“Bottom line: We change and improve over time only when we must. When the internal and external forces on us are strong enough, we make it happen.”
Brendon Burchard, High Performance Habits
Habit 3 in Brendon Burchard’s book High Performance Habits: How Extraordinary People Become That Way is Raise Necessity. High performers “strive to live an extraordinary life” and “one of the most powerful drivers of human motivation and excellence [is] performance necessity.”
Burchard describes what he calls the Four Forces of Necessity: identity, obsession, duty and urgency. The first two, identity and obsession, are mostly internal forces. These speak to personal standards of excellence. The latter two, duty and urgency, are mostly external forces, although Burchard points out that external forces don’t drive high performers, but rather give them a reason to be driven.
Identity
High performers tie high personal standards to their identity. They see themselves as a person who completes tasks with excellence, whether or not they even enjoy the work. In order to live up to their high standards, they self-monitor throughout the day. One way for those of us looking to be or continue to be high performers, is to jot down answers to the following questions:
“Did I perform with excellence today?
Did I live up to my values and expectations for giving my best and doing a good job?”
Brendon Burchard, High Performance Habits
The interesting thing is high performers don’t answer those questions in the affirmative every single day. But the high performer doesn’t fear asking these questions because their intent is to rise to their personal standards. The author notes sometimes high performers can be too tough on themselves for not meeting their idea of excellence, so be aware of this possible downside.
“When we do what aligns with our future identity, we are more driven and likely to do a great job.”
Brendon Burchard, High Performance Habits
For those of us who have an eye on high performance but aren’t there yet, Burchard suggests we tie our identity to doing a good job and to set challenging goals. Then self-monitor (perhaps by journaling and asking the questions above each night) to keep on track.
Obsession
“…high performers are deeply curious people.”
Brendon Burchard, High Performance Habits
High performers have an obsession with understanding and mastering a topic. They want to “build deep competence” in their field of interest. Burchard points out that you know right away on meeting someone if they have an obsession. They talk about it with zeal and how they can’t imagine doing anything else – it’s who they are. They devote a lot of time to their obsession, and are on a journey to master the topic.
Of course, there is unhealthy obsession. When one is engaged in unhealthy obsession relationships suffer, and life becomes a mess. If a result of the obsession is the unhappiness of everyone near, it’s probably unhealthy.
What if we don’t have something we’re obsessed about right now? The author encourages the reader to “keep experimenting in life until they find something that sparks unusual interest. Then, if it aligns with [their] personal values and identity, jump in. Get curious. Let yourself geek out on something and go deep.”
Duty
“A sense of duty to someone or something beyond themselves” is the first of two external forces that drives a high performer. The high performer will do something for someone, even if it means short-term discomfort. For instance, a parent will get up at night to calm an upset child, even though they’d probably rather be sleeping. They decide that the child needs them more than they need sleep. The obligation is seen as a positive one.
Low performers have a difficult time seeing obligations as anything but negative. This leads to complaining more about their responsibilities than high performers do.
“…when you have the opportunity to serve, you don’t complain about the effort involved.”
Brendon Burchard, High Performance Habits
Urgency
Urgency is achieved through real deadlines and drives high performance. Real deadlines are the ones where if not met bad things happen, but if met, benefits are realized. If a high performer deems a deadline important, they will work towards achieving the desired result to meet it. High performers, however, don’t take well to fake urgency or someone’s preference as to when something needs to be done. To motivate a high performer, give them a real deadline, not a nice-to-have deadline.
“High performers are driven to get things done because they recognize that their timeliness affects other people.”
Brendon Burchard, High Performance Habits
Practice for raising necessity
Burchard identifies three practices for raising necessity:
- Find a trigger, like sitting in your office chair, and ask yourself, “Who needs me on my A game the most right now?” The “who” part of the question forces you to think about someone else, and may invoke a sense of duty or obligation. The part of the question that raises urgency and makes us examine our priorities is “the most right now.” And ‘A game’ makes you check in with how you are performing against your personal standards.
- Share your goals with others and include why it’s important to you. High performers don’t always think their approach is right, and are open to new ideas, but they are clear on why they are doing it in the first place.
- Find people to support you. You’re more likely to become a high performer and meet your personal high standards if you surround yourself with people who do the same. These people could be mentors, new friends, or peers.
tl;dr
Habit 3, Raise Necessity, from High Performance Habits, looks at the Four Forces of Necessity: identity, obsession, duty and urgency. Identifying with doing work with excellence, obsessing over mastering a topic, feeling a sense of duty to someone or something bigger than yourself, and knowing that timeliness affects others drives high performers to live life with excellence.
engineer your life
- Out of the Four Forces of Necessity, identity, obsession, duty, and urgency, is there one that you feel you could work on now?
- What practice can you cultivate to raise necessity in your life and work?