Outstanding performance is one of the keys to personal and professional success that I discuss in several of my books: Straight Talk for Success, Your Success GPS and 42 Rules to Jumpstart Your Professional Success. If you want to become an outstanding performer, you need to do three things. First, stay on top of your game by becoming a lifelong learner. Second, set high goals and do whatever it takes to achieve them. Third, get organized. Manage your time, life and stress well.
I have great little book in my office called The Portable DO IT! Let’s Get Off Our Butts. I often turn to it for inspiration. I opened it up yesterday to page 95 and found this piece of advice from Robert Fritz…
The way you activate the seeds of your creation is by making choices about the results you want to create. When you make a choice, you mobilize vast human energies and resources which otherwise go untapped. All too often people fail to focus their choices upon results and therefore their choices are ineffective. If you limit your choices only to what seems possible or reasonable, you disconnect yourself from what you truly want, and all that is left is a compromise.
This is great advice when it comes to goals setting. Don’t be afraid to set high goals. The higher your goals, the more likely you are to become an outstanding performer. Mediocre performers most often begin with limited goals. As Robert Fritz says, when you set high goals for yourself, “you mobilize vast human energies and resources which otherwise go untapped.”
It’s a shame to let your personal energy and resources to go untapped. Set high goals and dig deep inside to do whatever it takes to achieve them. Les Brown, a well known motivational speaker says it quite well…
If you set goals and go after them with all the determination you can muster, your gifts will take you places that will amaze you.
To do this, you have to trust yourself. You have to trust that you can do it – and more importantly that you will do it. We are all capable of accomplishing so much more than we think we can.
If you’re goals are too modest, you’ll never achieve everything of which you are capable, and you certainly won’t become an outstanding performer. Outstanding performers are career and life stars because they reach for the stars.
Here’s another quote that sums up this post quite well – unfortunately I don’t know the attribution; if you do, please leave a comment letting us know who said these wise words…
The greater danger for most of us lies not in setting our aim too high and falling short, but in setting our aim too low and achieving our mark.
The common sense point here is simple. Successful people are outstanding performers. Outstanding performers are goal oriented. They set high goals, and do whatever it takes to achieve them. Then they set higher goals and do what they must to achieve them. They do this day after day, week after week, month after month, year after year. If you want to become an outstanding performer, you need to constantly challenge yourself by setting high goals. Aim high, and you’ll be surprised at what you can accomplish.
That’s my take on high goals and outstanding performance. What’s yours? Please take a minute to leave a comment sharing your thoughts with us. As always, thanks for reading.
Bud
Hi Bud, I absolutely echo your comments on outstanding performance. Outstanding performance just does not happen, it has to have a plan and a target to harness all our personal resources to that outcome.
I'd like to offer one other key and that is from time to time get a coach. There are times when we'll need independent input to help us see our blind spots and accelerate our achievement.
Additionally, regular personal assessment to keep our goals current. There is a unique approach I use as a management and career coach that your blog readers might find helpful, which can be found here:
http://www.bigmmanagement.com/a-key-to-performance-success-do-this-unique-assessment/
Thanks for your great advice!
JoAnn Corley
Posted by: JoAnn Corley | December 03, 2009 at 08:10 AM