High Performance Habits: How Extraordinary People Become That Way

by Brendon Burchard

“Excellence is an art won by training and habituation. We do not act rightly because we have virtue or excellence, but we rather have those because we have acted rightly. We are what we repeatedly do. Excellence, then, is not an act but a habit.” —Aristotle

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. Everyone wants health, but they may think they have to trade it for success. They’re wrong. In survey after survey, we find high performers to be more energized—mentally, emotionally, and physically—than their peers.

When you knock on the door of opportunity, do not be surprised that it is Work who answers.

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.

If you would like even more human stories or case studies, check out my blog or podcast via Brendon.com. If you want a more academic approach and a deeper look into our methodology, visit HighPerformanceInstitute.com.

1. Take the assessment at HighPerformanceIndicator.com.

“Don’t bother just to be better than your contemporaries or predecessors. Try to be better than yourself.” —William Faulkner

“Motivation is what gets you started. Habit is what keeps you going.” —Jim Rohn

“Don’t ask what the world needs. Ask what makes you come alive, and go do it. Because what the world needs is people who have come alive.” —Howard Thurman

“Most folks are about as happy as they make up their minds to be.” —Abraham Lincoln

“You may not feel outstandingly robust, but if you are an average-sized adult you will contain within your modest frame no less than 7 × 1018 joules of potential energy—enough to explode with the force of thirty very large hydrogen bombs, assuming you knew how to liberate it and really wished to make a point.” —Bill Bryson

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.

“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

a warrior’s destiny is greater than his wounds.”

If I’ve learned anything from my research and a decade of interventions developing high performers, it’s that you cannot become extraordinary without a sense that it’s absolutely necessary to excel. You must get more emotionally committed to what you are doing, and reach that point where success (or whatever outcome you’re after) is not just an occasional preference but a soul-deep necessity.

NECESSITY BASICS “Necessity is the mistress and guide of nature. Necessity is the theme and inventress of nature, her curb and her eternal law.” —Leonardo Da Vinci

“Whatever I have tried to do in life, I have tried with all my heart to do it well; whatever I have devoted myself to, I have devoted myself to completely.” —Charles Dickens

“The quality of a person’s life is in direct proportion to their commitment to excellence, regardless of their chosen field of endeavor.” —Vince Lombardi

“To have long-term success as a coach or in any position of leadership, you have to be obsessed in some way.” —Pat Riley

If an internal standard for excellence makes solid performance necessary, then the internal force of curiosity makes it enjoyable.

“You never know how strong you are until being strong is your only choice.” —Bob Marley

“Duty makes us do things well, but love makes us do them beautifully.” —Phillips Brooks

“Without a sense of urgency, desire loses its value.” —Jim Rohn

A recent survey of 1,100 high performers revealed that their underperforming counterparts get pulled into fake urgencies or deadlines three and a half times more often than they do.20 High performers are more focused on doing what really matters when it matters.

A recent study found that by having a deadline, not only did people focus more to complete the activity but they found it easier to “let that activity go” and devote greater attention to the next activity.21 That is, deadlines help us get closure between activities, so we can give our full focus to what we need to be working on now.

“Not only must we be good, but we must also be good for something.” —Henry David Thoreau

In the game of life, you get to choose your identity—who you will aspire to be and how you’ll show up. That choice of identity will dramatically affect how well you perform. Consider the difference between these identities: Dabblers have a passing interest in the game of life. They look at many things and try many things. But they never really jump into anything with full engagement or commitment. Novices have interest, too, but at least they are intent on developing some expertise in an area. They jump in deeper than dabblers, but their issue is, they don’t deal well with discouragement. Novices stop at obstacles because they don’t have much of their identity in the fight. Amateurs have more than interest. They have passion. They’ve jumped in deep, and they truly engage a subject and want to get better. They get through more obstacles than novices do, but they tend to remain at an unskilled level unless they get fast and positive feedback or recognition. In other words, they need a lot of external validation to continue. Players have passion but also greater commitment and skill. With great focus, they teach themselves to master one area of the game. They excel and find themselves happy as long as they get their turn and get compensation. If the game changes or the rules change, though, they’re quickly embittered. Players desperately need the rules and routines. They don’t like disruption or negative feedback. They need a high degree of fairness if they are going to parti...

In addition to choosing a high performance identity, you’ll have to immerse yourself fully in activities that force you to stretch. You can’t just prance around thinking you’re good. You have to put yourself in situations that make you good. Fortunately, research has clearly outlined exactly what will help you find those challenging and immersive experiences. This popular concept in positive psychology is known as flow. According to Mihay Csikszentmihalyi, flow happens when several of these elements are in play: You have goals that are clear and challenging yet attainable. Strong concentration and focused attention are required. The thing you’re doing is intrinsically rewarding. You lose self-consciousness a bit and feel serene. Time stops—you feel so focused on the present that you lose track of time. You’re getting immediate feedback on your performance. There’s a balance between your skill level and the challenge presented. You know that what you’re doing is doable even if difficult. You have a sense of personal control over the situation and the outcome. You stop thinking about your physical needs. You have the ability to focus completely on the activity at hand.22

“The moment one definitely commits oneself, then providence moves, too.” —Goethe

Affirming the why has always been my secret to being prolific.

Over the past decade, researchers have made fascinating discoveries about a phenomenon called “clustering.” They found that behaviors, attitudes, and health outcomes tend to form in social clusters. The people around you even affect how much you sleep, the food that you eat, and how much money you spend or save.26 This dynamic, which has been dubbed “social contagion,” has been shown to have both detriments and benefits. On the negative front, researchers have found that bad behaviors and outcomes such as smoking, obesity, loneliness, depression, divorce, and drug use tend to grow in social clusters.27 If your friends smoke, you probably will, too. The more of your friends who are overweight or divorced, the higher the odds you’ll get there, too. Likewise, positive things such as happiness and prosocial behavior also seem to spread within social groups.28 For example, if you have a friend who is happy in life, your chances of feeling happy go up by 25 percent. Researchers have even noted that expertise and world-class performance in music, soccer, art, baseball, tennis, and other fields happen in clusters.29 This “contagion” effect is usually relevant up to three degrees of separation. This means that it’s not just your friends and family who can affect you. Research shows that your friends’ friends exert an influence. So do your friends’ friends’ friends. With each degree of separation, the effect of your environment becomes less, with nonsignificant effects beyond three ...

A recent study of over 168,000 tenth-graders helps us prove the point. Researchers collected data related to students’ academic achievement, socioeconomic status, and beliefs about their ability to improve with effort.35 As you might predict, students from higher socioeconomic strata performed significantly better than students from low-income families. This relationship, however, was offset in children who believed they could improve with effort. In fact, children who came from the lowest 10 percent socioeconomically yet believed in their ability to improve performed as well as kids in the top 20 percent who believed that their abilities were unchangeable. This means that the economic gap—and all the negative factors that often accompany lower economic status, such as higher stress, worse schools, poorer nutrition—were largely erased in children who believed they could improve with effort. Scientific research consistently shows that certain people maintain their strength even when the environment or culture around them is less than ideal.36 The difference is how they think. This means that with or without social support, you can use your thoughts to improve your mind, mood, memory, reactions, happiness, and performance.37

high performers spend more time with positive people than with negative people.

“Make a conscious effort to surround yourself with positive, nourishing, and uplifting people—people who believe in you, encourage you to go after your dreams, and applaud your victories.” —Jack Canfield

Still, you don’t need to spend extraordinary amounts of time or give tremendous mindshare to negative people. People on a path of purpose don’t have a lot of time for drama. So here’s what I advise: Instead of “getting rid of” all the negative people in your life (especially if they are family, friends, loyal peers, or those who are just in need), spend more time (a) hanging with your positive and successful peers and (b) building a new positive peer group.

This is always my first move in working with people who feel surrounded by negative people. Volunteers are spirited, positive people. They are givers. You want to be around that spirit of service for your own personal and spiritual development anyway. You also want to be around volunteers because they tend to be more educated and successful people. People with higher levels of education are more likely to volunteer than those with less education. In the United States, almost 40 percent of those over the age of twenty-five who have a bachelor’s degree or higher volunteer. That compares with 26.5 percent for those with some college or an associate’s degree; 15.6 percent of high school graduates; and only 8.1 percent of those with less than a high school diploma.39 Often, the people who staff nonprofit organizations, especially at the board and committee levels, are the richest people in a community.

“Don’t think about making art, just get it done. Let everyone else decide if it’s good or bad, whether they love it or hate it. While they are deciding, make even more art.” —Andy Warhol

“The day is always his who works with serenity and great aims.” —Ralph Waldo Emerson

the productive output of entire economies can be tied, for example, to their citizens’ nutrition habits.6

Another study found that students who were more cheerful in college were more financially successful than their peers over a decade after graduation.8 Even that old advice of “smile and you’ll get more done” plays true. One study found that just watching a comedy clip to bring some joy into your life before doing serious work can increase productivity.9

One study found that distraction lowers productivity by 20 percent.11 It’s even worse if we’re working on challenging mental tasks—distractions then can slow our thinking by almost half.12 Several studies have shown that multitasking itself is a distraction. It is incompatible with the peak-concentration states that are associated with high performance and quality work.13 When people multitask, they cannot focus fully on the task at hand because their brain is still processing their last unfinished task.14

“One of the most common ways for the modern person to maintain self-deception is to keep busy all the time.” —Daniel Putnam

I’ve found that it is useful to organize life into ten distinct categories: health, family, friends, intimate relationship (partner or marriage), mission/work, finances, adventure, hobby, spirituality, and emotion. When I’m working with clients, I often make them rate their happiness on a scale of 1 through 10 and also write their goals in each of these ten arenas every Sunday night.

“There is virtue in work and there is virtue in rest. Use both and overlook neither.” —Alan Cohen

The science is so conclusive on this that most organizational experts recommend brief breaks away from the desk at least every 90 to 120 minutes to increase employee satisfaction and performance.26 But my research, as well as others’, has shown that the number should be cut in half.27

“Nothing is less productive than to make more efficient what should not be done at all.” —Peter Drucker

“I believe half the unhappiness in life comes from people being afraid to go straight at things.” —William Locke

High performers plan almost everything more than underperformers do: from workouts to learning, from meetings to vacation time.37 It’s easy to get confused at this point, though, and become lost in tasks and overplanning. Lots of people will overcomplicate this. So let’s pause here and remember that the main thing is to keep the main thing the main thing.

I discovered that to get the result of number one bestseller, all that really mattered were these five basic moves: Finish writing a good book. Until that’s done, nothing else matters. If you want a major publishing deal, get an agent. Or just self-publish. Start blogging and posting to social media, and use these to get an e-mail list of subscribers. E-mail is everything. Create a book promotion web page and offer some awesome bonuses to get people to buy the book. Bonuses are crucial. Get five to ten people who have big e-mail lists to promote your book. You’ll owe them a reciprocal e-mail—meaning you agree to promote for them later, too—and a portion of any sales they might make for you on other products you may be offering during your book promotion.

“I believe the true road to preeminent success in any line is to make yourself master in that line.” —Andrew Carnegie