The Five F’s of Performance

As many of you know, I enjoy experimenting with fun and reliable ways to remember ideas that help me be a more effective leader, and to perform at higher levels as a coach, leader, spouse, father, and community leader. This led me to my latest experiment, the Five F’s of performance – Focus, Faith, Flow, Flexibility, and Forgiveness.

To accomplish anything in life requires us to focus on what we want, which implies intentionality and the ability to filter out the unessential things that could potentially distract us. Focus is about essential goals, our high-priority items. They are the items that support our purpose and meaning and make our life fulfilling. Learning ways to increase focus and attention increases our chances of performing well.

Focus needs to be supported by faith – faith that we are on the right path, and that what we are focused on (or something better) will unfold for us as long as we continue to believe and stay the course. Believing is seeing.

The combination of focus and faith ultimately leads to flow – a condition which at times feels almost effortless. This effortless activity leads to optimal levels of performance. Flow is made possible when we are appropriately challenged in an area of demonstrated expertise without experiencing a sense of overwhelm.

We will, however, experience bumps in the road, as few things ever actually turn out exactly as planned. Therefore, we need to be flexible and adaptable in the moment as a way of maintaining our energetic vibration – so that we can effectively deal with whatever comes up.

Lastly, we need to remember to be kind to and forgive ourselves – truly forgive ourselves – anytime we stumble along the way. We should treat those stumbles as learning experiences, and get curious about how that lesson can strengthen future performance.

For more tips on becoming an effective leader, email me at ralph@getemergent.com, or follow the Get Emergent podcast on Apple or wherever you get yours.