There are seven steps to achieve peak performance..........live up to your fullest potential, learn to use these skills.

Achieving Peak Performance

There are seven steps to achieve peak performance. The first step is to lead awell-rounded life. High achievers, according to experts, are obsessed people who take work home and then labor over it until bedtime. Furthermore, research has also shown that such people tend to peak early and then go into a decline or level off. They then become addicted to work itself, with less concern for results.

High performers, in contrast, are willing to work hard - but within strict limits. For them, work is not everything and they know how to relax. They are able to leave work at the office. They value close friendships and family life, and spend a healthy amount of time with their families.

The second step is to select a career you care about. Studies show that high performers choose work they truly prefer, and spend over two-thirds of their working hours doing it and only one-third on disliked tasks. They want internal satisfaction and not just external results such as pay rises and promotions. In the end, of course, they often have both. Since they enjoy what they do, they produce better work and the rewards are higher.

Rehearsing each challenge or task mentally is the third step to achieving peak performance. Before any difficult or important situation -- a public presentation, a board meeting, a key tennis match, for example -- most peak performers run their desired actions through in their minds over and over again. Nearly all of us day-dream about important coming events, but idle day-dreaming is not the same as a deliberate mental workout that sharpens the skills to be used in the activity.

In order to achieve peak performance, you also have to seek results, not perfection. Many ambitious and hardworking people are so obsessed with perfection that they produce very little work. It has been found that those with perfectionist tendencies earned considerably less a year than those who did not have such tendencies. In contrast, high performers are almost always free of the compulsion to be perfect. They do not think of their mistakes as failures, but they learn from mistakes so that they can do better the next time.

The next step is to be willing to take risks. Most people are willing to settle for jobs which they think are secure, even if that also means mediocrity and boredom, rather than take chances. High performers, on the other hand, are able to take risks because they would carefully consider how they would adjust and how they would salvage the situation if, in reality they did fail. Constructing a 'worst-case' scenario allows them to make a rational choice.

The penultimate step to achieving peak performance is not to underestimate your own, potential. Most of us think we know our own limits, but much of what we 'know' is not knowledge at all. It could be a belief which is erroneous and self-limiting. These types of beliefs are the biggest barriers to achieving high-level performance. Too many of us set our individual limits far below what we can actually achieve. High performers, on the contrary, are able to ignore artificial barriers. They concentrate instead on their own feelings, on their functioning, on the momentum of their effort and are therefore free to achieve peak levels.

Finally, compete with yourself, not with others. High performers focus more on improving on their own previous efforts than on competing with others.

Such are the skills of high performers. If you want to make the most of your talents and to live up to your fullest potential, learn to use these skills.

Summary: There are seven steps which can lead to peak performance. Firstly, have a well-balanced life - work hard but know when and how to relax and enjoy your life. The second step is to choose a career you love since internal satisfaction gives better results and rewards. The next step is to rehearse a task mentally before actually doing it. Another step is not to be a perfectionist but to be a risk-taker, and to pursue results and learn from mistakes. High performers never underestimate themselves but concentrate on their capabilities. Lastly, compete only with yourself. not with others.