Want To Be A High Performer?

Want to be a high performer? It all starts with a daily practice.

So what’d you do this morning? It’s a very important question. If you’ve listened to Tim Ferriss’ podcast before, you know that he’s all about interviewing accomplished individuals and deconstructing their high performance so others can adopt practices that will boost their own power and potential.

There is a question he asks at the start of almost every interview and it’s directly related to what their morning practice is. What’s really cool about the question is that more than 80 percent of the people he asks have a specific way they start each and every day. A myriad of reasons are mentioned, like getting focused, centered, grounded, clear, intentional, etc. All of these reasons essentially come down to one thing - creating an emotional and physical practice that starts your day on your terms, and leverages that clarity and tailwind throughout your day.

Over the past 20 years I’ve woken up at different times and tried countless techniques including t’ai chi, yoga, weight lifting, HIIT cardio, DVD programs, Zazen meditation, swimming, sauna, running, hiking or Tony Robbins “hour of power”. All of these programs got me out of bed and feeling pretty good, but none provided the right balance of physical, mental and emotional benefits to feel like I had personally found the right one. Fortunately, all of that changed about a year ago when a fantastic energy healer suggested that I try a chakra cleanse meditation that was highly regarded. I had never tried to cleanse or clean my “chakras” before but let me tell you that it’s really been amazing. Now I start my day at 5 a.m. and the first thing I do is grab my headphones and listen to the guided meditation. All aspects of my personal and professional life only seem to get easier and more enjoyable. Apparently if your energy is flowing freely your life will work and all things will fall in to place.

Feel free to try the meditation I use, Belinda Davidson’s Chakra Cleanse for Busy People, or try an app like Headspace to learn more about visualization and meditation. What’s important here is to start your own path of discovery for how you can start your day before anyone, or anything, has demands on your time. You can get yourself into a great mindset where the day ahead of you can be approached with joy, conviction and challenge rather than anxiety, fear and dread.

Trust me, I used to be “that guy” that showed up at work at 7:30 in the morning thinking that would make the difference in creating awesome and a solid start on slaying all of my tasks. Without the morning practice, I was just a stressed out overachiever that took too few vacations, was sick way too much and didn’t really get the important stuff done everyday.

While I can’t promise that finding your practice will make you an overnight success, I can promise that it will slowly, and very powerfully, change the magic and possibility of each day.