[Part VI] Resolve Your Performance [The Solution Is Through Resolution]
To Resolve Your Performance is a process of analysing your system as a whole, from beginning to end — but more deeply, it is streamlining the expression of what you are. It is looking at how you execute from beginning to end: from the idea, to the final product. With specific emphasis on getting to that final product as the main priority.
Performance is not the ultimate factor, but it is an important metric. If you cannot perform (which in this case simply means getting a result, being able to go from the idea to a goal, to consistent action, to final product) that itself speaks volumes on where your issues reside.
Furthermore, getting that chain running in the first place is the starting line from where we can start building momentum.
There are many people in the world that have the pieces to be great at something. They have the parts to build the engine, but they are assembled in such a way that the engine does not run. (At least, not well — and certainly not at its full potential.)
In our lives and careers, this is easy to perceive: either you are effective in getting the job done, or you cannot. Increasing the quality of your work is something that can happen with time. However, if the very process by which you work towards your goals is hectic and imbalanced, it will not lead to success.
It just won’t.
That is the idea that I am getting at with Resolve Your Performance. Find clarity and simplicity in how you go from inception to production — but first, get that engine to run! Your problem is going to be found in one of these four areas:
- Inception (Vision, Idea, Dream, Goal)
- Plan (How You Break The Vision Into Action)
- The Work and Execution (Systems, Processes, Habits, Skills)
- Character (Discipline, Consistency, Will, Resolve, Mentality)
The thing that is getting in your way will be found in one of these areas. Your vision might not be clear, your goal too broad to be acted on, you are lacking skills, your process is a mess, or you simply lack determination (and are overcome by fear).
This is why it’s important to focus on output from the beginning — doing the work, creating the thing, and being what you are trying to be from day one. Only then will you be able to diagnose where the issues are. If you’ve never ran the race, or gotten in the cage, you will have no idea where you stand. (That is something I wish I understood when I was younger.)
Focus on Output Over Impact: set the goal, do the work, get the job done, regardless of how it is received, where you place, or the quality. Emphasize Process Over Perfection: get your system and process for doing a task down first. Perfection in the process, and in the result, can be worked towards in time.
First seek to produce results, then figure out how to optimize them.
Notes
If there is one factor that defines the highest calibre people in their fields, it is that their system is proven to be consistently effective in the real world, and it works for them. There is no singular system. Jimi Hendrix scribbled random lyrics on little scraps of paper, and stored them in a shoebox. He wrote the music first, then laid the lyrics over them. That worked for him.
Not all of the greatest in their field are the most talented, skilled, or intelligent — the true top percentile is a rarity. Yet they still are among the best performers because they make use of all that they have and are, and have learned to bring that to the table every time.
The quality of their final product (the pinnacle of their performance) exists because they were able to move from Inception, through the Plan, Work and Execution, with the Character attributes that facilitated success through the process.