By Victor Ochieng’
vochieng.90@gmail.com.
People, who take pride in in their performance, also take ownership, and hold themselves accountable to much higher standards. Shiv Khera writes about it in his treasure trove titled You Can Achieve More.
By and large, we all have our good and bad days in this life rife with strife.
There are glad and good days when we wake up in the morning, and feel fit and fine. We see ourselves to be in cloud nine. We feel some eureka moments. In a good day, the world looks nice like rice, productivity soars, relationships are right and things work well.
But there are also sad days when we wake up not feeling good, but just feel bad. No matter what we do, the tide of misery and misfortune sups gallons of energy from us to a great extent. We wake up feeling hopeless and helpless. We walk out of the house to face a wild world; looking beaten and bruised. We feel dejected like wet hens. Instead of walking heads held high; we wend around hunched hens that have been rained on. We begin tottering like decrepit old men walking at the edge of the grave.
Bad and good days are certain like the rising and setting of the glorious sun. Life is just a mixture of good and bad; gain and pain; better and bitter; fame and shame; miracles and obstacles.
Sometimes, life offers us sweet and pleasant oranges. In such instances we manage to wear smiles wide like miles. But when life offers us lemon, most of us frown because of the encounter with the bad side of life. Yet, both occidental and oriental knowledge would acknowledge: When life offers lemon, you do not ask for oranges, but you make lemonade.
In all these things, one can press pause button and ask the quality question: What is the sign of a person wired to win? The quick response would be: the sign of a person wired to win is that on a good day or bad day, the person remains the same like the two sides of the coin.
On a good day, it comes easy. But on a bad day, the tide of misfortune takes a lot from us. But the one who takes pride in performance does not mess or compromise. Such a person seeks solace and peace in Romans 8:28: “All things work together for good, to them who who love God, and are called according to His purposes.”
Many times, professional singers and speakers get booked in advance. But on the eve of performance or presentation, anything can happen. Things can go south.
Just for the sake of self-disclosure, once upon a time I spoke in some schools in Samburu when I was seriously sick and weak. But I kept it dark. My host(s) knew nothing about my lows and highs. In fact, that dreary and difficult day, I was on top of my game. No one knew that I was tottering in the tunnels and trenches of bad health. I feel ill but still took pride in performance, for I had no otherwise.
People who take pride in performance just perform to the level of excellence; come rain, come shine. The audience fails to draw a dichotomy between the two instances, or see the difference in performance.
For people who take pride in performance, their self-esteen does not let them falter, fail and fall flat. Such ilk of people understand that there is a close connection between Positive Mental Attitude (PMA) and peak performance. People with high PMA perform even in the midst of mist, misfortune and misery.
Peak performers go for excellence. Not perfection. Perfection is far-fetched and far-flung. It invariably remains out of reach. Out of sight. Not on site. A perfect picture has never been painted. A perfect symphony has never been composed. Perfection is an illusion, a pipe dream. However, in the passionate and purposeful pursuit for perfection, people eventually find it easy to evince excellence.
Excellence is becoming the better version of oneself. It is saying no to mediocrity, which is being on top of the bottom. Or being at the bottom of the top.
Excellence cannot be achieved without taking pride in peak performance. Excellent people are prone to doing the right thing out of passion, not compulsion. People who are habitually quality-conscious hardly produce mediocre results.
People who take pride in performance stand for quality; excellence becomes their hallmark and benchmark. They set high standards for themselves. They hold themselves accountable for results. They always give more than what is expected of them. They commit themselves to life-long learning. They subscribe to the Principle of Countinuous Improvement (PCI). They are Total Quality People (TQP). These are self-motivated people, who endeavor to doing the right things first time and every time. They are result-oriented; they deliver even when clouds that scud the skies are lacrymose, and the weather looks inclement.
People who take pride in peak performance know that only quality people deliver quality output. Only when we consistently deliver quality do we gain credibility, dignity, reverence and respect. Most of the time, life gives us four choices – poor, fair, good and excellent. How high we climb the lofty ladder of life, will depend on what we choose. The sage said: Every job is a self-portrait of the person who does it. Therefore, autograph your work with great grace, elegance and excellence. That, basically goes beyond this two: intelligence and competence.
People who take pride in peak performance approach life like the Danish sculptor who was once asked, “What do you consider your best statue?” Without a second thought, he replied in post-haste, “It is yet to come.”
People who take pride in peak performance behave like the elite athlete who was impressively poised for a certain championship. He seemed rather nervous to the core of his bone marrow. Somebody asked him, “Why are you so nervous.” His answer was: “To compete with others I have to put in 100%, but to stay at the peak it behooves me to put in 150%.”
Men and women who take pride in peak performance behave like artists. They put their hands, hearts and heads in what they do. They dont just work for recognition, but they commit themselves to do the work which is worthy of recognition. They understand that professional qualifications do not necessarily make a professional — one needs more than professional qualifications to be professional.
People who take pride in peak performance are cognizant of the fact that only whole-hearted effort gives results. The key-word here is ‘whole-hearted’. Half-hearted efforts do not give half-hearted results; they give negative and damaging results.
You might have heard someone saying, “I will give it a short” or “I will give it a trial.” What such calibre of people are saying is that they will attempt it. If it works, fine. If it doesn’t, they will quit quickly. In fact, in their subconscious mind, they have decided to quit even before they begin it. They are starting from a non-committal mindset, which is always reflected in their behaviour and demeanour. It is a guaranteed failure. The veracity of the matter is: they will run at the first sign of a problem.
The writer is an editor, orator and author.
