14 Characteristics of High-Performing People: Initiating Personal Growth

Give it Your Best Shot! 

Do you have a competitive mindset?  Athletes are wired to beat their opponents; they have the will to win!  They practice their sport to achieve high levels of performance.  Musicians and singers practice their instruments to give Grammy-worthy concerts.  Chess players study moves so they can outwit their challengers.   

Are you someone who compares yourself to others even when there’s no prize at stake?  When you do that, it may set you up for feelings of failure, shame or discouragement.  Try to interrupt your comparison mindset by intentionally engaging with others to understand how a personal growth mindset is an advantage.  Here is a story of how one person made that journey: 

Lynn has a staff member in his early 20s who said he wanted to participate in an internship program that coaches individuals to take on a directorship role.  After starting the program, he attended required master classes but didn’t fully participate.  After a while, he decided it wasn’t right for him. 

When Lynn spoke with him recently, he confided that he entered the program because he knew it was required to advance to a leadership position.  He resisted embracing the growth model of the organization and was not open to receiving coaching himself.   

Over time, he observed fellow staff members embracing their own growth processes and realized he’d missed out on that experience for himself. 

Some people know intrinsically that growth is important, even critical to achieving healthy relationships and they become voracious consumers of knowledge.  Others do not see the value of focusing their time and energy on their own growth process.  It’s an awareness journey for them.   

"Change is inevitable. Growth is optional.”  John Maxwell

Honestly grappling with the question, “Do I want things to be better than they are now?”  Whatever things you think of – your job, your relationships, your life – do you want something better than what you have now?  If you are serious about it, there’s only one way to achieve it and that’s by intentionally pursuing personal growth.  It’s the only long-term solution to moving from where you are now to where you want to be. 

Be Intentional About Personal Growth

There are plenty of short-term tactics – cons and smokescreens – to get ahead but ask Bernie Madoff how that worked for him.  He didn’t understand (or care) about personal growth.  Ask yourself, “Why not?”  In contrast, Paul Martinelli had a rough time growing up in New York and dropped out of high school at 16.  You can imagine how that leads to a life of working at minimum wage jobs and never getting anywhere in life.   

Paul bought a used vacuum cleaner and went around the neighborhood to clean offices and apartment buildings for pay.  As he gained customers, he asked other business owners, “How can I build a business beyond my own capacity?”  He listened to experts and took their advice seriously.  Paul signed up for sales courses and understood that investing time and money to learn more about business was the ticket to growth.  His janitorial company expanded and was sold for millions of dollars, a process he repeated several times over with different businesses.  Eventually, he realized that he could help others by teaching them how to turn a dead-end job into a multi-lane freeway.  He coaches people on how to discover their paths and find success just like he did.  You can read more about Paul here: https://paulmartinelli.net/ 

We know so many people that want to buy the “Coach-In-A-Box” program and expect it to fix their life.  They skim the material, run quickly through the action steps and check all the boxes but it’s not a sprint to the finish and the fastest runner wins.   

Ben thinks that about 90 percent of their coaching clients who dropped out of the program realized they didn't want to do the work.  They decided that it wasn’t necessary to do something different than what they did before.  They didn’t trust the process (we’ll say more about that in the next blog post).  They were expecting to play in the edges of what they already were doing, but maybe with a new twist or refinement.  They limited themselves to what they were already doing without creating space for growth and expansion. 

Successful people constantly seek to improve their strengths and mitigate their weaknesses.

So, it’s a one-and-done, right?  Well, no, successful people constantly seek to improve their strengths and mitigate their weaknesses.  This involves reflecting on what you’ve done for the purpose of critical but constructive analysis of the experience.  It’s not a shame cycle, but an honest review of what or how you could have done better. 

Consistency is the Key 

The other key is consistency – it ties in with an intentional effort to improve even if you are already pretty darn good.  Michael Jordan didn’t become a great basketball player by thinking, “Eh, I did okay today, I don’t need to shoot more three-pointers than I do right now.  I won’t practice anymore.”  While we’re on the basketball theme, Shaquille O’Neal was a forbidding mountain at the net and dunked many points.  But when his opponent fouled him and he was forced to take a free throw, it wasn’t so good.  He started practicing free throws daily and improved his score from 15 feet out.   

The rest of us mere mortals know that taking regular walks or working out helps maintain a healthy physique.  Sometimes, working with a personal trainer helps to set us on the right course, and have professional advice about the best way to use an exercise program to meet our goals.  The typical course is to build up to a certain level, maintain that for a while, then scale up to another level of activity.  Paul Martinelli understood that concept and continues to invest and grow in his professional career so that he can help others develop leadership skills.  Unconditional Living coaches apply these same principles in our coaching programs because we believe that you should never settle for good enough.  If you’re the smartest person in the room, find another room.  Keep getting better! 

BE – DO – HAVE  

You can avoid the trap of egotism if you think you are at the top of your game by taking stock and using humility to discern your current level of ability.   There is a difference between thinking you don’t need to grow and realizing that you’ve outgrown the environment.  When you have the courage to admit that you still have room for growth, you open your mind to new ideas.  Listen to others in the conversation, be curious about what they say, and access the knowledge and resources they bring to the relationship.   

Why is that important?  A growth mindset wants to BE more (having curiosity) and DO more (helping others) so that you HAVE more (satisfaction) in your life.  It’s a lather/rinse/repeat cycle where opportunities continue to arise, and you never settle for less than your personal best.   

In networking meetings, Ben’s introduction goes something like this: 

We help people who want to BE, DO or HAVE more life to make the most of themselves.  We help people who already know that they want it and know that they're willing to work on it to get started.  

When people want to know more about Ben’s coaching practice, he tells them the conversation always centers on character.  He wants to understand someone’s purpose and culture to get to the root of their being.  Lynn encounters people who disregard the importance of character – the being – they want to skip to the doing and having right away.  She often must convince people to focus the conversation to understand how the three elements are linked – and that the coaching process is a journey.  As we said before, there are no magic bullets – no quick checklist for “Six Easy Ways to (fill in the blank)”.  If you can check the boxes, then you don’t need the course!   

Becoming the person you want to BE requires having genuine connections with others, without using a formulaic process you bought off the shelf.  Once you know yourself well, you can use tips and tactics to amplify your character and build your business, without being “spammy”. 

We’ll talk about BEING more when we wrap up this series with our capstone blog.  It will show you how to build a personal and professional culture based on character and purpose using the 14 character elements in this series.