REGULATION
Regulation is the ability to manage your behaviour; to achieve high standards by controlling your impulses, thoughts, and emotions; to enhance your performance; and to reach your goals. As high performers we know how to do this. But after the celebration ends, your self-regulation can slide. “I’ll start tomorrow,” you say. Tomorrows come and go. You need to have discipline to stick with this practice when grappling with obstacles or confronting failures. Regulation means to delay gratification, accepting that accomplishing a goal in the future may mean saying no to something you want in the present moment.
ATTITUDE
Attitude encompasses a mentality of ongoing learning, focusing on improvement, and constantly challenging comfort zones. A champion’s attitude accepts failure as a step toward the next accomplishment. Attitude is the mindset that talent and basic abilities are only part of the equation; it’s a baseline accompanied by a philosophy of “I have just not done this yet.”2 On the upward slope toward a personal best, you are surrounded by people who remind you of this. But isolated from that environment, when things are not going well, you must choose to make meaning out of failure, be accountable for your mistakes, and then decide to grow. Your attitude is important for both short- and long-term peak achievements. You’ve got to manage your attitude every day, and equally important, maintain a good one as you move through the natural curves of life.
COMMITMENT
Commitment reflects the promise to yourself and to others that is demonstrated by daily action. Day-to-day behaviours inevitably lead you toward desired outcomes. Commitment is strengthened by working through the daily drudgery, challenges, obstacles, or failure that you naturally experience during meaningful pursuits. For example, every competitive swimmer understands that you show up for practice at 5:15 in the morning, regardless of the circumstances the night before. In a quest to achieve goals, commitment is not always a singular promise but requires the dedication and cooperation of others who also believe in the pursuit. For young high achievers, commitment extends far beyond the individual. Family schedules, vacations, and budgets may be focused on the child’s goal and, in some cases, an intense commitment from the family is needed for the child to succeed.
TUNING IN
As Martin Seligman describes in his book Flourish, at the heart of the concept of tuning in is the realization that one of the most important aspects of life is relationship and connection with others.3 When you are sensitive to your relationships with others, you create communities of positive influence and use your strengths for something bigger than yourself. Tuning in encompasses a desire to add value to your community—whether it be big or small, one person or many people—and links to a greater sense of purpose. It moves you from a “me” perspective to a “we” perspective. The LeBron James Family Foundation’s slogan “We are family,” for instance, exemplifies this perspective, and LeBron himself exemplifies this with his commitment to providing funding to the I Promise School, a public elementary school in Akron, Ohio, that supports at-risk children who are growing up in a similar environment as he did.4
IDENTITY
Identity refers to your sense of self. Some identities are pre-established (such as child, teenager, adult), but much of your identity is built up through life experiences and undergoes constant development. For the most part, identity is shaped by how you view yourself, how you fit into your world, and what you believe the world expects of you because of the way you’ve been recognized and rewarded. As you strive for a level of success, your thoughts, actions, and interactions all contribute to your identity. Additionally, group dynamics—your interactions with the people around you—contribute to and reinforce both the person you are on the inside and the person you project to the world. This is especially important to understand when you are in that messy middle. The world may see you as successful, but inside you might be falling apart.
CONFIDENCE
Confidence is the belief that you can complete tasks and solve problems and is developed in both the private and public spheres. When you pursue a personal best, small wins give your confidence a boost, and big triumphs bolster your sense that you can meet any challenge. We build confidence through effort, execution, experiences, daily routine, the support of others, and our environment. How much you believe in yourself affects the kind of goals you set and the momentum you create for attaining them. In the venue of sport, the momentum or absence of confidence is easy to spot. Tiger Woods missing a shot can snowball into a disastrous round. However, he can shift those moments because he has built a reservoir of confidence through his hard work, experience, and routine.
EMOTIONS
On a purely physiological level, emotions are a neurobiological response caused by a chemical release of hormones. They are a state of mind in response to our circumstances and perceptions.5 Sometimes we describe emotions with words like “mad,” “sad,” “happy,” and “scared.” But the practice of emotions for a high performer is your ability to understand and regulate your feelings and then direct your energy toward a desired outcome. Emotions can positively or negatively influence how you engage with others. For instance, in business and in sport, working in teams can be challenging. Successful businesspeople and athletes alike learn to channel anger about a frustrating outcome into the search for a better solution. While you journey along the arc of transition, you must learn how emotions affect your interactions with yourself and others.
SECURE BASE
A secure base is a safe place, an object (like a good luck charm), a person, or a community that provides you with a sense of protection or caring. In high performance, a secure base can be, according to psychologist George Kohlrieser, “a source of inspiration and energy for daring, exploration, risk-taking and seeking challenges.”6 Your secure base is more than support: it anchors you and is a dynamic two-way relationship that you can call on in times of need. Asking for help takes courage, and the level of trust you have with your secure base allows you to be vulnerable and take risks. When you lack, lose, or experience a violation of your secure base, you likely feel a significant gap and, sometimes, far-reaching ramifications, including on your ability to meet objectives, on your health, and on your behaviour. These effects can show up differently for each of us. It might be physical, social, emotional, or in your performance.7 The higher the performer, the smaller the secure base. You socialize with many but trust few. A young Michael Phelps learned this lesson in 2009 after being photographed at a party inhaling from a marijuana pipe.8
THE PRACTICES MATTER. But, at different times of your life, you may find that some are more important to you than others. Individually, each of these practices is a worthy pursuit. However, in any high performance pursuit, the practices do not function in isolation but interact and influence each other. For example, it’s hard to gain proficiency without a level of commitment. Exceptional performance is the combination of these practices. Paige Mackenzie exemplified this while discussing her transition from professional golf to TV broadcasting: “As I moved into the business world, the only thing that people ever talked about is what you do well. I have to ask, and beg, my bosses to give me things to work on to get better because that’s what I’m used to focusing on . . . I’m comfortable there.” With her commitment, attitude, and building of new proficiencies, she is creating an identity distinct from the one she had playing golf, an identity that works toward her personal next.
HARNESSING THE POWER OF THE PRACTICES
The practices create momentum as you strive for success. But once a meaningful life pursuit such as a sport or a career, or a role like being a spouse, comes to an end or changes radically,
