For the last 18 months I have been fortunate to work as an Associate Coach with leading UK based consultancy, Planet K2.
The gang at K2 have decades of performance coaching experience in global sport and business. From Olympic teams to some of the UKs and the worlds biggest companies, K2 is passionate about helping people perform.
The following is an edited version of a blog written by Planet K2’s Chris Shambrook, a man who has helped GB Rowing since 1997 and worked at 5 Olympic Games.
Chris describes excellence as a habit, or the repeated application of good choices. He makes the point that these choices don’t have to be earth shattering – it’s just doing the simple and important stuff with discipline… every day.
Here are 4 points that will help your journey towards excellence.
- Simple questions asked everyday.What will I do today that will help me get better at what I do? And…what did I do today that has made me better at what I need to do? If the answers don’t come readily, neither will excellence.
- Focus your desire to improve onto the ‘right’ things at the ‘right’ time. Avoid getting caught up in fads or initiatives. Ambition without focus won’t see your performance improve in the areas it needs to improve in.
- Review your performance. If you’re serious about excellence, you will be passionate about your results, but obsessed with improvement. You won’t improve without honest review and holding yourself to account. Most people don’t like looking back in order to move forward – mainly because they find it painful to admit mistakes. Get over it or stay average.
- Excellence is not an endpoint. People who see excellence like this place undue pressure on themselves to reach excellence as quickly as possible. Think about your ‘pursuit of excellence’ as a way of thinking and behaving that will give you long term benefits.
3 things you can do now.
- Get a clear picture of what excellence looks like for your role.You have to have an idea of what excellence looks like for. It may mean copying a role model of excellence, but you have to know what you are working towards.
- Get a high boredom threshold.You’re going to have a lot of simple planning and review discussions with yourself and coaches. High performers do what to many of us is boring, but they do it because they know it will make them better…day by day. The highs of excellence are often built on hours of boredom e.g. do you train as hard when you’re the only one in the gym? Do you go to bed early so you can perform at your best the next day – boring but necessary for excellence.
- Make sure you have a coach in your pursuit of excellence.Who is going to challenge you, support you and make sure what you are doing is going to have an impact? lets be honest, most people who don’t have a coach do so as it makes it easier to take shortcuts.
If you would like to know more about Planet K2 and our work here in Australia, please give me a call. www.planetk2.com
Programs include:
Athlete at Work Program
Elite Team Programs
High Performance Masterclass
Performance Coaching
High Performing Culture
Nathan Burke Consulting 