In your own Bubble!

There is a simple life formula that has been around for many years that I have to say I subscribe to wholeheartedly:-

P=P-I  – Performance = Potential + Interference

There you have it – life should now be simple for you, business will be hugely successful and all relationships will be a breeze! Not really.. but it can have a massive impact on you when breaking it down into its three component parts.

Performance- this is what you judge it to be and what you judge it against – from service to your community and to the sick through to the worst criminals on death row. Only we can judge our performance and success against material or spiritual achievements. That doesn’t mean to say we are not regularly measuring the wrong performance, but that’s a whole different matter.

Potential – This word has so many challenges attached to it, if you were anything like me your school report consistently stated ‘could do better’ or ‘if he put 10% of the effort into his work that he does on the rugby pitch he could be a genius’. Our full potential is something that more often than not is seen by others and not by ourselves and when we do happen to see it we tend to discount it or disbelieve it.

Interference – this is quite simply everything that goes on inside our minds that pollutes the potential we have. Everything I just described about my school report was interference in one form or another, we self sabotage and prevent ourselves from being the best we can be most of the time.

So what has this got to do with being in a bubble? In recent times I have been on two business trips, one an association convention, the other a week’s intensive learning towards my Advanced Accreditation in Executive Coaching. On both occasions I was mentally and physically away from everything else going on in my normal world. Time zones prevented ease of communication with family and clients alike, the intensity of what I was attending prevented me from accessing (with ease) email and social media which in turn meant I was unable to do anything outside of the daily agendas that I was caught up in. I was in a Mikey’s Bubble, away from everything else.

During that time my mind was so sharp, so switched on and so alert to everything going on around me, absorbing and appreciating the learning lessons both personally and professionally. Don’t get me wrong I am not suggesting we all need to run away to the mountains and sing “Kumbaya”, but that would work for some of you.

What I am saying is we need to find the environment where we can truly switch off all the interference that goes on all around us every day and focus on allowing our full potential to shine through. It does none of us any favours achieving 50% or 72% of our full potential, the only person that loses out here is you. So what is getting in the way of you going into your performance bubble more of the time? It’s the same for all of us – we can’t be in the bubble constantly but we can certainly go there more often.