For today’s high achievers, finding sustainable ways to feel the satisfaction that comes from improving performance is an endlessly moving goal post. The one constant that can be controlled? Mindset. According to experts like business psychologist and executive coach Anita Kirpal, who works with FTSE 100 companies (the largest 100 corporations on the London Stock Exchange) at board or c-suite level, leaning into a growth mindset is key to unlocking our best performance.
“The world is changing really fast, and what was excellent yesterday may not be excellent today or tomorrow,” Kirpal explains. “If you don’t have that growth mindset, you’ll probably plateau."
Embrace a Growth Mindset
A fixed mindset simply means you’re working from the belief that things can’t be changed, and as a result don’t invest in improving yourself in that area. Conversely, with a growth mindset, you’re coming from a place of believing that things can change, and are willing to put in the work to do so. For high achievers, breaking a plateau and finding new ways to feel the satisfaction of excellence demands using a growth mindset to lean into areas of self-improvement.
“It always invites us to learn,” says life coach Amina AlTai. “Let’s say we don’t get the new job—instead of saying 'I’m not good enough', we can mine the experience to explore what we can learn from it to help us land where we want to be. We lead with curiosity instead of shame.”
Thanks to the increasingly blurred lines between professional and personal lives, employing a growth mindset to unlock these new possibilities requires taking a holistic approach. Performance coach Steve Davies, who first worked as an investor for over 20 years, has his clients look at their sleep, exercise and diet habits on top of analyzing their professional goals, all to support their best performance.
"The two go hand in hand,” he says. “If you’re healthier overall, you’re more likely to do better work and be better equipped to deal with the tough times. And if you’re in an enjoyable, purposeful job that means something to you, it’s going to be better for your long term health as well.”
Pause to Reflect
The first step in getting on the right path requires hitting pause. AlTai invites her clients to mark every ending by having them step back to walk through their celebrations (processing and highlighting achievements), acknowledgments (seeing what can be learned from missed opportunities) and closing (deciding what to leave behind and not carry forward).
“Taking this moment to pause and look at what we achieved, how we arrived there and what we’re going to let go of moving forward I think really turns up the satisfaction,” she says.
Pauses also allow the individual to investigate their meaning and purpose, with all three experts pointing to drilling down your “why” as a crucial step. To ensure that their goals are authentic to them, AlTai asks each of her clients to examine their gifts, what they value, what brings them joy, the impact they want to have and their needs, whether that’s tied to self-care or salary.
“When we look at these five pillars, we’re able to create a framework that is true to us, and will ultimately lead to higher satisfaction,” she explains.
Quiet the Inner Critic
Then comes the mindset component—ensuring you are coming from a place of positivity so that you are open to opportunities. For high achievers, one of the biggest challenges in trying to shift to a positive mindset is finding ways to quiet their critical voice.
“High achievers tend to have a critical lens so they can see what the gaps are. But this means their critical voice can actually drown out everything else,” Kirpal says. “Understanding how they can use it for good and quieten it when needed requires a lot of work around mindfulness, gratitude and building resilience.”
Part of this work requires reframing the way that we look at mistakes or failures.
“I don’t believe in failures,” AlTai says. “Sure, sometimes we take aim and we miss the mark, but I don’t think we’re ever off track. We get to walk through the experience, aggregate the data, take it in and aim again.”
For those looking to start to incorporate these tools into their own life, all coaches advise being realistic and authentic with your goals, and being thoughtful and intentional with the process of achieving them.
“At the heart of pursuing excellence is focusing on smaller, more achievable steps, rather than on some massive ambition that might be hard to achieve and demotivating as a result,” Davies says.
“Self-sacrifice is not a contribution,” AlTai adds. “If we push ourselves so hard that our contribution fails to exist, we haven't done what we came to do. The more we can be in the journey rather than focusing on the destination, the more satisfaction we’re going to feel.”