Do you follow your own rules?

Rules almost guarantee success.

Welcome to the Self-Performance-Strategies (S-P-S) Newsletter 

Estimated read time 3-minutes:

“You have to learn the rules of the game. And then you have to play better than anyone else.”

- Unknown

I had no rules, but I knew I wanted to improve. 

In early 2013 I picked up my first self-help book:

Robin Sharma’s The Leader Who Had No Title.

While I’d read a little Stoicism and watched some motivational-type Youtube videos, I had never read a book in this genre before.

This book was the spark.

After reading it, I put into action a lot of new habits I now do every day:

• Meditation

• Getting up early

• Journaling daily

These habits changed my life.

They provided structure where there was no structure before.

And during that time period, I was promoted in my sales role 4 times in just over 2 years.

These habits gave me momentum.

But it all fell apart.

I had sprinted before learning to walk.

I ended up stressed out, overwhelmed, and lost.

It didn’t matter how much meditation, journaling, or working out I did.

I was in a situation I didn’t want to be in.

I was in a role that had a title, but I disliked the work.

I had not defined what I wanted success or my life to look like.

I had let the momentum of success take me to a destination I thought looked good.

But when I got there, I realized I didn’t want it.

The next year or so was horrible. 

I stayed in a role, thinking it would get better. However, it never did.

The money was good, but looking back, I should have left much earlier.

By the summer of 2016, I found myself unemployed by choice.

I needed to change the direction of my life.

I loved that summer.

I got up each day and read books.

I went for long walks.

I went to yoga classes.

I did a handful of personal development courses.

I then found a role in a corporate office a few months later.

A big shift in career for a sales and retail guy.

By late August 2016, I was back at work.

But, before jumping into the job feet first and letting momentum take me to places I didn’t want to go, I asked myself:

What will help me not to make the same mistakes?

I knew in 2016 I didn’t want to go into another organization and end up in a role I didn’t want to be in. 

While I had all the personal development habits and big goals for my future and a sense of direction, something was missing:

I was missing rules.

I was missing guidelines for my life.

I was missing a filter to pass ideas, projects, and roles through.

I was missing foundations that framed and defined my performance and success.

Before starting a new role in 2016, I came up with 7 Performance Principles:

• You can perform at a high level

• Leading yourself is key to performance

• Master your inner game

• Link your performance to your strengths

• Focus on what you want and define success

• Creativity needs organization

• Rest, recharge, refocus

So, what did having these principles do for me?

They gave me the confidence to say yes to what I wanted and no to what did not work for me.

Having these rules framed everything I did.

If something fell outside the scope of these rules, I wouldn’t do it.

This meant I ended up moving toward what I wanted faster.

I tapped into momentum again.

But this time, it led to me being promoted 5 times in 4 years and starting a business.

Having rules, frameworks, and guidelines completed my jigsaw puzzle of life improvement.

I have the habits

I have the big goals

I now have the framing.

Take a look at each rule separately and then go and make your own:

You can perform at a high level:

If you don’t think you can perform, you won’t.

If you don’t think you can succeed, you won’t.

High performance comes from abundant self-belief.

Daily, build that belief by stacking your wins, no matter how small.

Leading yourself is key to performance:

You can read, learn, and attempt to use all the habits and systems in the world, but if you don’t know how to lead yourself or have no self-discipline, no system will work.

Build your discipline and show up every day and lead yourself to your goals

Master your inner game:

You will hit a barrier with your performance at a certain point.

Hacks and systems can’t help get past deep emotional anchors.

You have to face these emotional issues, overcome them, or be aware of them if you want to succeed.

Link your performance to your strengths:

You should work to improve your strengths.

Don’t focus on your weakness; this does not improve your performance.

You can become world-class in the skills and areas you are naturally good at.

There is a limit to how far you can improve a weakness. 

Focus on what you want and define success:

Always move towards the positive with momentum.

You should know what you want to achieve in each key pillar of your life.

Not being specific on a positive end goal is a pointless waste of energy.

Creativity needs organization:

The more organized you are, the easier it is to succeed.

When you are organized mentally, emotionally, and physically, deep work and high-performance flow are much easier to tap into.

Organization leads to creativity.

Rest, recharge, refocus:

Your sleep must be elite. 

Your diet must be elite. 

Your exercise must be elite.

Your reading and journaling must be elite.

Your downtime must be elite if you want elite performance levels. 

Use these 7 rules to create your own.

I have updated these rules over the last 5 years.

But they have given me the right mental structures needed to win.

You will find it easier to reach your goals, and momentum won’t take you to places you don’t want to go if you build your own.

Developing your own rules could be the missing piece to your jigsaw puzzle of success. 

Before we go, a few announcements:

The SPS Podcast passed episode 34 this week. Thank you to all the listeners.

You can check out episode 34 here: Performance Origins with Alex Mathers.

Big love.

Make it a great one,

Stephen