High Motivation and Obstacles to the Peak Performance 

Overybody loves peak performance and it is their desire to achieve it, however, many people are forced to quit due to the numerous obstacles associated with peak performance. As we already know that it is not easy to achieve peak performance, there are many obstacles that hinder people from seeking peak performance. These obstacles can be from you, or things around you. They can be limiting and make people perform below their potential. When you look into the life of every successful man, you will discover that before they could become successful, they passed through many obstacles which they overcame. It is never easy to achieve success. Tough times will always be present, obstacles will always be showing themselves but you must learn how you can live above it or at least not let it control you. Life itself is full of obstacles and hard times but it will not be nice to quit because of any circumstance. We will be looking at some of the common obstacles to peak performance below:

Fear of Criticism:

There is nobody that is on the path of peak performance that doesn’t face criticism. Nobody is above criticism. It can come in the form of positive or negative criticism. It is true that we get hurt by criticism and we often afterward get scared of trying again. The human mind is conditioned in such a way that it keeps a long memory of things we get criticized on. Criticism is possible of depleting your energy and in turn, decrease your performance. It also has a way, of increasing your anxiety level and won't allow you to concentrate on your work. But know that the talks of others don’t matter, as people will always have their opinions. Learn to focus on your work and accept only positive criticism that will build you. When you learn to focus on your work and ignore unnecessary criticisms, you become better, you build your motivation, abilities, and confidence. Find ways to focus on things that build you and your goals. Also never engage in self-criticism, it is a very dangerous state to experience, it easily leads to depression and loss of hope.

However, when you avoid criticism, you stop taking risks and you end up missing viable opportunities. You don’t run away from peak performance because you are afraid of criticism, rather you develop mechanisms to overcome and improve on areas you get criticized on. To live above criticism, you need to know the following: Firstly, know that anything that you are doing will either attract criticism or regard. So don’t be dismayed when it attracts criticism. You can’t fold your arms either and relax so as not to face criticism by others. Some criticisms are acceptable and are meant to help us grow, thus should be embraced. Never try to avoid criticism, it can be dangerous to keep shying away from criticism. Running away from criticism draws you back the more because it makes you stop showing forth your potentials. Your drive to achieve peak performance should be enough to overshadow your fear of getting criticisms.

Secondly, let your desire be to get better. It is important to learn how to derive strength from things that are meant to make us weak. Learn to draw insight from criticism and make sure you pick the good things from every criticism, let them help you grow. Feed on your criticisms. Thirdly, always find out the reason why you were criticized because criticism is on two sides, it is either meant to damage you or to build you. Knowing the intention of the criticism helps you know how to react to it. Some criticisms can be painful to bear and can be demoralizing someone. It is always advisable not to keep pondering over time in your mind. Criticism meant to build can help you achieve peak performance.

Furthermore, always choose whose criticism you accept. Not everybody is permitted to criticize you. Some people that can not even try to do what you are doing may be seen criticizing you, know how to discard their criticism immediately because what you allow will grow roots. Set criteria of people that are permitted to criticize you, people like mentors, helpers, coaches, etc., as they are likely going to give constructive criticisms that will build you.

Fear of Competition:

Competition is common in the strive for peak performance. Some people focus their attention on who is fighting with them without concentrating on how to achieve success. You should be aware that you are the only one on the path to peak performance. The presence of others doesn’t stop you from working hard, the sky is too big for every bird to fly. If an opportunity is viable, it is likely to attract many people. Everybody will like to try it out to see if it will work for them, as everybody likes good things. Their presence should be welcomed, they shouldn't stop you from working hard. While seeking for peak performance, always try not to be seen judging your progress with that of others as everybody’s goals are different. Judging your progress with that of others can make you deviate from focus and make you complacent about your goals. When you are focused on expressing fear of completion, you are wasting your energy. You end using up useful energy on things that don’t matter. The only competition that matters is the one inside you that you need to win in order to achieve peak performance.

Stop using others as a rule to measure yourself and your progress. Focus on your goals and set your objectives which you can use to monitor your progress. When you keep pushing yourself into a competition, you decrease your potential, you begin to lose faith in your abilities, you begin to see the less of yourself. You begin to lose peace and your rate of worrying increases. Most times when you want to do anything, you will be assessing it with the wrong mindset. Life sometimes places on in a position where we lose focus on what we are doing and we start comparing ourselves with others who we may even be better than.

There are many reasons why you need to stop worrying about competition. Competition is not a bad thing, it depends on the way you take it. It gives you an idea of how you are performing so as to know how to improve. It serves as a reference point. Competition reminds you that there is room for improvement. It makes you see what others are doing that you are not doing well, in that case, you can learn if you commit yourself to discipline.

Fear of Failure:

You can not achieve peak performance when you are afraid of failing. Failure spans beyond just getting results, people that are successful are not afraid to fail, they freely try out many things in which some work and some don’t work. When it doesn’t work they move on, because there are just two ways to every effort made, it is either it works or it doesn’t work. You lose every shot you don’t shoot. Fear of failure is a major channel for stress. It deprives so much energy from you. The bad thing is that this fear of failure is not necessary, you end up adding more troubles to yourself and also holds you back. Fear is a major barrier to peak performance, it is common to see the fear of failure in people striving to achieve peak performance, perfectionists and high performing people. Fear of failure brings about loss of confidence, tension, trust, and motivation. It alters reality and prevents you from reaching for your goals.

The common forms of fear for failure are worrying about disappointing friends, not performing at one's potential, getting negative results, making mistakes, about meeting people's expectations, assuming what people think or will think of you, fear of negative social approval, embarrassments, etc. It can also be a fear of letting our parents and relatives down if we don’t achieve the needed results. Sometimes we discover that fear of failure even comes from the things that shouldn’t matter to us.

Fear of failure often affect that are perfectionists the more as they focus much attention on the expectations placed on them, they are often afraid of making mistakes. Too much attention to the expectation of people have negative effects on perfectionists and it doesn’t even allow them to explore new terrains. They always think that avoiding areas where they can make mistakes make them focus and achieve the best result without knowing that they are destroying themselves.

Fear of failure is expressed when you focus so much interest in the result and not focusing on tackling the issues of the moment, having impatience when you don’t seem to be getting feedback yet, when you feel that you are not performing as you are expected and it is affecting your self-esteem, you are always bothered about what people think about you and you are trying so much to impress them, you allow tension to take over you when you are performing any task, Overcoming fear of failure starts from identifying the source of the fear and evaluating whether it should be considered or not, from there you can now tackle it. Learn how to strive for peak performance for yourself and not because of others.

Fear of Success:

It may be surprising to know that people can be afraid of success. Some people find themselves in a situation where they are afraid of succeeding, they are afraid of performing beyond a certain level, they feel reluctant moving out of their comfort zone, they even condition their mind in limits not to perform beyond. It may be normal to hear that people are afraid of failure but to hear that people are afraid of success is surprising. Many people have the impression that they are suffering from fear of failure while they are actually having fear of success. Sometimes when you interact with people and ask them to fit themselves into some certain position, you see them shying away from it and making comments showing that they don’t see themselves in such positions. You will hear comments like “I am not good enough for this.”

Have you ever at any time seen people say that they just need to pass an exam, that they just need 50 and don’t need an A or distinction? Yes, people actually think that way. Some people have the belief that success is reserved for a particular set of people that they don’t even give a try. One would wonder why anyone would be afraid of having a good thing like success but really, people are. This fear always has an effect on people, it restraints people from getting to their dreams. Success comes with huge responsibility, so you must be prepared for it, it is not something you do with fear. You need to handle success with care else you end up regretting it.

Many people have many reasons why they are afraid of success, this can be due to that they are afraid, for some, there are great expectations of them, many people are expecting them to perform at a certain level. For some people, they think that to succeed is hard, they feel that the standard is high for them to achieve. Also, the attention of people can make one be under pressure to succeed. People know that to sustain success is hard, so they rather chose not to attempt getting to the height. Some think that getting successful in one aspect of life will cost another aspect of our life. Like some people say things like, “if I become successful financially, I will lose my marriage.”

The ways to overcome the fear of success is by discarding negative thoughts in your mind about success, try to have a balanced life, condition your mind that there is nothing to fear that should prevent you from succeeding, prepare very well for peak performance.

Fear of Rejection:

In life, everybody fears being rejected. Rejections draw you back and interfere with peak performance. It is one of the biggest fear of humans and has a way of leading to other obstacles to peak performance. At one time or the other, we may have feared being rejected or may have been rejected in our lives, it may be rejection by an employer or even rejection from participating in an event or program. Every one of us loves to be accepted, we try as much as possible to be accepted by people. This is because we are human beings, even the strongest of humans still depend on someone for one thing or the other, which can be food, shelter, guidance or anything. So some people find it hard to strive for peak performance because they feel people around them will not be comfortable with their drive and will subsequently pull out of helping them out.

The effect of rejection hurts, it can lead to lack of confidence, motivation, and even depression. It leads many people to shy away from chasing their goals, they abandon what they are doing because their associates are either not comfortable with them or they are not doing it. Some people are afraid of starting a business because they feel they won’t get support from their friends and family.

The fear of rejection can cause you to avoid taking up new opportunities, as humans you are programmed to avoid things that cause you to fear, you always want to keep off from danger. It also causes you to live to try to please everyone. Please are often forced to agree to every bidding so as to feel among and not get rejected. This pushes them to end up being people’s pleasers. It also causes them to swallow a lot of things and are forced to keep quiet even when they are not happy with what is going on. To overcome the fear of rejection, you need to learn to tolerate the consequences of being rejected, learn to let go of expectations that are not realistic and always try to be yourself. Know that sometimes rejection can be the driving force that will catapult you to success.

Lack of Motivation:

Motivation is very important in every aspect of life, even in the case of peak performance. Many people want success without having enough motivation. Motivation drives you to keep moving on. On the path of peak performance, there are many hurdles which one must have enough motivation to scale through. Motivation is needed in every aspect of peak performance. You can hardly achieve anything without having motivation. Many people engage tasks they have zero motivation for, this is bad because they are the ones that can easily quit.

There are many things that stop people from having enough motivation, some of them include not having adequate interest in what they are doing, some just want to achieve peak performance because people around them are searching for success. Some have lost motivation because their expectations are not being met, some have experienced failure and are reluctant to keep faith alive.

The bad thing is not having adequate motivation is that you can quit easily, many people have had to give up on their dreams because their motivation could not carry them along. Successful people are known to have a surplus motivation that can carry then along especially in the hard times. Success is not gotten on a bed of roses, you must be strong if you will want to make it. Lack of motivation will make you see yourself below your potential, you will likely not be able to perform at the level that is expected of you.

It is important to keep your motivation high while looking for peak performance, this starts from doing what you love, even if you don’t love it initially maybe it wasn’t what you wanted initially, but since you have accepted it, you must find ways to make yourself love it. Always add interest and zeal to whatever you are doing, these things are what will make you still see the need to continue. Learn to look out for lovely things on your path to peak performance. Many people are always in the habit of looking for the negative things in what they do, but for you, you need to see the positive side and the path of light. Never allow yourself to get to the position where you get tired of the work you are doing. Always exhibit a good attitude to your work as it will help in building and sustaining your motivation.