If life isn’t a performance how can the idea of performance be useful in how we live and lead?
Performance = potential - interference
Tim Gallwey’s quote is an invaluable framework to think clearly on what helps and hinders us in performing and, in performing, achieving the outcomes we want.
However, life is not a performance.
This was the response that became clear when presenting the Gallwey equation to a group of first year university students as part of a session on stress management and exam preparation.
For them the quality of their lives couldn’t be conflated to performance, that is accomplishing something, which was too often oriented to tangible outcomes which are also too often defined by others.
So, if we know that life is not a performance (and we’ll come back to this), how is the idea of performance useful in living and leading in life?
The goal of performance
In performing we have a clear focus, the performance. It could be a match, a show, a meeting, a presentation, an exam.
To orient our performance and guide our preparation, we have a clear idea of how we want that performance to go.
And when we think of high performing teams they often have a purpose that underpins performance or a string of performances. Performances become part of a larger performance, whether it is to win a league or to be the best team of their generation or to inspire the next generation. Or through the successful pitch or meeting, move one step closer to a company achieving its wider mission and purpose.
Applying this to us, what are we working towards? What makes this important? What is it really about?
And in working towards these things in life, what are the performances that this entails?
Preparation
With the performance/s, purpose and outcome clear in mind we can plan backwards and join the dots from where we are to where we want to get to.
In elite performance a lot of attention goes into the preparation and build up to the performance. Rehearsals and training sessions are often more numerous than performances or matches.
If we are to climb a mountain the last step is the climb.
Based on the outcomes we want in our lives, how are we currently preparing for what we want?
And what preparation would support us in accomplishing what we want?
Controllables and non-negotiables
Two terms synonymous with performance now are ‘non-negotiables’ and ‘controllables’.
In the context of performance they show up as
What are the things you can control? How are you focusing on them?
What are the things you will not compromise on, the non-negotiables, in how you want to and prepare to perform?
Both are valuable frames for our own lives. In terms of what we want, what is it we can control to have more of what we want in each day?
How are our plans and preparations making the most of what we can control?
What are our non-negotiables in how we want to live and lead in life? What do we need? What are our standards and values?
Detail
Alongside controllables is detail. This blog has spoken about the mundanity of excellence before referencing Dan Chambliss’ idea about the impact of very small, consistent things that make the difference in high performing contexts.
What are the small tweaks, or to take another performance idea, the 1 percents, that we can tweak to create more of what we want?
Rest
To be our best, which is ultimately the aim of performance, preparation needs to consider and include how we are ensuring we are our best. A key part of this is rest.
When we consider where we are performing day-to-day how are we recovering to ensure we can continue to perform?
If elite performance involves elite preparation and recovery, what is the standard of our rest and recovery? How is it setting us up?
What would recovery look like to enable us to always be our best? What gets in the way?
Review
Performances, especially in sport contexts are a combination of bigger and smaller cycles. Each match week is a cycle of rest/recovery, reviewing the last performance, preparation/training for the next performance, the performance and then a repeat. And the same applies to a season, there will be reviews, pre-season training etc.
How often do we review how we’re resting, preparing and performing in what matters to us?
What would a review process look like?
Metrics
Beneath the win/lose, good/bad performance, successful/unsuccessful outcome of the performance there are myriad metrics that help us gauge how preparation and performance is going.
These are essential to reviewing and refining preparation.
What are the metrics that tell us we are living and leading the life we want?
The interelationship of all our performances
Performances compound and relate. ‘Form’ is part of ‘perform’ we hear of players, teams, performers who are out of form, where one performance has a knock on effect.
Considering our lives, how does performing in one aspect affect how we’re performing in another?
What is the impact of certain results, or performances, on us and how we then perform and where we perform.
What do we lose in the pure pursuit of performance?
We are humans not performers.
In the pursuit of the outcome of performances it can be easy to lose sight of that, of the worth we have that is not tied to any of our performances, to the fact that we are fallible and imperfect and so all our performances will be.
So yes, to perform in what matters to us is important but our lives are more than a performance.
When we perform we are working towards an outcome. If we take the literal definition of ‘perform’ as ‘to fulfil, accomplish or carry out’ then if life was a performance it’s accomplishment is when life ends.
Our lives may involve many performances, big and small, but none of the performances can ever define our lives, which are the journeys between and through these performances that are missed if life is reduced purely to performance.
How can we use the concept of performance to support the life we want to live rather than defining that life as the product of our performances?
What is possible when we harness the idea of performance to live a life that is more than a performance?
