No Limits: The Art and Science of High Performance

by Mukesh Bansal

well. I also saw a curious trend in the people around me and in their achievements: they started at more or less the same level but would end up with dramatically different levels of performance after a few years.

It is also no wonder that people who are the best in their field, train the most and work harder than anyone else.

With the concept of plasticity as the starting point, we will look at the three main ingredients in the recipe for excellence in any field: deliberate practice, motivation and coaching.

If you get a good night’s sleep, you will have more resolve to avoid temptation. If you meditate regularly, you will be able to focus for a longer period of time to finish a daunting assignment. If, on the other hand, you haven’t eaten for the last six hours, you will struggle to bring your full attention to a task. With simple lifestyle changes and regular exercise for the mind, you can hone your willpower like almost any other faculty of your mind. Given

Studies have shown that each of us is essentially a bundle of habits, accumulated from our environment, our social interactions, our unique personalities and random life events.

Learning can be a richer and deeper experience if you break down the process into its components, design it to constantly challenge you, and tailor it to your needs and goals.

Not only does learning offer a sense of fulfilment, but it is also enriching, like an elixir for the mind, as you constantly form new connections and discover fresh perspectives.

The experience reinforced a simple principle: you will not get what you don’t work for.

Another thing that I took away from this experience was the zeal to take ownership for my learning and invest my time in what made sense to me as opposed to what I was told to do.

When you face death, your mind works differently. You zoom in on what’s real and what matters. Everything else disappears. You make difficult decisions easily and take bold risks.

who may play a highly pivotal role in one’s life by providing inspiration, sacrifice, unflinching support and faith.

The truth is, we are surrounded by tales of heroes—real and imagined—from the moment we are born to the day we die. And so, the hero plays a powerful role in shaping one’s personality and aspirations. We are almost always aspiring to become a hero in the eyes of someone important to us, and sometimes, we strive just to be a hero in our eyes.

Any performance improvement journey begins with a desire and the belief that you can achieve a lot more with the right tools and effort. And by pursuing that journey or following your dream, you embark on your very own hero’s journey.

Storytelling is crucial to humanity because it is through stories that we understand ourselves and the world around us.

The experience of recognising failure, accepting responsibility, and identifying opportunities to learn from errors and reinventing yourself accordingly, requires a demonstration of resilience, creative thinking and problem-solving.

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‘The harder I work, the luckier I get.’ – Samuel Goldwyn

Nothing comes easy. As someone once said, ‘It takes ten years to become an overnight success.’ ‘What we repeatedly do is what we become; excellence then is a habit.’ – Aristotle

DELIBERATE PRACTICE MAKES YOU PERFECT

The daily habit of getting a good night’s sleep is a great way to start your journey to good health and better performance.

If you are able to squeeze in even fifteen to twenty minutes of running a few days per week, you will reap the benefits for years to come.

Just 2- to 5-kilometre runs three times a week will deliver more than 90 per cent of the health benefits that you need from exercise. With practice, you can comfortably cover 2 kilometres in twelve to fifteen minutes and 5 kilometres in half an hour.

Every time you use a muscle, it is a signal to that muscle to get stronger. Any

Focus and awareness are two critical elements of performance optimisation, and it turns out that the most effective way to take control of your mind and develop an extraordinarily high level of awareness was discovered in many cultures long before the advent of modern science.

‘Yesterday is history, tomorrow is a mystery, but today is a gift ... that’s why they call it the present.’

‘Effortless custody of automation’ is a great phrase that captures the spirit of the time-saving effect of putting mundane things on autopilot through habits, so that more of our mental faculties are available for challenging activities that require more cognitive effort.

of their abilities. Performance Hack #20: Make it Public Some of us have the best intentions when we plan our days and weeks in advance,

Observe whether fear is holding you back from innovation, take note of the fear and understand its source, so that you can gradually let it go.

‘What is now proved was once only imagined.’ – William Blake

Most highly successful people say that it took them ten to fifteen years to become an ‘overnight success’. The right mindset will ensure that you grow every day and inch closer to being that overnight success as you master your field and begin to operate at your peak performance. Mastering anything requires learning the finer aspects of your craft—from little tricks of the trade to deep principles, from the history of the field to its science. This process needs to be coupled with periods of trial and error, and learning from the masters of your chosen field. In the next chapter, we will turn to the art and science of learning and see how you can become a learning machine by going to the college of life every single day. 49

‘There is no end to education. It is not that you read a book, pass an examination, and finish with education. The whole of life, from the moment you are born to the moment you die, is a process of learning.’ – Jiddu Krishnamurti

‘Anyone who stops learning is old, whether at twenty or eighty. Anyone who keeps learning stays young. The greatest thing in life is to keep your mind young.’ – Henry Ford

‘Education is what remains after one has forgotten everything one learned in school.’ – Albert Einstein

So while studying, ask yourself questions, but keep consulting your memory rather than constantly referring to your books.

Some of this enhancement happens automatically through deliberate practice, raising the level of difficulty and repetition with effort.

Mastery requires that you derive intrinsic joy simply from the pursuit of that activity, irrespective of the reward involved.

A good apprentice is someone who eventually goes on to surpass the coach significantly, but only after he has absorbed everything that the coach has to teach.

As you work more and more in your field, you start to appreciate the subtle aspects of the job, and eventually, you feel confident enough to take the creative leap and try new things, even those that might be considered taboo or unproductive. But you find a way to make it work, and your work stands out as exceptional. Congratulations!

Mastery, then, is truly a powerful journey to be on. Who knows what areas and opportunities lie ahead of you in your pursuit of mastery.

‘First say to yourself what you would be; and then do what you have to do.’ – Epictetus

It leads to better quality work being done in less time and feelings of fulfilment associated with being immersed in meaningful tasks.

Routine is the key to tap into the power of deep work.

As Steve Jobs famously remarked, ‘People think focus means saying yes to the thing you’ve got to focus on. But that’s not what it means at all. It means saying no to the hundred other good ideas that there are.’

Performance Hack #35: Work like You Bake—in Batches

The key is to have a routine with an activity that is something you really look forward to and that leaves you refreshed.

Before starting a new activity or even when you return to the same activity after a short break, remind yourself why it matters, how it connects with your larger goal and how you can bring the best version of yourself to that activity, instead of drifting into it like an automaton. If you can make a thirty- to sixty-second intentionality exercise a regular part of your work routine, it can significantly amplify the quality of your effort.

If you choose to dream big, believe in your dreams and have the determination to give this a fair shot, you must start working on your productivity engine. Before long, you will be cruising at supersonic speed towards your chosen destination.

A recurring theme associated with creative work is a state of relaxed engagement, which allows the mind to wander freely.

When we are out in nature, walking freely, the mind feels relaxed and begins to engage in the process of shuffling through all kinds of ideas without judgement or any deliberate direction. At times, it can be entirely silly, but fortunately, the mind doesn’t care as no one is watching. In this relaxed state, without even realising it, the brain processes hundreds of permutations for something that we might be trying to solve, and eventually, we are likely to run into a breakthrough. This is a very different state than the one in which you are paying deliberate attention to something specific. Your absorption of new material and learning may be highest in a state of complete attention, but that is not the best mode for producing creative insights.

Italians call this ‘enjoyment of idleness’ (dolce far niente).

‘Life is never made unbearable by circumstances, but only by lack of meaning and purpose.’ – Viktor Frankl