There are many ways to do superb work. One approach is to have a positive attitude and focus on a specific activity where you may have the ability to deliver peak performances.
Different people follow this approach in different ways. If appropriate, you may want to explore the following steps.
Passion
Many career coaches advise people to follow their passion. Others say this is not good advice. They suggest that people should focus on the things they do best.
Great workers often combine these elements. They pursue a passion where they have the ability to achieve peak performance. They may feel passionately about encouraging people, designing gardens, finding a medical cure, fighting for justice, caring for animals or doing another activity.
What are the things you feel passionately about? What are the specific activities that give you positive energy? What are the activities you feel passionately about where you may have the ability to deliver peak performances?
Purpose
Great workers translate their passion into a clear purpose. They may aim to write an article, climb a mountain, finish a marathon, teach an inspiring course, lead a team to success, build a certain kind of culture or achieve another goal.
People like to have a sense of purpose. They love to work towards achieving a compelling goal. This can provide meaning and structure to their days.
Imagine that you want to follow one of your passions and translate this into a clear purpose. You may want to express this purpose by working to achieve a specific goal.
You may want to write an article, teach a seminar, create a website for people with a particular illness or do some other project. What will be the benefits of achieving this purpose – both for you and for other people?
Bearing in mind the work involved, how would you rate your motivation to pursue the project? Rate this on a scale 0 – 10. Make sure the rating is at least 8+/10. Will achieving this goal give you a sense of peace?
Principles
Great workers often have a have a clear philosophy about their life or work. They then translate this into action by following their chosen principles.
Such individuals take this approach whether counselling people, coaching a sports team, leading a business or doing other kinds of work. They focus on the principles they want to follow and translate these into practice.
Imagine that you are focusing on doing a specific activity. What are the principles you want to follow when doing the work? How can you be super professional when translating these into action?
How can you build on your strengths and manage the consequences of any weaknesses? How can you follow your successful style of working? How can you get the right people around you who will complement your strengths?
How can you maintain good habits? How can you keep doing the right things in the right way every day? How can you make sure you are still on the road to achieving your picture of success?
Problem Solving
Great workers find solutions to challenges. Some even use setbacks as a springboard to success. You will do this in your own way, but it can be useful to ask some of the following questions.
Looking ahead, what may be some of the difficulties I may face on the journey? What can I do to prevent some of these difficulties happening? How can I manage these difficulties if, despite my best efforts, they do happen?
What can I do to stay calm during a crisis? How can I buy time to think and explore the options for going forwards? How can I find creative solutions to challenges? How can then pursue my chosen option and do my best to achieve success?
Peak Performance
Great workers do their best to deliver the goods. How can you do whatever is necessary to reach the goals? How can you always do the basics and then add the brilliance?
How can you encourage yourself on the journey? How can you manage your energy properly? How can you make good use of your prime times – the times of the day when you have most energy? How can you build in time to rest, reflect and refocus?
How can you keep improving? How can you keep focusing on: a) the specific things you are doing well and how you can do more of these; b) the specific things you can do better and how?
How can you be a good finisher? What is your successful pattern for finishing? How can you follow it when doing your chosen activity? How can you flow, focus and finish? How can you add that touch of class? How can you achieve peak performance?
Passing On Knowledge
Great workers sometimes want to go beyond doing fine work. They want to share what they have learned with other people. How can you do this in your own way? It can be useful to start by focusing on the What, Why, Who, How and When.
The What
What is the knowledge you want to pass on? This may depend on the project or other activity you have been pursuing.
You may have learned lessons from gardening, counselling, building houses, managing crises, coding, leading teams, solving particular problems or whatever.
The Why
Why would you like to pass on this knowledge? What would be the benefits for people? What are the practical tools they could take away and use in their daily lives and work? How could these things help them to succeed?
The Who
Who would you like to reach with the knowledge? Would they be young people, those with learning difficulties, budding entrepreneurs, athletes, leaders, scientists, social entrepreneurs, therapists or other people?
What would be the characteristics of these people? Would they be motivated and wanting to learn? What other qualities would you like to see in your ideal students?
The How
How would you like to share your knowledge with people. Different people prefer different methods for sharing know how. They may prefer, for example:
To act a positive model and show what good looks like on a daily basis by, for example, running a business;
To act as a mentor, coach, trusted advisor or to run teaching sessions, seminars, workshops or other forms of education;
To write articles, create websites, write blogs, produce learning materials, make videos, make television programmes or whatever.
The When
When do you want to share the ideas with people? What would be your preferred setting? Would you like to run a seminar, produce a blog, run a coaching session or whatever?
Peace
Great workers love to do their best. This can lead to them enjoying a sense of peace, which can take different forms.
A person who is adrenaline-driven may enjoy stretching themselves and reaching a specific goal. This may be followed by a rush of satisfaction and feeling high.
Such a person may then enjoy a sense of peace, but this may only last for a short while. They will then move on to planning the next mountain they want to climb.
Let’s return to your own life and work. Looking ahead, can you think of a specific activity where you would like to follow elements of the performer’s path? How can you do this in your own way?
If you wish, try tackling the exercise on this theme. This invites you to complete the following sentences.
The HoDifferent people prefer different methods for sharing know how. They may prefer, for example:
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