Barriers to Elite Performance
Q: What stops you from achieving greatness?
A: You do.
The biggest barrier to Elite Performance is the Performer.
It is human nature to blame problems on others, or outside forces, and take credit for successes. Some people are less likely to match that pattern than others, but most of us do this. Ask a student about their grades and what caused them. They are likely to say “He gave me an F” or “I got an A.” We are wired to think that outside forces impose failure, and yet we produce success. That style of thinking helps us cope, but is it true?
Here is a test: Answer the following questions?
1) A bank was robbed three times in the past year, why?
2) Think about the last time you were in a car accident, what was the cause?
Do you have your answers…
If you are like most people, your answer to Question 1 was, the bank is obviously doing something wrong. And your answer to Question 2 contained some set of unusual circumstances that led to the accident.
Although both are correct, both are also wrong, because both answers are incomplete.
When we attribute unfortunate events that occur to other people as being their fault, that is called "blaming the victim." Notice, that when we are involved in unfortunate events we often find many reasons why the situations was simply unavoidable.
You are stopping yourself from achieving Elite Performance for the same reason that people “blame the victim” when hearing about a crime and blame outside forces when describing a car accident they experienced.
Do you see the trend?
1) We FAIL to take note of the outside forces that cause or contribute to all events.
2) We FAIL to take note of the role we play in our own success and failures.
Both outside forces, and our own inside forces, impact the world around us.
A: You do.
The biggest barrier to Elite Performance is the Performer.
It is human nature to blame problems on others, or outside forces, and take credit for successes. Some people are less likely to match that pattern than others, but most of us do this. Ask a student about their grades and what caused them. They are likely to say “He gave me an F” or “I got an A.” We are wired to think that outside forces impose failure, and yet we produce success. That style of thinking helps us cope, but is it true?
Here is a test: Answer the following questions?
1) A bank was robbed three times in the past year, why?
2) Think about the last time you were in a car accident, what was the cause?
Do you have your answers…
If you are like most people, your answer to Question 1 was, the bank is obviously doing something wrong. And your answer to Question 2 contained some set of unusual circumstances that led to the accident.
Although both are correct, both are also wrong, because both answers are incomplete.
When we attribute unfortunate events that occur to other people as being their fault, that is called "blaming the victim." Notice, that when we are involved in unfortunate events we often find many reasons why the situations was simply unavoidable.
You are stopping yourself from achieving Elite Performance for the same reason that people “blame the victim” when hearing about a crime and blame outside forces when describing a car accident they experienced.
Do you see the trend?
1) We FAIL to take note of the outside forces that cause or contribute to all events.
2) We FAIL to take note of the role we play in our own success and failures.
Both outside forces, and our own inside forces, impact the world around us.
You must prepare for the outside forces and utilize your inside forces together, in order to achieve success and eventually Elite Performance.