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High Performance Year: 4-Step Plan
Valeriya Patrei
January 01, 2024
Happy new year! 🥂
Today we are talking about achieving that high performance edge and how to make 2024 your best year ever:
how to feel your best
how to do your best work
how to create your best contribution
Shall we begin?
Read time: 5.5 minutes
Before we begin: Here’s what you might have missed last week
In issue #21 of The Productivist, I shared what kind of system, you need to win in 2024.
You learnt the importance of reflection on 2023 before planning 2024.
You discovered 7 meaningful questions to reflect on the past year and got access to my yearly reflection & planning template in Notion.
To access the full issue, please reply back to this email with this number “21”.
Big idea #1: In 2024, get consistent at bringing your best energy.
Do not be passive about it.
Energy is not just something you either have or not.
Energy is what you either choose to generate or you don’t.
Do not wait for any events or conditions to give your energy.
Plan and design your lifestyle to have it.
What 10 things should you do more often this year to help you summon your best?
This is foundational.
Here’s my list:
Drink a big glass of water with electrolytes (salt or lemon) first thing in the morning.
Walk without headphones.
Meditate.
Take breaks every hour during work to move.
Stretching for 5-10 minutes.
Shaking off the stress (just like dogs do the “dry shake off” to release stress).
Qigong body tapping.
Pre-meeting movement routine + music (such as Odesza) to get into my best headspace.
Quality sleep.
Digital intermittent fasting.
Vitamin C, omega-3 DHA & EPA, and creatine monohydrate daily.
Schedule the nutrient panel blood test once a quarter.
Break a sweat every day.
Turn on favourite playlist to sign and dance to as a pick-me-up.
Breathe deeply.
Sunshine.
Green tea.
Morning mindset journaling (more on that later in this newsletter!)
Essential amino acids (I need to supplement as my diet is mostly vegan).
Reaching out to (or consuming content of) those who inspire and motivate me.
Speaking of #20, even these newsletter topics are inspired by our recent discussion during my mastermind with Brendon Burchard.
Do not move to the next big idea until you have at least 10 items on your energy list.
If you take only one thing from this newsletter, it should be creating this energy list to put on your wall to show up your best self more consistently this year.
Big idea #2: In 2024, learn how to deal with difficult emotions better.
Remember, everyone faces difficulties in life, though the extent and nature of these challenges can vary greatly and often unfairly.
But difficult emotions arise.
So, unless you learn copying strategies to deal with them better, here’s what you’ll resort to:
Distraction
Seeking comfort in food, social media, alcohol, drugs, or entertainment like Netflix.Drama
Being rude to others or gossiping behind their back - behaviours that are unhealthy yet common.Doubt
Starting to feel lack in who you are and what you have. Listening to disempowering inner voices that undermine your abilities and desires..
How to address it?
Step 1: Self-awareness
Figure out what are the sources of your difficulties in life (e.g. expectations, pressure, separateness).
Try journaling, meditating, or working with a professional coach or therapist to get to the bottom of these.
Step 2: Copying mechanisms and external adjustments
Learn better strategies to navigate them rather than resorting to distractions, drama, and doubt.
Key discoveries from my clients in 2023 include:
Realistic deadlines
One client realized the stress of setting overly ambitious deadlines in their business's first year. Adjusting to more realistic timelines (given it is their FIRST year in that business) reduced their stress.Deep breathing
Another client found deep breathing crucial for managing emotions during stressful workdays.Morning exercise
A client was reminded that starting the day with exercise serves a dual purpose: it sets a positive tone and acts as a form of armour, preparing them to effectively face daily challenges.
Do the work and gain life-changing insights to manage your difficult emotions better.
Big idea #3: In 2024, triple down on needle-moving activities.
High performers spend 60% of their working time on needle-moving activities.
Not 100%.
Do not be afraid of boring administrative tasks, but also remember:
60% is how much time you should spend on important projects.
All it takes is to:
Identify what activities are in your 20% that generates 80% of results.
Triple-down on that 20%, making it 60%.
Understand what you need to omit, outsource, or optimize (O.O.O. method) to make space for it.
Do less things overall. But do more of those few things.
Try this exercise:
Look over your schedule of the past year:
What meetings you didn’t need to have?
What projects took the most time vs. what projects generated the most result/biggest outcome?
What trips you didn’t need to take?
What events you could have skipped?
Most importantly, if you did not spend time on all the things you’ve just written down, what would you rather do with that time?
Now, knowing the cost of saying 'yes' to all those other things, do not feel guilty or ashamed.
Find the lesson in it.
What does it teach you about time management for 2024?
Big idea #4: In 2024, own your leadership.
If you are reading this newsletter, you are a leader for someone in your life.
Maybe you are a CEO of your company.
Maybe you are a leader without authority in your team, family, or community.
Because being a leader is about more than just holding a position of authority.
It's about how you guide, influence, and support others, and how you conduct yourself in pursuit of shared goals.
Own your leadership role this year.
Use it to create positive impact on people around you.
Consider the essence of great leadership - what does it mean to you?
How can you amplify that specific quality in your relationships this year?
Tiny Habit: Morning mindset journaling
Do not count on motivation to start your day strong.
Tap into motivation proactively by journaling every morning.
Whether you use High Performance HQ’s morning mindset template or prefer to write with your hand, here are some questions you should include:
What’s one thing I look forward to today and why?
What quality do I intend to live into today?
(To remind yourself the best of whom you can be, choose one quality. Why that one?)What’s my one priority for today?
Who needs me to show up my best today?
What’s one thing that may go wrong today and how would I handle it the best I can?
To whom should I reach out today?
(Maybe someone who may benefit from or who needs your words of encouragement or support)What’s one thing I can do today to create real value?
(For others or yourself)
What’s one thing I can do today that’s out of my comfort zone?
(E.g. speak up, make an ask, make a bold move, ask for help, take a big step, attempt, etc)
What are my priority projects this month that I need to keep in mind?
(Even if I don’t allocate any time to them today)
How will I know that it was a successful day?
If you’d love to have a physical planner that has morning mindset section with questions like these, I highly recommend the High Performance Planner, which has been my source of inspiration for building journaling feature in my High Performance HQ all-in-one productivity system in Notion.
The Productivist Question
I love coming across great reflection and gratitude types of questions in my feed, so here’s my recent favourite.
I’ve been asking it at every dinner table these days (and there has been quite a few of them during this holiday season).
What activities brought you unexpected joy this year?
Vacations, date nights, and parties are rather expected to bring you joy, that’s why you do them.
But what’s something that you had no expectations for but which left you with immense amount of joy?
Let’s make this year the one where you master:
your energy management,
your ability to self-regulate,
your time management, and
your influence & your leadership.
If you are up for this journey, you are in the right place.
Happy new year!
Valeriya
Two more ways I can help you
I have shared my High Performance HQ, all-in-one productivity system in Notion, last week, but if you missed it, reply back with one word “Notion”, and I’ll send it your way right away.
You can achieve your 2024 goals faster working with a coach.
Book your first session here if you’d love help with:
your energy management,
your ability to self-regulate,
your time management, and
your influence & your leadership.