1: Our goal? Peak performance.
In the final chapter of The Art of Impossible, Steven Kotler gives us “a meta-strategy for consistent peak performance.”
There are steps to this process, and we must follow the steps in a specific order.
We begin by aligning our intrinsic drivers or motivators: curiosity, passion, purpose, autonomy, and mastery.
Steven writes: “Because of the nature of intrinsic motivation, we have to start a quest for peak performance . . . with curiosity, passion, and purpose.”
This is not something that can be rushed. It takes time.
We play “at the intersections of curiosities long enough to figure out if a particular intersection is actually interesting enough to sustain focus for the long haul.”
Why? Because we don’t want to be “two years into ‘pursuing our passion’ only to discover it was only a phase,” he suggests.
How do we know if we’ve found the right subject to focus on?
“Well, if nearly every time we explore it, we find curiosity increasing and ourselves slipping into flow—that’s a good sign we’re exactly where we need to be.”
How much time should we dedicate each day to exploring our curiosities?
Steven recommends an hour, but twenty to thirty minutes is often enough.
“Learn something interesting about something you’re interested in,” Steve suggests. “Let the brain’s pattern recognition system chew on it for a while, then add in more information.”
Doing so aligns curiosity, passion, and purpose along with another intrinsic motivator: autonomy.
Because when we play with our “curiosities, passions, and purposes, we’re—by definition—doing exactly what we want to be doing.”
Not only that but since we’re learning, we are also training ourselves to walk the path to mastery, the fifth and final intrinsic motivator.
3: Now, it’s time to layer in goal-setting.
We begin with our “Massively Transformative Purpose,” or MTP, the mission statement for our lives.
Next, we chunk down our mission statement into a series of high, hard goals. These are the steps required to achieve our MTP.
Finally, we reduce our high, hard goals into clear goals—our “daily attack plan, a set of small and precise targets that sit inside the challenge-skills sweet spot,” he writes.
Voila! A checklist.
As in, “Create the first ten slides of a PowerPoint presentation. Have a conversation with a supplier. Write 500 words of the company newsletter.”
These are straightforward tasks, simple “to-do’s” on our checklist.
3: But that’s not enough by itself. What’s required? Commitment.
“If it goes on our list, we’ve given your word to ourselves,” Steven suggests.” Either cross it off the list or—when the challenge turns out to be much harder than expected—chunk it down into a smaller task, accomplish that smaller task, then move the rest onto tomorrow’s checklist.”
We are on a mission. When we achieve everything on today’s clear-goals list, we’ve taken a step toward achieving our high, hard goals.
“One little win at a time, that’s how this works,” he notes. “Stacking little win atop little win atop little win—especially if a few of those wins produce flow—is how we gain momentum.”
More tomorrow!
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Reflection: Where is my biggest area of opportunity to achieve peak performance? Aligning my intrinsic motivators? Layering in goal setting? Having clear goals each day?
Action: Discuss with a family member, friend, or colleague.
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