Beyond habits, what else holds most people back? I (Brendon Burchard) have found that many people simply feel undeserving or unready to rise to the next level. They question their value or await some external validation—promotion, certification, award—before they can start playing a bigger game. This is wrong, of course. You deserve extraordinary success just as much as anyone. And you don’t need anyone’s permission to start living life on your own terms. You just need a plan. And I promise you it’s in this book.
Sometimes, people haven’t sought greater success in their lives because they’re surrounded by people who say, “Why can’t you just be happy with what you have?” Those who say this don’t understand high performers. You can be wildly happy with what you have, and still strive to grow and contribute. So don’t ever let anyone discourage you from your ambition for a better life. Don’t minimize yourself or your dreams for any reason. It’s okay that you want more. Don’t fear your new ambitions. Just understand how to reach for them with more focus, elegance, and satisfaction than you did last time. Just follow the path outlined in this book.
The next chapter will reveal six high performance habits, the HP6, and give you more detail about how they were discerned. Knowing the science behind these findings will help you understand the nuance and power of this approach. Then we’ll jump right into each of the six habits. Each habit has its own chapter, which will teach you three new parctices to help you establish the overall habits. Finally, I’ll warn you about the traps that can cause you to plateau or fail, and I’ll leave you with the number one thing needed to maintain your progress.
As your guide, I will inspire new thinking, challenge you along the way, and help you become more mindful of what really matters. If, at times, I seem overzealous, forgive me. I’ve just spent a decade coaching extraordinary people, and I know the incredible results that await you. Unlike a podcaster or academic, I’m only compensated for getting measurable results, and I’ve done it for individuals and teams from all walks of life and all over the world. I’ve seen what’s possible for you, and it enlivens my entire soul as I write this sentence. My tremendous passion for sharing these ideas comes from seeing my students and the data prove these methods over and over again. So yes, you’ll have to forgive my exuberance at times. I truly geek out about this work. But if you’ll allow me to do that, you might also allow me to ask the tough questions and suggest actions that may seem tedious or make you a little uncomfortable. If I were sitting next to you, I’d ask permission to push you and challenge you and demand that you give your all. Since you chose this book, I have no doubt that you’re ready for the journey.
I should also share what you won’t find in the pages ahead. I’ve worked hard to keep this book as practical as possible, favoring strategies that you can apply to improve your life over stories about people you don’t know and academic details that you probably don’t care about. I don’t pretend that this book is a complete work of human psychology or achievement science; it is an attempt to filter twenty years of insights into a practical road map for you. In a work of such scope, there will inevitably be generalizations and open questions, and I’ve done my best to call them out.
Narrowing this book to practical habits was difficult. The first draft was 1,498 pages, and I had to make some hard choices on what to cut. To make the decisions, I followed the advice I shared earlier, which so many high performers have taught me:
To succeed, always remember that the main thing is to keep the main thing the main thing.
In this book, the “main thing” is to teach you the habits that will make you extraordinary. It is to help you understand the habits conceptually and also be able to practice them confidently.
So I cut some entertaining, thought-provoking material—profiles of historical figures or contemporary leaders, fascinating stories about lab experiments—because those things were better suited for my blog or podcast than for this book. I made this choice so the book would be more of a user manual than a collection of case studies or academic notes. I will share vignettes about working with high performers, as well as a lot of our broad research findings, but for the most part, I’ll focus on what you should actually do to reach the next level of success. If you would like even more human stories or case studies, check out my blog or podcast via Brendon.com. If you want a more academic approach and a deeper look into our methodology, visit HighPerformanceInstitute.com.
Here, I’ll focus on making this book useful and timeless so that no matter how often you return to it throughout your life, the instruction will still be relevant and exacting. Because our students always ask how these topics apply to me as a public figure, I will share some personal examples. But even those are ultimately illustrations of what I’ve learned from high performers. Since what matters most in improving your performance are six specific habits, I won’t spend time telling you about some high performers’ diets, childhoods, favorite books, morning routines, or favorite apps—all those things are highly variable, and we haven’t found any of those things to be strongly correlated with high performance. So I’ll leave those types of lifestyle discussions to podcasters and journalists who ask fascinating people fascinating questions. This book is different because it’s about performance, not personality or intrigue. It’s not a book of profiles; it’s a book of proven practices. Here, it’s about you. It’s about how to think, and the habits that you need to begin deliberately implementing in your life. Now let’s get to work.
* Source: High Performance Habits by Brendon Burchard