EXCELLENCE AT EVERYTHING YOU DO

Bobby Jones

I have been playing golf for nearly three decades. I love the game and I hit the ball well, but I am far from the player I wish I were.

I've been thinking about this a lot the past couple of weeks, because I have taken the opportunity, for the first time in many years, to play golf twice per week.  My game has gotten progressively stronger.  I've had a number of memorable moments which I have played like the player I long to be, and this is truly the ‘drug’ that keeps me coming back.

For most of my adult life, I've accepted the myth that some people are born with special talents and gifts, and that the potential to truly excel in any given pursuit is largely determined by our genetic inheritance.

I have read books which challenge the assumption that genetic inheritance determines our athletic capabilities.  One book, “The Way We're Working Isn't Working”, lays out a guide, grounded in the science of high performance, to systematically build our capacity physically, emotionally, and mentally.

In our work with executives at dozens of organizations, we have found that it is possible to build a given skill or capability in the same systematic way we build a muscle: push past your comfort zone, and then rest.  Aristotle, the philosopher, had it exactly right 2000 years ago: “We are what we repeatedly do”.  By relying on highly specific practices, we have seen our clients dramatically improve skills ranging from empathy, to focus, to creativity, to summoning positive emotions, embracing significant changes in their business and life.

Anders Ericsson, the world's leading researcher into high performance has been making the case that it is not inherited talent which determines how good we become at something, but rather how hard we're willing to work-  something he calls, "deliberate practice".  Numerous researchers now agree that 10,000 hours of deliberate practice is the minimum necessary to achieve expertise in any complex domain.

There is something powerful about this. It suggests we have remarkable capacity to influence our own outcomes. One of Ericsson's central findings is that practice is not only the most important ingredient in achieving excellence, but also the most difficult and the least enjoyable.

So, if you are committed to becoming really good at something, it is going to involve pushing past your comfort zone, along with some frustration, pain, struggle and failure.  That is true as long as you want to continue to improve, or maintain a high level of excellence. The reward is that being really good at something you have earned through your own hard work can be immensely satisfying.

Here are six keys to achieving excellence we've found are most effective for our clients:

1- Pursue what you love. Passion is an incredible motivator. It fuels focus, resilience, and perseverance.

2. Do the hardest work first. We all move instinctively toward pleasure and away from pain. Most great performers, delay gratification and take on the difficult work of practice in the mornings, before they do anything else. That's when most of us have the most energy and the fewest distractions.

3. Practice intensely, without interruption for short periods of time before taking a break. Ninety minutes appears to be the maximum amount of time that we can bring the highest level of focus to any given activity. The evidence is equally strong that great golfers practice no more than 4 ½ hours a day.

4.  Seek expert feedback with a trusted Advisor, Coach or Mentor. The simpler and more precise the feedback, the more equipped you are to make adjustments. Too much feedback creates cognitive overload, increase anxiety, and interferes with learning.

5. Take regular renewal breaks. Relaxing after intense effort not only provides an opportunity to rejuvenate, but also to metabolize and embeds learning. It is also during rest that the right hemisphere becomes more dominant, which can lead to creative breakthroughs.

6. Ritualize practice. Will and discipline are wildly overrated.  The best way to insure you will take on difficult tasks is to ritualize them- building specific, non-negotiable times at which you do them, so that over time you do them without having to consciously think about the activity.

I have practiced golf ‘deliberately’ over the years, but never at the ‘committed level’ with the committed times every day to achieve a truly high level of excellence. What has changed is that I no longer fault myself for falling short of my potential, for I know exactly what it takes to get to the next level.  Do You?