Creating Your Own Performance Diary.

* Hi Groovers.
I hope that you enjoyed your weekend and that you’re sliding into the New Year prepared for greatness. Or at the very least, better. Today I’ve taken off my rubber nose and my yellow wig for just a moment and replaced them with my ’sensible’ teacher’s shoes (slip-on, of course) and beige cardigan (with the wooden buttons). Today’s post will be less mirth and hilarity and more practical teaching. Even I have to be grown-up and responsible sometimes. Enjoy.

Gotta admit, I’ve always been a fan of keeping a Performance Diary when it comes to my various goals and endeavours – be that with my body, my business or my creative projects. I expect all of the people I work with to keep a daily record too. There’s something amazing about recording behaviours, results, events and milestones in a journal as we work our way towards the ‘new and improved’ version of us. The moment we decide to diarise our journey is the moment we increase our chances of succeeding; of creating forever results. Somehow it keeps us grounded, keeps our head in the game, helps us stay focused and committed, is an amazing tool for keeping us honest and realistic and always proves to be a great reality check – you can’t argue with facts, figures and results.

My experience tells me that people who want to create their best body (whatever that means for them personally), that is, creating lasting results, are infinitely more likely to achieve their goals and maintain those results if they are more methodical and practical, and less emotional and hap-hazard with their exercise, lifestyle and eating behaviours.

I’ve said many times on this blog that we can’t rely solely on motivation to get us to our destination, as it’s temporary. What we need above the ‘feeling’ of motivation, is a mindset of total commitment – this is not something that fluctuates from day to day. It’s what keeps us doing what we need to do even when the process is not necessarily fun, easy, exciting or ‘new’ any more; when the novelty and the initial rush of adrenalin have subsided. People who are genuinely committed, finish what they start because they work through the motivational peaks and troughs. When most are throwing in the towel, they are changing up a gear.

Performance Diaries are without doubt, one of the most valuable, practical and convenient ‘commitment’ tools available to us. Used the right way, they can be the difference between ignorance and education, doing or not doing and ultimately, success or failure.

So, if you are a person who has history of ‘almost’ getting stuff done, a person who has been in shape (and out of shape) two hundred times or a person who feels like you’ve never fulfilled your potential, then I would strongly recommend that you choose to become more practical, methodical and realistic about your chances of creating ‘forever’ change via the use of a Performance Diary.

How to get started with your own Performance Diary.
1. Get yourself a practical diary. One that you can take with you wherever you go. In other words, something small(ish) and convenient. It might be a proper diary, or it may just be a cheap pad that you use specifically for this purpose; doesn’t really matter as long as you can write in it and read it – and it won’t fall apart in two weeks. Electronic diaries are okay, but I’m kind of a fan of the old-fashioned written journal.

2. Collect some base-line data. That is, information about where you’re at right now (before you start proceedings) in terms of your objectives; your current status. If we have accurate ‘before’ data, then we can compare it to our ‘after’ data (results) and gauge the effectiveness of our program (I’m secretly trying to turn you all into scientists!). In my field this usually means doing some kind of health and fitness evaluation in order to ascertain where the individual is at in terms of things like – strength, fitness, flexibility, endurance, power, girth measurements, blood pressure, blood sugar levels, cholesterol, bone density, weight and body-fat. We can also do some subjective testing like moods, energy levels, motivation, feelings of well-being and emotional states. You may (or may not) want to enlist the help of a relevant professional (or a friend perhaps) to help you with this part of the process. Be as methodical, practical, honest and realistic as possible with your evaluation. This part of the process might be quite extensive, or it can be as simple as measuring your current weight, girth measurements and daily calorie intake.

3. Work in 28-day blocks. While we have a long-term vision for what we want to do, be and create, it’s also valuable and practical for us to work in smaller blocks of time. Over the years I have found that four weeks is short enough to keep our head in the game (staying mentally and emotionally focused is our biggest challenge), and long enough for us to see some significant change if we do everything to the letter. Set yourself some short term goals for each of your 28-day blocks.

4. Write a lot! Although the diary concept can work for any type of ‘project’, I’m going to assume that for some of you at least, it will be all about changing your body – once and for all. If that is the case, then I suggest that you diarise everything which will have some bearing on the outcome (your results). When it comes to changing a body there are a bunch of variables and we all know that individual bodies respond differently to different stimuli, so you need to discover what works specifically for you. Not the guy on the TV, the girl in the magazine, your cousin the bodybuilder or your hot next door neighbour; you. This is one of the reasons why I hate people following generic eating and exercise plans – no two bodies are the same, so why would we assume that they need the exact same diet and exercise program. Into your diary goes things like:

Food – what you eat and drink, quantities, meal times. Don’t be vague, provide as much info as possible and be very specific. For eg. Breakfast: cereal (wrong). Breakfast: half a cup of oats, two tablespoons of wheat bran, one small banana and one cup of skim milk (correct). Include things like water, diet drinks, alcohol, coffee, tea – basically anything that goes into your gob.

Exercise – type of exercise or activity, type of equipment (free weights, machines) sets, reps, weights, intensity, speed, gradient, duration of workout, recovery times between sets/ workouts, revolutions (bike) – again, the more info, the better.

Lifestyle stuff – sleep (amount of sleep, time to sleep, time awake), energy levels (you may have to develop your own scale, 1 – 10 perhaps), cigarettes, drugs (hopefully not), medications, supplements, stress levels (another scale needed), moods and even (don’t cringe), bowel movements (constipation is a regular issue for half of the population).

5. Re-evaluate. At the end of each 28-day block, stop and assess your progress. If possible and practical, do all of your testing again, that way you’ll have some objective scientific data. Remember (when it comes to this particular process), less emotion and more logic. You don’t need to be a scientist to apply scientific principles. Once you have your results you can then evaluate the effectiveness of your program and make the necessary adjustments (or not, whatever the case may be).

Working with thousands of people has taught me that those of us who keep a performance diary (as per my above instructions): 1) will be more practical and less emotional and irrational 2) are more likely to stay committed to our cause 3) will have a consistently higher level of motivation 4) will be more accountable, aware and responsible 5) are less likely to have ‘bad’ days 6) will learn more about ourselves 7) will have a better attitude and outlook are less likely to lie about habits and behaviours and 9) are more likely to create forever results – what we all want.

By the way, keeping a Performance Diary is not about becoming neurotic or obsessive about how we live or what we do; it’s about maximising our time, our potential and our resources. It’s about becoming more effective and creating better outcomes. Once and for all.

So, if you’ve been going around in circles for a while, maybe it’s time to get a little practical and to start your own Performance Diary – you might surprise yourself.