The Three Principles of Optimal Performance

Raman Sakhuja wrote to me after a post I wrote to my cricketlab.co email list about A.B de Villiers and his batting strategy.

Raman asked  … “How about the mental strategy of the game? Especially dealing with pressure of expected performance and actual performance! I have noticed  that if I go with a clear head, strategy and cool and relaxed approach, I tend to bat better VS feeling self conscious, worried about peoples expectations – easily succumb to errors.

Any drills to sustain a clear head, strategy at different positions of batting order i.e. Opening VS going in at number 4 and so on?”

My response to Raman follows below, it is a teaser, as I speak to the Three Principles of Optimal Performance without naming them directly. I will share more on this in future posts.

It is to begin a process of clarifying a misunderstanding of how and where ‘pressure’,’expectation’,’worry’,’self consciousness’ are created and how to perform with a clear mind, focused, ready and relaxed. Please note, this is a general response to his question, as this is also an introduction to the Three Principles Of Optimal Performance. I have been exploring this with acting coach Jay Welsh, who is supporting his performers with the same issue. You’ll see why it is generic as you read on, as the challenges all of us face in life, sport and every arena of human performance are all variations on the same theme …

Imagine being able to design the perfect day and then live it, where everything just flows perfectly, your relationships, the tasks you do during the day. Nothing bothers you, it is a day of effortless performance. Free, easy, light.

Is this possible? We have all had days like this, maybe not often, but we have had easy, effortless days, so why can’t we have them consistently?

Our human experience ebbs and flows with our feelings and our moods, and our moods ebb and flow with our thinking. Human thinking seems to be like the weather, raining one minute, sunny the next, quiet one minute, then a storm blows in.

Yet, we do have these times when things do seem to just flow perfectly … so what about being in this space more often, having more flow, more lightness.

Human brains don’t stop thinking and in that thinking they come up with some weird
and bizarre stuff that can throw us off track and make us feel miserable, distracted or down. But, and it is a big BUT, we can learn not to pay attention to the thinking that gets in our way and would normally effect how we feel. Thinking that leads to us feeling anxious, stressed, fearful or low on confidence, and when we don’t think about that stuff, guess what? We feel good, we feel light, free and life goes back to flowing along.

So how do we learn not to pay attention to thinking that makes us feel down? Isn’t some of that thinking important to us, surely I need to know when I am afraid or anxious so I can take appropriate action?

Yes, if there is a real threat in your environment you want your senses on full alert to protect you, so you can make good decisions to ensure you are okay. Maybe you’re in an environment with a lion or a tiger, then that is a good idea, a poisonous spider or snake, definitely! Maybe you’re in a dark street or a car park at night and you need to be aware, to make good decisions to keep your self safe.

Yes, to all of these.

Yet the inbuilt stress response we have in our brain is there to protect us, it doesn’t have to run on full alert 24/7. It should only be activated when we need it, the rest of the time it should idle quietly in the background.

So back to my original question, imagine being able to design a perfect day, is it possible?

In professional sport, as in the arts and music, performers train to deliver perfect performance, time after time. That is their job, that is the expectation of the audience, to see and hear brilliance in the performance, to be wowed !

Yet, behind the scenes that performance takes hours, weeks, years of training and practice to get to a level of performance, where it does just seemingly flow perfectly.

In my work as a coach and high performance director in professional sport, we design the performance and then train it to be delivered with that level of excellence, with that wow factor. We know months, even years in advance when preparing for a world cup, the very day of a final, even the minute the match will begin. The team and players need to be ready and perform with such excellence to be able to win, years and years of preparation, learning and performance distilled into one final performance, to win a single match, to win a world cup.

It is a consciously designed process, to be practiced so that it isn’t delivered consciously, so the performers brain can produce the performance without conscious thought, to be wholly in the moment and adapt and flow with that moment.

Which means, by extension, with a little planning and a little practice ‘all our days’ can be designed to be delivered with that level of performance. To flow, easy and light.

Performers in all fields are normal people, they suffer from nerves and anxiety, so much so, that some wonderfully talented performers have never been able to manage their anxiety and give up on their dream, consistently overcome by their negative emotions.
They literally can’t deliver their lines or their performance, or if they do it is at a level that is far below their potential.

The three principles of optimal performance clarify and explain the fundamental understanding of the human thought process and how it creates our reality, it explains how we create our experience, moment by moment.
This understanding can help us to take off our minds the types of anxious thinking that leads to miserable performance. It doesn’t stop you thinking, it allows you to see how thinking works, what thinking is useful, what needs to be paid attention to and what can be ignored and let go.

When the thinking that leads to negative emotions isn’t engaged it’s like a sunny day not being spoilt by bad weather. That doesn’t mean that when bad weather arrives, as it will, that we try to pretend that it isn’t there! Of course it is, it just means we can see it for what it is and that it will pass and we can keep on track, keep our focus, trust this understanding, knowing that the sun is always shining on the other side of the dark clouds. That in fact the default setting for our day, for our performance and our life is sunny and that the clouds and weather that pass every day and night, are just that, the weather.

We are all performers, professional or amateur, whether we be student, pupil, stay at home mother, executive, sports person, artist, musician, actor … at some stage we will all need to understand the thinking that creates these emotions, to see anxious and stressful thinking for what it is and move beyond it. There is a place which is behind the thinking that created these emotions that is quiet, peaceful, calm and where optimal performance sits and is waiting to be delivered.

More to follow …