High Performance Habits: How Extraordinary People Become That Way

by Brendon Burchard

As a high performance coach, I’ve worked with a lot of people like Lynn. Achievers fight long and hard to succeed, propelling themselves forward by grit and hustle. And then, at some point they could never have anticipated, they plateau, lose passion, or burn out.

reach high performance, you have to consider more than your individual passions and efforts, and you’ll have to go well beyond what you like, prefer, or naturally do well, because, to be frank, the world cares less about your strengths and personality than about your service and meaningful contributions to others.

What happens after you have earned those grades, found some passion, gotten that job or started that dream, developed some expertise, saved some money, fallen in love, built some momentum? What helps when you want to become world-class, to lead, to create lasting impact beyond yourself?

It also led to the founding of the High Performance Institute, where a team of scholars and I conduct research on how high performers think, behave, influence others, and win.

Look into

If there’s anything special about the work of my team of researchers, it’s that we’ve cracked the code, figuring out which habits matter most and how you can set up practices that strengthen and sustain these habits.

We’ve also learned that there are habits for tactically getting ahead, and strategic habits for enjoying life. You’ll learn both.

You’ll learn that high performers outgrow their youthful need for certainty and replace it with curiosity and genuine self-confidence.

For our purposes in this book, high performance refers to succeeding beyond standard norms, consistently over the long term.

They are not a one-hit wonder. They have multiple skill sets that allow them to succeed over the long term and—importantly—lead others.

High performers love challenges and are more confident that they will achieve their goals despite adversity.

High performers are healthier than their peers. They eat better. They work out more. The top 5 percent of high performers are 40 percent more likely to exercise three times per week.

In one study of two hundred collegiate athletes, we found that the higher their score on the High Performance Indicator—an assessment tool for measuring high performance potential—the higher their GPA. High performers are also more likely to be CEOs and senior executives.

High performers work hard not because of money but because of something called necessity, which you will soon learn about.

They’re less into “finding their strengths” and more into “adaptive service”—exploring what needs fixing and growing into the person who can fix

It’s as if you could put them in any context, any team, any company, any industry, and they would win—not because they’re geniuses or lone wolves, but because they positively influence others to rise. They don’t just develop skill; they develop people.

High performers have simply mastered—either on purpose or by accident through necessity—six habits that matter most in reaching and sustaining long-term success. We call these six habits the HP6. They have to do with clarity, energy, necessity, productivity, influence, and courage.

HP6

That’s because the habits that really matter in improving performance are not unconscious.

doesn’t come from doing what’s natural, certain, convenient, or automatic. Often, the journey to greatness begins the moment our preferences for comfort and certainty are overruled by a greater purpose that requires challenge and contribution.

The goal was to help people better understand themselves and any behaviors that might help them succeed. Popular tools included Myers-Briggs, the Clifton StrengthsFinder, the Kolbe A™ Index, and the DiSC® Test. Often, the life coach would hire experts or consultants certified in these tools, to help administer them.

Ive heard of these

Once we identified the HP6, we worked to conduct additional literature reviews and validity tests. We created the High Performance Indicator (HPI), based on the six habits as well as other proven success measures. We tested the HPI pilot with over 30,000 people from 195 countries and quantitatively proved its validity, reliability, and usefulness.9 We found that not only do the six habits combine to correlate with high performance, but each habit correlates with high performance on its own.

Hmm.

Seek clarity. Generate energy. Raise necessity. Increase productivity. Develop Influence. Demonstrate Courage. These are the six habits that you need to adopt if you are to reach high performance in any situation.

The six habits

To rise to high performance, you’ll have to work on the weaknesses, develop entirely new skill sets beyond what you find easy or what you “like to do.” It should be common sense: If you really want to make your mark, you’ll have to grow more to give more, and that won’t feel easy or natural.

Here’s the big distinction: High performers are also working on skills that focus on what I call their primary field of interest (PFI). They aren’t scattershot learners. They’ve homed in on their passionate interests, and they set up activities or routines to develop skill in those areas. If they love music, they laser in on what kind of music they want to learn, and then study it. Their PFI is specific.

They try to figure out whether you see the work as just a job, or an important career, or a calling.16 They often associate a clear sense of purpose with an overall sense of meaning in life.

way I walk into each day. Try it. The second link to meaning was connection. People who become socially isolated report that their life has lost meaning.19 Social relationships, especially with those closest to us, are the most frequently reported sources of meaning in life.20 Like

At work, when you finish creating that presentation and now go to check e-mail, that’s a transition. You’re going from creative mode to e-mail mode. When a meeting ends and you walk back to your desk, sit down, and jump on a conference call, that’s a transition. The workday ends, you hop back into the car and head to the gym. Two more transitions. Pull up to your house after a long day and walk into your home and become Mommy or Daddy. Transition. You get the idea. Our days comprise a series of transitions. These transitions are immensely valuable—a powerful space of freedom between activities. And it’s in this space that you’ll discover your greatest restorer and amplifier of energy. Think about all the transitions you experience during the day. Take a moment and write a few of them down here: Now let me ask you a few questions about all these transitions: Do you ever carry over any negative energy from one activity to the next? Do you ever feel depleted but still plow into your next activity without a break, even though you know you should take a breather? Are you losing a sense of presence and appreciation for life and others the further you go in your day?

Transition

How would I show up if I were as energized as my best self?” I don’t remember all my thoughts, but I set an intention to go into the house and love my wife and give her my full energy. I walked in like a new man, as

They don’t wait for joy to land on them; they bring it. So as I was recovering from my brain injury, I decided to develop a series of triggers that would remind me to steer social interactions toward positive emotions and experiences. The first trigger was what I call a “notification trigger.”

So there I was in the middle of my day, sometimes just going through the motions trying to recover from my accident, and bam, my phone goes off. It reminded me to bring joy to the moment.

bring them back from poor health. When I shared this with Arjun, the tech titan from the beginning of this chapter, we discovered that he had never created any conscious triggers in his life that activated positive emotions. He was, in his words, “generally even-keeled and good at just reacting to life with a cool presence.” But he found that just reacting well to life still amounted to a limited life. If you don’t put intention and set up reminders to generate joy in your life, then you’re not experiencing the full range of life’s zest.

Before I began writing this chapter, I stood up from my computer, walked to the kitchen, drank a glass of water, went downstairs, rode my stationary bike for a challenging three-minute sprint, and stretched out for two minutes doing some Vinyasa flow yoga. Then I came back up to my office, sat down, closed my eyes, and did my practice of RELEASE TENSION, SET INTENTION.

Potential exercise

you’re being honest, you know that the research is conclusive: You need to exercise. A lot. Especially if you care about your mental performance. Exercise increases production of brain-derived neurotropic factor (BDNF). BDNF causes new neurons to grow in your hippocampus and other areas in the brain, creating increased plasticity and the ability to learn faster, remember more, and improve overall brain function.27 This is a huge point that too many people miss: Exercise improves learning.

Need to do

One stunning finding from our research on over twenty thousand high performers is that the top 5 percent of all high performers are 40 percent more likely to exercise at least three days per week than the 95 percent below them. Clearly, if you want to join the top ranks of success in life, it’s time to take exercise seriously.

When I work with executives, I draw a hard line: If the organization you spend your week serving doesn’t promote well-being, then either you start an internal initiative that gets well-being on the map or you start looking for a new place to work. That is, if you care about working with high performers and becoming one yourself.

You should know every possible health measure about your body available. Visit your primary care doctor and request a complete health diagnostic. Tell them you want to get in the best health of your life during the next twelve months and that you want every reasonable screening she or he has that will help you assess your health.

If you want a simple starter plan, and your doctor approves, I recommend you start doing two-by-two’s. That’s two twenty-minute weight-lifting-based workouts per week, and two twenty-minute cardiobased workout routines per week. In all the sessions, give about 75 percent of your full effort—meaning, be more intense than casual during your workouts. That’s just four sessions of intense exercise per week. On the other three days, you can walk briskly outside for twenty to forty-five minutes. Again, consult your doctor to see if this is a routine that is optimal for you. And work up to it.

Don’t jump in at 75 percent effort if you’re coming off the couch. Otherwise, you may hurt yourself or get so sore you decide that exercise just isn’t for you. And that would be a terrible outcome. Finally, stretch way, way more. Just five to ten minutes of light stretching or yoga every morning and night will help you gain greater flexibility and mobility. It will loosen up your body so you’re not carrying so much tension.

“Only one who devotes himself to a cause with his whole strength and soul can be a true master. For this reason mastery demands all of a person.” —Albert Einstein

The only difference lies in whether someone decides it is necessary to get better. No necessity, no consistent action. Necessity is the emotional drive that makes great performance a must instead of a preference.

Their responses often sound something like this: It’s just who I am. I can’t imagine doing anything else. This is what I was made to do. There’s also a sense of obligation and urgency: People need me now; they’re counting on me. I can’t miss this opportunity. If I don’t do this now, I’ll regret it forever.

The responses of high achivers to why?

We’ve found that two specific internal forces—personal standards of excellence and obsession with a topic—are particularly powerful in determining your ability to succeed over the long term.

But high performers care even more about excellence and thus put more effort into their activities than others do.

almost all modern success research. When people speak of “grit,” they’re talking about combined passion and perseverance.

People who become world-class at anything focus longer and harder on their craft.11

But a certain degree of insanity and recklessness is necessary to advance or innovate anything, to make any new or remarkable or meaningful contributions. What great thing was ever accomplished without a little recklessness? So-called recklessness was required for the extraordinary to happen: crossing the oceans, ending slavery, rocketing man into space, building skyscrapers, decoding the genome, starting new businesses, and innovating entire industries.

When you are passionate about what you do, people understand. When you are obsessed, they think you’re mad. That’s the difference.

is this almost reckless obsession for mastering something that makes us feel the imperative to perform at higher levels.

But what they lack is that one thing, that abiding and unquenchable obsession. You know within minutes of meeting someone whether they have an obsession. If they have it, they’re curious, engaged, excited to learn and talk about something specific and deeply important to them. They say things like “I love doing what I do so much, I’m sort of obsessed.” Or “I live, eat, and breathe this; I can’t imagine doing something else—this is who I am.” They speak enthusiastically and articulately about a quest for excellence or mastery in their field, and they log the hours of study, practice, and preparation to achieve those ends. Their obsessions land on their calendars in real work efforts.

They lose hours working at a task or improving a skill. And they love it.

It’s hard for underperformers to see that obligations are not always a negative thing, which is why we found that underperformers complain more about their responsibilities at work than their high performing peers.