Transcription
Why can you always work so hard for others and pull your best work for other people's projects, yet when it comes to yourself and your own projects, you never show up? What's the difference? Because it's clearly not your capability. For others, there are factors at play. There are deadlines. You're probably earning money. There are expectations and there's structure.
When it comes to yourself, this is a more familiar site. There's no pressure. You can't figure out your priorities. And you have this "I'll do it later" mentality. The really sad thing is you pull all of this amazing performance out of yourself. You can only give it to other people and other people's projects and work. And deep down, it's probably really annoying and it frustrates you because it did for me. It's and it's a problem I've now seen with hundreds of clients I've worked with over the years. And it's a really common thing we have to work through.
So, in this video, we're going to go over what causes it, and in chapter two, why the effect is so powerful, why it's so difficult to break it, and exactly how the mechanism works. And in chapter 3, we'll go over how you can make the whole system work for you and your own projects, so you stop working for others and you actually pull that performance out for yourself. Let's get stuck in.
So, chapter one, what causes it? It's environment. In those situations where it works really well, you have deadlines, there's pressure, there's eyes watching you and you have to perform. When you feel that pressure on you, you often perform. But when you're by yourself, you are often end up planning, researching, learning, and training, you're in this strategy mode.
Now, if you watch my previous videos, which hopefully I'll link up here, we have these two characters in your mind. The strategist and the performer. The strategist is the side of you that's really highly skilled at planning, an intelligent, deep thinker, great at strategy and complexity. And the performer side of you is the one who has to execute the plan, experiences the performance nerves, and feels all of the risks.
Now, your environment can act as a switch emphasizing which one takes the lead. In the right conditions, you you're taking action. You're in this performer mode. But in the wrong conditions, you get locked into this planning or strategist mode. So depending on what situation you're in, different versions of you start to show up. So when you're working for others, you're often in this action mode. And when you're working for yourself, you're often in this strategist mode.
So you're probably thinking, "Okay, well, let's fix this. Let's try and put some of those things in." So you try self-imposed deadlines, habit trackers. You try and be disciplined, and you try and be motivated. But you start breaking your self-imposed deadlines. You stop tracking your habits. you stop being disciplined and you lose all of that motivation. But the thing is the evidence is there. You've already proven it works and that you can perform at high levels. So what is it about this working for others that makes you so effective? We want to try and extract it and figure out what it is so we can make it work for you and your projects. Now it's not about how to take action. It's what conditions make you act. This version of you, it really does exist. So next up, we're going to look at the mechanisms which will help us understand how to build and find these environments.
Chapter two, the racehorse. So I want you to think back to what has already worked for you. There's something quite peculiar and this is spec specifically for people who really rise up and start performing in those moments. Now imagine being a racehorse. Well, when you're put on a track, what are you going to do? You're going to try and win. It's like having all of these conditions helps you extract the best performance out of you. When there's money on the line, there's a reward. When there's a finish line, there's a deadline. When there's competition, it gives you focus. And when your reputation's on the line, there's stakes involved. All of these conditions cause you to perform.
But the problem is, you usually want freedom with your own projects. And what does freedom look like? Now, imagine that racehorse is put into an open field. How do they respond? They have no direction. They could go anywhere. There's no urgency. There are no consequences. and there are too many options. You're this really powerful but wandering horse. The environment causes this switch. When you're on the track, you're taking action and you're in this performer mode. But when you're in the field, you end up planning in this strategist mode. Your strategist ends up constantly researching, overthinking, and in analysis paralysis. And then your performer is always wondering, well, where do I start? Has these vague instructions and is always uncertain about what to do. and it kind of often makes you quite anxious and stressed.
So what can you do? The goal isn't more discipline or to have more motivation. We can be quite smart about this. We need to try and figure out how to recreate this track and all the elements that are involved with it without working for others or being at work. We often want one output which is clear and visible. So that's the thing that you're running toward. A hard deadline with a date and time visible. Someone important can see it. And the emphasis is on the important part. We need stakes. It has to have a painful cost if you don't follow through. This is quite important, too. In these certain conditions, it makes your performer take over. The strategist will take a back seat. But for some of you, there's a problem. You start to self-sabotage. You start to move the deadline. You start to hide away so people can't see you. And there's no stakes because no one is enforcing it. So, how can you fix this sabotage?
Chapter three, building for your performer. So, we've got the strategist and performer here. One is a planner, one as a doer. The strategist knows what to do. Your performer has to face the discomfort of action. And this is where the problem starts. The strategist sets a deadline and then the performer just procrastinates or avoids it if they can. But we know your performer can take action. So what does the strategist need to do to make that action take place?
Remember, when you're working for yourself, self-created environments often feel quite optional. They're negotiable. You can remain invisible when you're working by yourself and there's often no consequence. Now, the key factor with all of this is that there's no emotional weight and then there's no activation. So, what we mean is you can be pretty numb to it. We want to create real deadlines you care about. Involving other people can make you feel emotionally tied up with it, which is a good thing, and have something at stake, which increases the pressure. All of these are emotionally driven, which is really important here.
Remember the strategist, they can't force the performer to do anything. We want them to help the performer instead. Their goal is to create the conditions that activate your performer. So, it's their job to find or build environments that just automatically activate your performer just like working for others does. Your performer's job then is to just focus on responding to the conditions. So, here are some hints. If they have a clear goal to work towards, that really helps. having show and tell or competitions which we'll go on to in a minute and a deadline they actually feel. So we can do that by doing a few things. So we got some examples here. We need this social pressure that you actually feel. I'm I'm really emphasizing this this idea of feelings.
Now when you have to present your work, that's when you're having to show and tell something. When you're involved in in active challenges with other people or competitions or project work or workshops, these are all things that can help activate your performer. They act as containers for your performer. So, we put your performer in these containers and they can usually rise up to the challenge. Think of this like your own racetrack. So, we want to find conditions that activate your performer because we know they will activate in the right conditions.
Now remember, now what I've learned from coaching lots of people is that everyone's racrack is slightly different. Some of these examples will work and others won't. Sometimes you're not competitive, but you like coordinate with groups and some people are just much more competitive. And some people just like having a very hard deadline or rise up to the challenge when they have to present to an audience. Now, you might be kind of wondering, do I have to do this all the time? No, you don't have to do this forever. This is just to help you start training your performer to perform for yourself and your own projects and trying to figure out how to build that relationship between your strategist and the performer. It's about understanding how you work. The key is what activates your performer. Remember that. So, you really want to try and find these various containers.
Now, if you're not sure where to find these containers, I've been working on a bit of a stealth project for quite a few months. It's called the 20our challenge and it's designed to rebuild your performer and we do it in a sprint over 20 days and we've got one starting really soon depending on when you're watching it. Go and check it out here. So in this challenge you'll join a group of people who are rebuilding their performer. There's live accountability tracking and an opening ceremony and a graduation and the idea is you pick a project and then you work in it over that period of time and it is like that racetrack. That was the idea and I've been experimenting with it. If you're interested in it, check it out. There'll be a link in the bio and you can go to the website. Uh there's an application and it will it will help you figure out if it is likely to be a good fit for you or not. The first time we ran it, by the way, 78% of people finished their projects, which was crazy. I actually it was really unexpected cuz it was only a beta. Go and check it out after this video.
You need to stop sabotaging yourself. Every time you avoid discomfort, your performer weakens. Every action in tiny doses, you'll find your confidence starts to compound, which is a good thing. And each time you show up, it's a piece of evidence that your performer is actually capable, which is a good thing. Please remember, you are not broken. You're just deconditioned. Your performer hasn't had a chance to operate in their own skin. Your strategist has been training for years for other people's projects and your performer has just atrophied here. So the goal is to try and start closing this gap. We want to get you up here so that you're working well for yourself and your own projects. You don't need more information or or training. By the way, you just need a training ground and an environment. Now hopefully whichever domain you're working in, there are some groups, cohorts, or programs you can join. But if you want to join one of mine, go and check out my program links in below. And you can check out my free community, the Momentum Society.