succeed over time without a strong self-awareness
of your performance skills. Yogi Berra said it best: “90 percent of the
game is 50 percent mental.” You can accurately measure most aspects of your
physical performance, and these measurements enable you to accurately chart a
physical improvement plan. Measuring mental toughness is another matter entirely.
Performance DNA consists of four components: focus, fire, faith and
fear. You have different levels of strength in each area. To maximize these strengths,
you need to know what they are and how to balance the use of them, since overuse
of any of these strengths will result in poor performance.
Focus is your ability to set goals and achieve them. Your capacity
to identify realistic goals that drive specific results will provide a performance
roadmap for you. The key to this goal setting is your flexibility in achieving
the goal as well as revising it. Performance goals change with field conditions.
If you can’t revise the goal needed to deliver results in real-time, you
will fail. Similarly, if you set the appropriate goal but loses sight of it when
you are under attack, you will fail. Inherent in the focus strength is clarity
of purpose and the ability to maintain that clarity.
Fire is your drive to execute goals and complete tasks. Fire encompasses
both initiative and ambition. The degree of urgency you have to deliver results
reflects initiative. The internal ideals and standards you have for excellence
reflects ambition. Both of these components are heavily influenced by your need
to achieve—your need to feel valued and successful. Initiative, ambition
and the need to achieve provide a powerful engine for performance. Aiming this
engine toward specific goals requires focus. Overuse of the fire strength can
result in a failure in teamwork, and an excessive sense of urgency can adversely
impact the ability to focus by distorting priorities.
Faith is best defined as the depth of your belief systems that the
best will happen in conjunction with your ability to maintain a positive perspective.
These belief systems include your belief in yourself through your inner strength,
your belief in the present through self-confidence in their position, and your
belief in the future through your ability to stay on track despite interference.
Faith largely depends on your ability to maintain a positive attitude because
you firmly believe that the best can and will happen—even during trying
circumstances. The faith strength allows you to perform in clutch situations without
choking. It also enhances fire strength by channeling your drive—creating
electricity as opposed to random lightning from the fire strength. Overuse of
the faith strength can result in blind optimism, which directly impacts goal setting
and goal achievement.
Fear includes fear of disappointing others; fear about performing
to your best; fear about realizing goals, fear about fitting in; and fear about
being worthy. Each of these facets will influence the focus, fire and faith strengths.
Fear can be a motivator when it is balanced with the optimism and belief in yourself.
Similarly it can function as a motivator when it is balanced with effective goal
setting. Overuse of fear can result in performance paralysis.
Focus, fire, faith, and fear are highly interdependent and require
a balanced, approach to optimize results. PE
