26 Nov Your Inner Athlete: Reaching Your Personal Gold Standard of Performance
Dr. Haley Perlus continues with tips about ways to empower “Your Inner Athlete.” This week, Haley talks about ways to reach your personal gold standard of performance. In your sport. In life.
I’m not sure if someone told me this analogy or if I read it somewhere. Either way, what follows perfectly introduces the notion of finding your personal gold standard of performance.
The difference between involvement and commitment can be explained by a bacon and egg sandwich. In a bacon and egg sandwich, the chicken is involved but the pig is committed.
If you simply get involved in your training, you will most likely achieve some results. You may feel stronger, more confident, and pleased with your progress. These feelings, however, will in no way compare to the exhilaration and satisfaction you will experience when you achieve your own gold standard through a full commitment to your sport, health, or business.
As Tony Gwynn of the San Diego Padres, and winner of eight National League batting titles said, “It’s easy to cheat yourself and do just enough to get by, but that’s what everybody can do, just enough to get by. But those who want to be successful and maintain that level of success have got to push a little bit harder and do a little bit more.”
Being committed requires three things:
First, commitment takes courage. You know the old saying, what would you do if you knew you couldn’t fail? Courage is committing every ounce of effort you have towards your goals even though you still might fall short. Courage is wanting success more than you fear failure. Only then, can you truly be committed to achieving peak results.
Second, commitment requires some sacrifice. Top professional and Olympic athletes, in every sport, are prepared to make the necessary sacrifices in order to progress. Actually, when you ask them about the sacrifices they make, many admit that, because they enjoy their sport so much, it doesn’t seem as though they are making any sacrifices.
Lastly, being committed means taking action not only on the activities you enjoy, but also on the activities you don’t, but are equally essential to achieving your goals. Committing wholeheartedly to your entire training program will feel like work and you will experience temporary pain and frustration. At these moments, you must use your outcome goals to fuel your motivation to stay committed to the plan that will give you the best chance at optimal success.
Now it’s your choice; you can be the chicken in the sandwich and probably earn some performance results. Or, you can be the pig, commit mind, body, and spirit, and give yourself the best shot at making your dreams a reality.
About Dr. Haley Perlus:
The event wears its name like a glove: “WOW.” The acronym is a perfect fit for Becca Tudor’s awesome Weekend of Wellness, relatively new festival (the 3rd annual gathering took place in early June 2015) that celebrates overall fitness, including ways grow a spine, man up – yoga, kettle bell, Pilates, cycling, kids’ classes – and also get educated about health trends in general through lectures by doctors, nutritionists, and renowned experts in the field of sports psychology. Experts such as Dr. Haley Perlus, a stand-out on a long list of superstar women featured at Telluride WOW, already a no-miss event if you are on a path towards personal transformation.
I attended Haley’s lecture about the psychology behind good nutrition and overall health. The holistic contents turned out to be a back door to ways to live a healthy life in general. We were all left wanting more from this buff, blonde brainiac, so Telluride Inside… and Out invited Haley to blog on our site. And lucky for us all, Haley agreed.
BIO: With a Ph.D. in Sport and Exercise Psychology, M.S. in Sport Pedagogy, and numerous fitness and coaching certifications, Dr. Perlus is an expert at empowering athletes of all types and health enthusiasts achieve peak results. An adjunct professor at the University of Colorado, international speaker, former Alpine ski racer, appointed Industry Leader for IHRSA.org, and author, including soon-to-be-released “The One Minute Diet and Guidebook to Gold.”
Dr. Perlus helps people reach their highest standard of performance. For further information and a free chapter of one of her books, visit www.DrHaleyPerlus.com
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