How to Improve Your Performance
What makes top achievers and experts perform better than average people? One big difference is in how they practice their craft.
When most people practice, they focus on things they can do easily. In order to improve, you need to practice things you cannot do well. Only by working at what you cannot do can you turn into the expert you want to become.
The purpose of practice is to progress. To improve performance. To get better. The only way to do that is by pushing yourself beyond your current capacity.
Top producers in every field attempt things beyond their current skill level. Consequently, they make more mistakes. But by doing so, they improve. They fail their way to the top. By constantly striving for what is just out of reach they constantly improve.
When you are first learning how to luge, coach puts you on curve 10 (most luge tracks have 15-16 curves). You’re only going 20 MPH. But you are out of control. You crash over and over again. Eventually you figure out how to get down. Then coach moves you up a couple of curves. Now you are going 30 MPH. It feels like you have no time to react . You crash a few more times. As soon as you figure it out coach moves you up again. If you’re pretty good, after about 100 brutal runs you’re finally at the top of the track going 70-90 MPH. But how did you get there? By literally crashing your way to the top.
Once you are at men’s start coach makes it harder still. At first you drive safe lines. But in order to get better times, you need to drive harder, riskier lines. Then learn how to put your head back on straightaways to become more aerodynamic. Then learn how to be able to slide on a sleds that are faster but harder to control.
That’s how you get to the top. By constantly pushing the envelope. By attempting things beyond your current capability. By constantly striving for what is just out of reach. By being willing to make more mistakes than the competition. By being willing to fail your way to the top.
That’s the only way to improve. That’s the only way to reach higher levels. By taking chances and boldly going where you’ve never gone before.
When you get to the point where you are willing to stumble and fall, you will start making the progress that will move you past your competition.
Ruben Gonzalez is a four-time Olympian, a bestselling business author and an award-winning keynote speaker. Ruben will turn your next meeting into an Olympic event you will never forget. For information on how to bring him to your next event, visit PremiereSpeakers.com/Ruben_Gonzalez.
