Purpose, passion, drive – these are some words that are often mentioned when talking about human performance. Yes, purpose, passion and drive are important elements in human performance, and they are attributes that organizations strive to develop in their people. But what happens when passion starts to dwindle, drive slows down and purpose disappears? Performance usually starts to deteriorate and goals and objectives are not achieved. This is often referred to as the “New Year’s Eve” syndrome – people make great resolutions, but once the passion dwindles, so do the resolutions.
I worked with a group of highly skilled sales professionals who started each new year with a typical annual sales meeting. Motivation was high as people learned about the yearly goals and objectives that needed to be achieved. After a few months I noticed two distinct types of sales professionals developing. One group was keen, focused and consistent in their day-to-day work. The other group had lost all their passion and drive for what they were doing and often barely achieved their sales targets. The difference between the two was that the first group knew the importance of the day-to-day work they needed to accomplish in order to achieve their goals, and demonstrated attitudes of acceptance, enthusiasm and enjoyment in the work they did.
Acceptance
Very often in our pursuit of our goals there will be the boring tasks you just need to do. This might be the paperwork, filling in time sheets, updating activities logs. These mundane tasks are part of the job and high-level performers accept this and perform these tasks with care and attention. Acceptance is a key attitude high-level performers have that allows them to keep achieving what sometimes seems to be impossible goals.
Enthusiasm
Yes, sometimes it is hard to be enthusiastic about the day-to-day work: commuting, attending meetings, revising documents. Regardless of the task, keeping a level of enthusiasms is important. High-level performers look at the smallest, most mundane task and find something to be enthusiastic about. This type of enthusiasms is beyond motivation, and this is what sustains the levels of motivation during the daily grind most people find themselves in.
Enjoyment
Workplace enjoyment is starting to receive attention given the fact that employee disengagement is at an all-time high. Leaders in organizations are starting to promote the enjoyment of working for their organizations. High-level performers naturally seek out things within their control that they can find enjoyment in. This could be meeting and working with people they really like, or it could be something as simple as reframing the day-to-day actives and turning them into something that seems to be an enjoyable pursuit.
Acceptance, enthusiasm and enjoyment are a few key elements of a high-level performer’s day-to-day work. If you incorporate them into your work life, it will surely allow you to take your performance to the next level.
All the best in achieving your highest performance.
Paul
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