High Performance Habits: How Extraordinary People Become That Way

by Brendon Burchard

would have to do what I’ve had to do many times in my career: bust a powerful and popular myth about performance. There is a long-standing cultural sensibility that says we should never be satisfied with our work, because satisfaction would somehow lead to complacency. But does satisfaction really drain our motivation or weaken our resolve for excellence?

Dissatisfaction is disconnection, so people who feel it do not experience the full levels of engagement and joy that high performers so consistently talk about.

Dissatisfaction causes them to obsess about the negative, leading in turn to a habit of missing what’s working, and failing to praise or appreciate others. This negative focus prevents the kind of gratitude that makes life magical and leadership with others possible.

When our distant ancestors heard a rustling in the thicket and the crickets stop chirping, an alarm went up telling them something was off. That’s a good thing. But if overapplied in modern daily life, this same impulse doesn’t help us survive—it causes suffering.

As I serve my clients, I’m satisfied even though we might not get a perfect solution. This sense of satisfaction doesn’t mean I have everything figured out. It doesn’t mean I don’t care about the details or push the boundaries and cheer everyone on to get better and better. I’ve just made what I consider a simple choice in life: to be a satisfied striver rather than a dissatisfied curmudgeon. Whistle while you work, or grit your teeth and huff and puff? It’s a choice.

It’s like when someone says, “I’m successful because I sleep only four hours a night.” No, the lack of sleep isn’t what made you successful—fifty years of sleep science proves that you were cognitively impaired, not optimized.16 You succeeded despite being sleep deprived, because other positive attributes compensated for the deficit. In the same vein, I suggest that dissatisfaction was not the strength that helped you climb.

He unfolded his arms. “Good question. Who knows? Soon, maybe.” Three months later, the tabloids reported he had checked himself into a depression treatment center. If your aim is to maintain high performance, please, allow yourself to feel the wins again. Don’t just hope to arrive somewhere someday and finally feel satisfied. Strive satisfied.

It’s just that high performers rarely do. Instead, when they reflect on a time when they neglected something and it hurt their performance, they place most of the blame on their own shoulders. They take personal responsibility. Neglect was a shortcoming of their own. Their explanations for neglect, I found, can be categorized into two areas: obliviousness and overreaching.

What I found was that high performers simply thought about things that gave them more confidence than others, more often did things that gave them more confidence than others, and avoided things that drain confidence more often than others did. They almost universally reported that their confidence came from purposeful thinking and action.

Developing & griwing confidence

Finally, I’ll share something that a majority of high performers shared with me: Confidence comes from being truthful with yourself and others. You have to avoid the little lies that can easily tear at the fabric of your character. If you lie about the small things, you will cause a catastrophe when faced with the big things. Your heart and soul want to know you’ve lived an honest life. If you break that trust, you risk feeling incongruent and ruining your performance. Stand in your truth and tell the truth, and you’ll feel congruent.

I cant agree more