Coaching for High Performance. Or, The Motivational Strategy

Read time approx 4:00 mins

What does that sentence conjure in your mind, “Coaching for High Performance”? Is it the Olympics? World Cup? You. Your team? Just let that thought sit with you for a while.

What’s the difference between coaching for high performance and general coaching? What do you think would be said to Rory or Connor that wouldn’t be said to you?

Some people would say it’s the person being coached, some would say it’s the coach and others would offer that it’s the goal. All of these to a greater or lesser extent are correct and without one of the three ingredients, chances are – it’s not going to deliver to everyone’s expectations. If you were to picture yourself in a High Performance Coaching session, what do you think it would look like? Are you in a room and you’re part of a team or are you flying solo. Are you outdoors? Where is the coach? What are they doing? Are they pointing to a presentation, going through scenarios or maybe firing you up like Mickey in Rocky “You're gonna eat lightnin' and you're gonna crap thunder!” Maybe it’s Tony Robbins!?

The main ingredient in all of this is however the person being coached. You can have the best coach in the world, or the greatest goal to achieve but without you, it’s not going to happen. So a lot of what it comes down to is the motivation of the person being coached.

Go back to the previous question: “If you were to picture yourself in a High Performance Coaching session, what do you think it would look like”? Now that you know you’re the Pivotal Piece, how does that picture look now? Do you feel that there’s a stronger sense of responsibility on your part to achieve?

There’s a saying that a journey of a thousand miles starts with one step. That’s not really true though is it? The journey of a thousand miles, or one mile for that matter starts with the motivational piece that gets you to that first step. And it’s the motivation that keeps you going when you want to stop. It’s the motivation that lends strength to your legs to keep pushing on or to make one more pot of soup so you don’t buy crap at work, or eat crap at home. Motivation, Motivation, Motivation.

People are motivated by two things, Pain or Pleasure. We either move towards Pleasure or we move away from Pain. This works by how you interpret the world. Your interpretation of the world is unique to you and only you have that particular way of seeing it. In NLP (Neuro Linguistic Programming), we refer to this by the phrase – “the map is not the territory”. What this means is that your reality and my reality are different due to how we interpret the world around us. No two people see the world in exactly the same way. I might see a picture for example and notice how the people are painted – you might see the same picture and see how the colours are blended and we both decide for different reasons that we like the same picture.

So, when people are motivated by Pain or Pleasure, what does that look like? Imagine this: Your alarm and my alarm go off at 06:00am we jump out of bed, shower, dress, hit the road, drive side by side the entire way in and arrive in work at the same time. Looks exactly the same right? But let’s take a look at the motivation of each person. My alarm goes off and I’m out of bed on the first shout. Why? Because I honestly love my job and look forward to getting in and getting stuck in. ­In this instance, I’m moving towards pleasure.

Your alarm goes off and you’re out of bed on the first shout. Why, because you know if you don’t hit the motorway before a particular time, you’ll be stuck in traffic and you hate traffic. In this instance, you’re moving away from pain (the pain of having to deal with something you’d rather avoid) So while both of us get to work at the same time doing the same things, our motivational methods are uniquely different.

Understanding how you’re motivated is essential to maintaining focus and direction. It’s not the only piece of the jigsaw in how we do what we do, or why we behave as we do, but it’s a starting point.

Here are some questions that will test your thinking style is in terms of Moving towards Pleasure, or Moving away from Pain.

1. What motivates you? (don’t think of the goal, think of why you have that particular goal)

2. Is money more for freedom to enjoy life, or security (freedom = moving towards pleasure. Security = Moving away from pain

3. Are you in your job because you love it or because it pays the bills? (love it = moving towards pleasure. Security = Moving away from pain.

4. Knowing what you now know, remember a time when you used “moving towards (pleasure) or moving away from (pain), to do something or to avoid something.

5. Desperation vs Inspiration. When you make decisions are they inspired or desperate. A desperate decision making strategy is someone making decision based on moving away from pain (the decision being the lesser of two evils perhaps) while an inspired decision is based on moving towards pleasure.

Neither moving towards, or moving away from, is right or wrong – good or bad. It’s simply the strategy you use to interpret your reality. Remember, the map is not the territory. What’s right for me may not be right for you.

Understanding what your main driver is when it comes to your motivation gives you a huge resource for getting behind yourself and ensuring that you know why you’re making the decisions you’re making so that if needed, these can be either reinforced or altered to get you where you need to go and start coaching yourself for high performance.

If you enjoyed reading this piece, or feel there’s someone that you can help benefit by reading it, please feel free to share it with them.