Michael Gervais has devoted his life to study both science and applied innovations of how people flourish. How we become. How we run to the frontier of our own potential, to live life to its fullest. Throughout his life of research of high performers, he has discovered:
There is no singular path, no one right way, no hacks, secrets or tricks. However, there is one thread that consistently weaves throughout the most extraordinary thinkers and doers: The way they use their mind. It’s the way they use their mind to find their very best – to be their very best – to do their very best.
High performers mindset: A high performing mindset is available to everyone. It’s not reserved for the athletically or intellectually gifted. It is not even about winning, or being “the best,” or getting world class results. It is about the ability to set your mind on the most optimized internal-posture for you to be your best. It is for all of us, without exclusion of experience, age, gender, ethnicity, or socio-economic status.
• It is the consistency of training and cultivating a high-performance mindset. In psychology, mindset involves the cognitive processes, attitudes, beliefs and expectations a person holds.
• It is the outlook and approach we hold relative to a circumstance or a task. You can have a global mindset, a learning mindset, a rigid mindset, a competitive mindset, an aggressive mindset, a high-performance mindset, and the list of adjectives goes on.
• Developing a quality of inner life is foundational the inspirational, aspirational and motivational slogans around human potential. The gap between the aspired life and how to use our minds to live that way
• Consistency of those thoughts turn into thought patterns. And over time, patterns of thought influence how you see the world; how you think about yourself and what’s possible in your life; how you approach challenges, let downs, successes; and even the quality of your relationships.
Approaches to a high-performance mindset:
1. Mindfulness: First, begin with increasing your awareness of your inner-world. That’s one of the primary reasons why mindfulness can be so powerful. A core component of mindfulness and meditation is the process of paying attention, on purpose, without judgement to your thoughts and emotions.
2. Self-Discovery: The process of developing deep clarity around your guiding principles and personal philosophy, that in turn influence your thoughts, words and actions.
3. Mental Skills: Like our physical body and our capabilities, we can develop and train mental skills. Knowing how to generate confidence, a sense of calm, deep focus are all mental skills that often come into play during difficult situations when it’s hard to maintain poise and high performance.
Gervais explains that he has come to learn that many of those who excel in life know how to set their mind to authentically express themselves. Independent of their chosen craft, whether that be in sports, the arts, relationships, or business, the healthy majority are able to consistently capture opportunities to perform toward their upper limits. They consistently perform well because they know how to consistently think well. They are able to live a high performing life because they understand how to generate a high performing mindset.