7 Questions To Ask Yourself To Gain Clarity in High Performance

Clarity is key in high performance. What do we mean by this? We mean that everything needs to be clear: the goal, the steps needed to achieve it and what success looks like. This seems obvious, but it's amazing how often people don't adhere to this principle. In this blog post, we'll discuss the basics of clarity in high performance and give some examples of how it can be applied.

The Basics:

How do we first find our clarity? Our clarity is formed in two sections our vision for tomorrow and how we treat others today. Without getting an understanding of these two key areas then we will not be able to find clarity inside of our lives and inside of ourselves.

Our Vision For Tomorrow:

Why is it important we understand what we want tomorrow to look like? So we can go build that vision today. Clarity is more than just simply stating that this is what you want to achieve.

It is understanding why you want to achieve this, and how you are going to go about achieving it. The blueprint to form a better life starts with understanding what that better life is, then attacking that vision.

Our Communications With Others:

We need to understand how we wish to communicate with others. This is an important step in gaining clarity as without this, we can not lead others into the future. We cannot build collaborations, friends, a network.

We will not be able to get help when we need it, we will not be able to build the software, gain the knowledge that others need, and are willing to pay for.

In our jobs we will be unable to work well in teams, we will not be able to express our viewpoints to others in meetings, and soon we can start to feel under-appreciated, lack motivation, and end up just turning up as another cog in the machine.

The Seven Questions:

1: I Know My Strengths & Weaknesses:

Unless we are honest with what we are good at and what we are not so good at, we cannot seek help from others who are stronger in these areas.

In your business, this means you may be wasting key players in the wrong areas, within a job it may mean you fail to get that promotion because you asked the wrong person for help or for an opinion.

You may have wasted time because you thought you were good in this area, but you never bothered to sit down and ask yourself if you were good or not.

When we do not consider this question, we are leaving ourselves to the ways of nature. When we are intentional on this topic, we begin to view the world in different ways.

2: I Know What I Want. I Am Clear On My Long-Term & Short-Term Goals:

Go grab a beer (or a glass of water) sit down at your desk, your kitchen worktop, your living room coffee table and take time to answer these questions.

You can break them down further into:

A Year Goal

A Three Year Goal

A Five Year Goal

A Ten Year Goal

After doing this you will be able to see what you need to do to achieve those goals.

Example:

1 Year Goal: Set Up A Business That Earns Roughly Half The Amount I Am Earning Now

3 Year Goal: Have My Business Become My Main Source Of Income

5 Year Goal: Have Several Sources Of Income That Mean I Do Not Have To Work & Can Automate My Business As Much As Possible:

10 Year Goal: Retire Aged X

Do you see how this one works? It becomes more about building on each goal, to the point where you are where you want to be in the next decade.

3: I Have A Plan To Get To My Goal:

If you do great! You can skip this question, but if you do not then let us go into more detail about this then.

A plan is about having actions you can take daily, weekly, monthly, quarterly. We then can break these further down into deadlines and deliverables. What are you going to deliver and when by?

The when is just as important in this instance as the what and the how.

Example:

Writing A Book:

Daily Goals: Write For Three Hours A Day Until The Book Is Done.

Monthly Goal: Have The First Draft Of The Book Complete.

Quarterly Goal: Have Either Self Published Or Got An Agent To Publish The Book.

Yearly Goal: Have Two Books Created And Published.

Once again these can be broken down even further into further daily goals as well as weekly and monthly goals.

But by doing this you then have a plan, you then have a way forward, you then know the road that you need to be taking in order to be reaching your goals.

4: I Am Clear About This… And This Helps Me Perform Better Than My Peers. OR I Need To Work On This… To Become Better Than My Peers:

Are you under or over performing in work? Do not answer this with a gutshot yes I am overperforming, because, for most of us, this will not be the case!

I know that self-scrutiny is hard work, and staring yourself in the mirror, and pointing out flaws in our work ethic, our weaknesses in work can be difficult for some. It was for me!

But it is only when we get clear about what we are doing better than everyone else, and what we need to improve to gain better performance than someone else that we then can set in motion a plan to get us to where we actually want to be.

We need to find out where we underperform and begin to deliberately work on these areas, as well as analyse where we are weak, then seek to improve on those areas.

Once we become clear on these areas, we can then either:

Find Help

Improve Ourselves.

Depending on of course what needs improving.

5: What Do You Stay Focused On To Keep Clarity On What Matters The Most?

We all need to focus, it is important that we focus on as many different key skills as we can. But the focus will not last always.

I can be rearing to go in the morning, but by the time midday comes I am struggling to stay focused!

But for me, I just think about the mission of helping people, and that keeps me going throughout the day.

For you, it could be the thought of getting the promotion or making that first sale, that keeps you focused and on task.

But, you need to find whatever it is and keep hold of it.

6: What Are You Not So Clear About And How Does That Affect Your Performance?

This comes back to our earlier question on strengths and weaknesses to a certain extent.

It is important to know exactly what you do not know, or are not too sure of, so you can focus your learning on that area, so you can grow further, and grow faster.

Our time is precious and our minds will do anything to save a mental workout, and so will try to keep us in our comfort zone.

For me, this was blogging! I have the knowledge and can write it down easily, so my brain wanted me to focus on this platform alone. It was only when I sat down and thought about what I am not so clear on:

How To Use Social Media

How To Coach Others

How To Form High Ticket Items

That I managed to start spending less time focusing on just making blogs each day but moved towards now having all social media working for me (except for TikTok) They start to go up next week!

By sitting back, I have managed to expand my knowledge base into asocial media. I have managed to grow. Was it easy no! But is it worth it yes!

7: What Else Do You Know About Yourself- Beyond Your Values & Strengths & Plans- That Makes You Successful?

There is more to you than what you give yourself credit for, that much I can certainly guarantee! But have you ever thought what that was?

Have you ever given yourself permission to ask that question?

For me it is my determination to never quit, never give up, to be able to find my way out of any situation using logic and calmness.

This has helped me throughout life, and I feel that it gives me a massive advantage against other people, who when up against the corner, will hope to get out of it.

By being able to do this I can always back myself in a tight spot or in a challenge to overcome that obstacle. It keeps me positive and keeps me always ready to face a challenge.

The True Bonus:

Now that you have asked yourself all of these questions there is one more part of this process and it comes under this question.

If you had to describe your best future self who would they be?

Now how do you answer this question?

Well, that is simple, rewind through all the questions above, and apply them to your best self.

This way you will gain a further understanding of who you are, and where you need to go in order to become that version of yourself.

Conclusion:

So this is now up to you. You have the choice to take an hour each week, to keep re-defining the above questions, which will lead to a more fulfilled, motivated, happy life.

Or you can choose to keep scrolling looking for a magic answer. Either way, you and only you can make that choice.

Until tomorrow this has been your coach Andy.