Setting Your Intentions for 2025

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1:51You're listening to High Performance, the show that delves into the minds of some of the most fascinating people on the planet. to work out not what they've done, but how they've done it and help you to live a life that you feel really proud of, whatever your version of high performance is. And I'm very pleased to say, Happy New Year. This is the first Friday episode that we've recorded since Christmas and the New Year. How was yours? Yeah, really lovely, Jake. What about you? Yeah, it was fantastic. It was a couple of weeks of total shutdown. We normally have a really busy Christmas. This year we decided after a busy year we wanted a quiet Christmas.

2:22We had my mum and dad and Harriet's mum and dad with us on Christmas Eve because my daughter sings in the local cathedral choir. And so we all went to midnight mass. Seb just about didn't fall asleep and then we had a lovely Christmas day together. And it was quite, you know, it's quite nice just being with your mum and dad on Christmas day. Like it feels like you're an eight-year-old again. Yeah, yeah. How about you? Really quiet, again, similar to just the idea of just being rooted in one place and just staying still was a privilege. Now, interestingly, we're about to talk to you about maybe not staying still, about growing, about how you can make 2025 a really exciting year of growth for you.

2:59So people often come to High Performance in January because they've made an intention to change. They want to find ways to kind of unlock a higher version or to get closer to their own version of High Performance. And so much of what we hear on this show, Damien, is from our guests setting an intention, deciding what it is they want, and then going after it. But we were recently joined by Bradley Wiggins, and I thought he gave us a great line where he said, I'm not going to rise to the level of my goals. I'm going to fall to the level of my habits. And I think it's a brilliant reminder for people that big, huge, exciting goals are worthless unless your habits match up to them.

3:34And I feel that that's really what we should focus on over the next few minutes. I think it was a brilliant topic, Jake. I think, I often say this to people that nobody sleepwalks their way to high performance, however you choose to define it. At some stage, you have to make a very clear choice. And that's another way of describing what intentionality is. You sort of filter out the noise, the stuff that's not important and you decide what is it you're going after and then how am I intending to get there and I think understanding that and unpicking it is a great start to the year for all of us.

4:04And we're going to hear from a few guests in just a moment but first of all you know with all of your knowledge and understanding of the research and the psychology of this area I think the reason why we like to talk about habits rather than goals is sometimes the goal can be so far off that you can be working so hard to get towards it with no joy because you haven't reached it. Whereas when we start talking about habits and we break a big goal down into small steps, psychology tells us that achieving those small steps gives us just as much thrill as achieving the big one. Yeah, you're absolutely right.

4:34So your brain only responds to the levels that you set it. So if you set yourself a big ambition that you want to lose a certain amount of weight, your brain will release the same amount of dopamine when you hit that weight target as if you break it down into smaller goals. So like losing a pound a week or whatever. Losing a pound a week, it still gives you the same release of all the chemicals, the endorphins that make you feel good about yourself. So it responds to your expectations rather than the absolute outcomes of it. So understanding about habits is great because one, we can give ourselves a regular feeling of accomplishment and in turn that creates a degree of momentum for us.

5:13Two, it allows us to be able to measure our progress. so James Clear when we had him on said never miss twice you might miss one day but if you then understand that I can go back and fix it we're in the process thirdly we're teleological and what we mean by that is we sort of like having goals we like having a sense of direction for ourselves so getting into habits gives us an ability to go after the target or in the route or the destination that we're aiming for so there's so many benefits that come from just taking a little bit of time to think about what are our intentions this year and how do we intend to get there.

5:50Okay, well, let's begin then by hearing from a guest who joined us pretty recently, actually, on High Performance. He wrote a wonderful book called 4 ,000 Weeks. He's written another one called Meditations for Mortals. He's the brilliant Oliver Berkman. And this is what he told us about it not necessarily being the right time to set a goal. So I want to advocate in everything I'm doing for you know against this idea of postponing real life to the point when you've really figured it all out and saying what we really have to do is learn to take imperfect but real action here and now without feeling completely ready without feeling on top of everything because getting on top of everything especially in the modern world is a is a mirage um it's not it's not the right goal to have now i think that's a really important way to start because i think there'll be some people who have tuned into this going right this is the year that i feel sorted this is the year i don't have a to-do list this is the year i'm on top of what i'm trying to do the most powerful important way to begin is oliver telling us that you it's not going to be the perfect time and you're not going to be on top of everything and you're never going to get through your to-do list but the thing you really want to do do it anyway yeah you know we sometimes talk about this someday I'll the idea that someday I'll write a book someday I'll get fit someday I'll buy my dream house or whatever it is and we can often put it off because we're waiting for things to be perfect I mean in addition to Oliver's wisdom I it reminded me very much of the interview we did a few years ago with uh Chrissy Wellington the four-time Ironman champion who told us that she raced the imperfect race perfectly that things were going wrong she had stomach cramps her bike broke she had all kinds of setbacks in the swim and yet it was her ability just to deal with these imperfections and handle them with grace that answered the question she had for herself and I think for all of us if we can race our own imperfect race perfectly we respond really effectively I think that gives us the starting point to go after whatever it is we want this year I love that quote and I loved having Chrissy on the show.

8:01And I think that if I'm listening to this at home now, I'm thinking, you know, I really want genuine value. I want to really understand how I can make that next step forward. So the first thing I need to do is understand it's never going to be perfect, right? What I don't now understand is how do I take a first step when things don't look perfect? Because if you've spent your life waiting for perfection to do something, how do you not? Yeah, so again, it's a really great first question you should be asking yourself of, what's the process that I now need to follow? So I often quote James Clear when we talk about process because he said, don't worry about reading a book, just read a page.

8:35Don't worry about writing your own bestseller, just write the first line. Don't worry about doing a fantastic workout, just go into the gym. And it's almost that first step is often the one that then creates that atomic habit that leads to another good one. But it's not the dream though, is it? Because I think that when people go, all right, this is the year I'm going to do this. It's going to make me feel good. I'm going to, it's going to be great. It's not going to be like that if this is how we operate. Do you know what I mean? It's still going to be a bit messy. I'm still going to have self-doubt.

9:06I'm still going to have fear, even though I'm trying to do the thing. Yeah, but again, if we listen to what Oliver told us, that fear is going to be there anyway. It's always going to be present. So leaning into it, not waiting to eradicate it, is the way we do it. Again, picking on another guest we had, Usain Bolt, when he said that I was only nervous when I hadn't done the preparation. By the time he got to the Olympic 100-meter start line, he said, I knew I'd worked as hard as I could and I just had to believe in my own talent. So for all of us, we're never going to be in a perfect place to start.

9:41We just need to start to get into that perfect place. So when we are looking at people that we consider high performers or high achievers, thinking, oh, they must have felt like it was the right time to start, the truth is they probably didn't. They just started. I remember reading a book by a guy called Steve Magnus who's a he's an endurance coach but he's a lecturer at university as well and his book is called do hard things and he talks about something called the fit passion mindset and what he talks about is that some people believe that in love at first sight they believe that when you meet somebody that if you don't instantly fall in love with that person they're not the right person for you and he talks about how that can be this case with when you start a job if you don't instantly love it you move on from it rather than actually give it time immediate passions tend to sustain themselves so for all of us i think getting into the process is that idea of we can then allow the the enjoyment of whatever it is we're doing to eventually start to blossom i'm so pleased you mentioned about that because i wanted to play a clip from ksi about exactly that learning to enjoy the process go on let's listen to him this This was a great interview.

10:50I'd say the end goal is there to look at and be like, all right, cool. But the process is so important. You've got to be able to enjoy the process. Maybe it's something as simple as a fighting camp. The goal is to be in shape, to be 100%. But at the beginning, you might not be as fit, you might not be as strong, you might not be as fast. and you know it could be quite a daunting task to be like okay i've got eight to ten weeks of just continuous training at the highest level and i have to go through it every single day can i do this and then you know you look at the end goal and you're like oh it's just even achievable but like for me i'm there like i know let's bring it back let's enjoy every step you You know, bit by bit, that's just how it is.

11:40You can't just go and just look at the end goal. You've got to just enjoy the journey because then, before you realise, you're at the end. And then you're like, oh my God, wow. The brilliant KSI there, when he was talking to you, Jake, about his whole journey from both being a YouTube sensation but also being the guy that, you know, puts his health on the line by getting into the boxing ring and the process of getting yourself in great shape to go and do that is, again, might be an ambition that lots of people share this year about getting in great shape. How do you do it? Well, it's the process.

12:15It's not about imagining yourself looking great on the beach this summer. It's about enjoying the process of just testing yourself on a daily basis. And what I really like about this is that I think the reason why a lot of us focus on the process is because we're taught to see the wrong things. So if you watch a footballer, you're taught to wait for the moment they lift the Premier League trophy. Or if you're an Olympian, it's about winning the gold medal. Or if you're a business person, it's about the exit or the big valuation or the big fundraise. But actually for the footballer, it's about the hours spent on the training pitch, working on a very simple pass.

12:47If you're an elite cyclist, it's about the revolutions of the pedal. It's not about winning the race. If you're a business person, it's about the sort of world-class daily decisions that you make. It's not about the outcome. And I can't overstate enough to people listening to this, that if they live an outcome-oriented life, if they purely focus on what the outcome is going to be, it's never going to get them to the outcome it just is a total myth I love the idea of manifestation I love that so my daughter has got she wants to go to Italia Conti she's only 11 as you know and she's created this board at home and she's written I will study here I will make it happen but the conversation straight afterwards was what steps are you going to take to make that happen Florence because a lovely pretty picture as great as it is kids do each letter in a different colour she'd written it she'd put loads of effort in but now it's about the steps to get there I really want people to understand it it's about the steps it's not about the arrival right if they focus on the process not the outcome then they're far more likely to get there the other thing I love about what KSI is saying is if you have an alternative viewpoint which is not enjoying the process but enjoying the outcome well you've got to be very sure you're going to enjoy the outcome before you start the journey you know Johnny Wilkinson told us he was joyful for 30 seconds after 20 years of effort trying to be the world's greatest rugby player when they won the World Cup.

14:04I'd argue that's not a great payoff. Absolutely. So please, enjoying the journey not only makes life far sweeter, but who's more likely to get to the end of that journey, the person who's enjoying being on it, I think. Yeah, you're right. And again, just as you describe in Florence's ambition to get to the Italia Conti School, it reminds me of the conversation we had with Shane Parrish, the author of the Farnham Street blog, when he spoke about the value of positioning. Do you remember when he told us about the conversation he'd had with his own children about saying, well, you know, I tried my best in the exam.

14:41And he asked them, well, did you go to sleep at a good time for the week before? Did you eat the right breakfast? Did you do all the revision that you'd set yourself? Because it's about positioning. And that's another way of describing the process. It's all these small steps that mean you can then go and deliver your very best. And that leads us to the next guest that is worth listening to. Usain Bolt who? the greatest of all time we interviewed him in Orlando a few weeks before Christmas here's what he told us which plays so nicely into the point that Damien just made about doing the hard work my idea of hard work and my coach's idea of hard work were miles apart you know what I mean because moving from just being talented and working hard and then really working hard.

15:35It's totally different. Because when I started working with my coach, it was in 2005 was when I really started working with him. And for me, I was like, I'm doing great. You know what I mean? But I would win some, but I would lose some. And I think in 07 was when it really dawned on me that, listen, you're not working hard enough. You need to work even harder. What happened then? then? It was the world championship in Osaka and I felt like I was in great shape. I was like, yeah, I'm going to do good. I'm going to win. And I came second and I was like, why? You know what I mean? I went to my coach.

16:13I was like, I really tried. I really worked. And he goes, no, you didn't work hard. You didn't go to the gym every day. You missed a few days. And he would tell me like, you missed a couple of days throughout the year and it adds up to a month or it adds up to six weeks and then you really I really sat down and really looked back and say you know what it's true and I was like you know let me give 100 % to to this cause I really want to be the best I really want to win so you know what let me really work at this and give my all and listen to exactly what he said and that was the next year which is Beijing so you can see the difference from one year just by working as hard as I needed to.

16:59I mean, that's all about positioning. As he put himself in the position to go and deliver, well, that's all about the small steps along the way. And I think we all need somebody that's going to be a truth teller in our lives, somebody to come and remind us of the standards that we're setting for ourselves and the demands that we're placing on ourselves. And for Usain, it was the role of Glenn Mills to tell him that, you know, missing the odd training camp because you've worked hard a few weeks beforehand isn't working hard. You know, turning up late on a regular basis isn't working hard. It's about the small steps that we all need to take.

17:34So the question for you listening to this, who's your Glenn Mills? Can you do it on your own? I would argue you probably can't do it on your own. Very few people can. If you think about the very greatest people in the world, the Rafael Nadars, the Roger Federer, the Lionel Messi's, the Ronaldos, they've all had coaches, they've all had people to get them to another level. You can have all the talent in the world, but it doesn't mean that you can get yourself there. So maybe for 2025, the very first thing you should do is ask, who are your coaches? You know, why don't you think about, and this is something I did a couple of years ago, and it changed everything for me, is who are the three or four people whose counsel you will take in certain areas?

18:11So maybe you know someone who's super wise when it comes to personal relationships and marriage and children. Maybe you know someone who is an amazing expert when it comes to business and you can lean on them. Maybe there's a fitness person you know that always looks in great shape and you can just regularly chat to them and say, how do you do it? What are the things that you've done that I can do as well? I just feel alone we can do so little. Together we can do so much. And I think we think of coaches are there for elite athletes and elite individuals. We should all have a coach. Absolutely, yeah.

18:41People that hold us to account, remind us of the standards that we want. and are there just to give us that bit of encouragement when we need it. I love the conversation about who you choose to have in your team, who you choose to have in your crew. It's also equally important who you choose not to have in that team. And I think that's a very important thing. You know, yes, sit down and think, I'd love these people in my life. But also think who maybe you need to spend less time with. And one of the simplest ways of doing it is just how people make you feel. Who do you hang out with and you feel, you just love their company.

19:12You can't even explain why. and who do you spend time with where you think oh man that drained me so much i'm not saying cut them out of your life be ruthless be unkind i'm just saying think about how much time you need to spend with those people compared to the people that really light you up and make you buzz like an old fridge in the words of vicky patterson a former guest on high performance uh right final clip of our first friday episode of the new year damien the brilliant phil heath the seven times mr olympia a man that come and spoke to us around just keeping going just putting one foot in front of another and just keep persevering until you get where you eventually want to be let's listen to him explain it in his rich melodic voice i think a lot of time while we're feeling alone in that darkness we think that no one else is no one else understands me well maybe maybe because it is your story.

20:09It's not exactly the same as someone else's story, but everybody's experienced death in their family. Everybody's experienced pain, love loss, economic hardship, some magnitude, right? Or they know someone. So for me, it's now even speaking on this, I think you kind of have to think I'm not the only one. Who else has gone through it, but then went through it and came out on the other side? See, we only talk about people that, oh, yeah, I'm going through it too, brother. No, I want to know how you got through it and what you did. Give me the solution. The solution is keep going through it. Eventually, you are the Andy Dufresne and Shawshank Redemption and crawling through the madness, right?

20:57You know what I'm talking about, you know, the three football fields of crap. But what was on the other side? Freedom. And if you believe in it, it comes with a heavy price. And that price is very high. But aren't your dreams worth it? You know, the weird place my brain takes me to when I hear Phil Heath talking about that is the conversation I have with my kids about homework. Because every single weekend we have the same conversation. Get your homework done and you can have the whole weekend to chill and be happy. What happens? They ignore my advice. what happens at three o 'clock on a Sunday guys we've now got to do homework because we could have done it on Friday night or early on Saturday morning and it's hung over you all weekend we've spoke about it 20 times and now Sunday afternoon is ruined as well and I know it seems like a silly analogy but actually I liken life to that if you can understand that a short period of intense pain can lead to years and years of freedom why wouldn't you take the pain and my kids don't get it every single weekend they make the same mistake of thinking no I'm going to delay that I'm going to delay the pain but by delaying the pain you're increasing the pain because it sits there with you and then you still have to go through the thing but here's the here's the interesting crux of this conversation we've just said that KSI told us to enjoy the process and here's Phil Heath talking about Andy Dufresne and crawling through three football fields of mud we have to try and explain this properly to people like is it enjoy the process or is it go through the pain to get the joy on the other side well I think it's both.

22:30I think to set yourself an intention for this year, it will always start with a dream. It'll always start with, this is what I want to be, to do, to have in my life. Then we have to measure it in terms of a performance goal that says, this is what it will take. This is how much money it will cost to get the house I want to live in. This is the steps I need to take to get the job that I've always dreamed of. And then we have to get into the process goals these are the small steps that ksi spoke about that phil he just shared with us that move us forward one step at a time and eventually that one step at a time starts to become a distance that is well covered that moves us closer and closer to it creates its own momentum so it's not starting off with a passion and thinking that passion is going to sustain you it won't and it's not having a process because that just makes you a busy fool it's about having the ability to be mentally flexible to go to all three of these different types of goals that move you closer to where you want to be and i think the thing i'd like to leave people thinking about is the importance of regularly checking in with themselves when it comes to these things you know like the brilliant uh robin sharma his five morning questions where am i winning the fact that we're great postponers create an intimacy with mortality he said which remind you every single day that you're you're not here for very long i think sometimes it's really easy because there's a negativity bias of the human brain sometimes it's very easy when you're going through this to be like everything's rubbish so if you are struggling with the process being hard i'd like to invite people to every single day or every single evening whenever it works best for them make a note of where am i winning where are the successes what have been the good moments and if actually after quite a few months you can never find where am i winning you can never find the joy you can never find the happiness then i would question whether it's the right path for you because it can't all be going through pain to get joy at the other end because if there's no joy at the other end what's the point but i think if we actually stop and reflect where am i winning then i think most people will find that there are areas they're winning and just because it's hard for you doesn't mean it's bad for you.

24:44I love that. Really powerful. Thanks, mate. Yeah, thank you. I've enjoyed this. It's a great way to start the year thinking about our intention. So have you got an intention that you want to achieve this year, Jake? Yeah, I just need to find balance, more balance. And every year is the same where I get excited about work things and then the things that really matter to me. Harriet, the kids, I'm trying to get fit and healthy. fall by the wayside. So I am going to try and make sure that the things that are important this year don't get trumped by the things that are urgent because I make that mistake far too often.

25:18And there's no point getting Memento Mori tattooed on my wrist to then act like I'm going to live forever, right? I'm not going to, so. Yeah, good idea. Mine's going to be, I'm going to regularly collate a stop-doing list. Just the stuff that, if I say yes to something, the law of unintended consequences is, that means I'm saying no to an infinite number of other possibilities. so you say yes far too often to stuff that doesn't benefit you enough yeah i know that's nice for other people but there is you in the equation as well yeah definitely so it was the oliver bertman conversation that really sort of reminded me of the importance of this that you can only say yes to a few things in the smog as border life so we need to be really clear about what our intentions are because we say no to an infinite number of other exciting things no it's such a useful word yeah happy new year happy new year mate and happy new year to anyone that's kind enough to be part of our high performance community it means an awful lot that you're with us and we're going to take you on some journey in 2025

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