The Art of Impossible

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This is a meta-strategy for consistent peak performance. In simpler terms: impossible is a checklist. This is a chapter about all the items that need to go on that checklist. We’re going to approach this in two ways. First, we’re going to talk about order. Then we’re going to examine scheduling. Let’s start with order. Because of the nature of intrinsic motivation, you have to start a quest for peak performance where this book started: with curiosity, passion, and purpose. And, if you’re actually following the steps of the passion recipe and not trying to rush the process, you’re going to discover that it can take a while.

Kotler, Steven. The Art of Impossible: A Peak Performance Primer (p. 269). HarperCollins. Kindle Edition.

You need to keep playing at the intersections of curiosities long enough to figure out if a particular intersection is actually interesting enough to sustain focus for the long haul. Remember, you don’t want to be two years into “pursuing your passion” only to discover it was only a phase. How do you know an intersection is perfect? Well, if nearly every time you explore it you find curiosity increasing and yourself slipping into flow—that’s a good sign you’re exactly where you need to be. How much time do you spend on a daily basis playing at those intersections? An hour is fantastic, but twenty to thirty minutes is often enough. Learn something interesting about something you’re interested in, let the brain’s pattern recognition system chew on it for a while, then add in more information. Not only does this allow you to align curiosity, passion, and purpose, but it also adds in that next motivator, autonomy. If you’re playing with your curiosities, passions, and purposes, you’re—by definition—doing exactly what you want to be doing. Finally, because you’re learning a little bit more each day, you’re also training yourself to walk the path to mastery.

Kotler, Steven. The Art of Impossible: A Peak Performance Primer (pp. 269-270). HarperCollins. Kindle Edition.

Next up, layer in goals. Start with your massively transformative purpose—that mission statement for your life. Then turn that statement into a chunked series of high, hard goals, or all the steps needed to accomplish those MTPs. Now, shrink those high, hard goals into clear goals—your daily attack plan, a set of small and precise targets that sit inside the challenge-skills sweet spot.

Kotler, Steven. The Art of Impossible: A Peak Performance Primer (p. 270). HarperCollins. Kindle Edition.

Also, remember to figure out how many clear goals you can accomplish in a day, then accomplish that number of goals each and every day. If it goes on your list, you’ve given your word to yourself. Either cross it off the list or—when the challenge turns out to be much harder than expected—chunk it down into a smaller task, accomplish that smaller task, then move the rest onto tomorrow’s checklist. If you accomplish everything on today’s clear-goals list, this means you’re one step closer to your high, hard goals, which means you’re on mission, which means your intrinsic drivers are doing their job. Cross an item off that list, get a little dopamine; cross another item off, get a little more dopamine. One little win at a time, that’s how this works. Stacking little win atop little win atop little win—especially if a few of those wins produce flow—is how you gain momentum. And that’s it for order. Once intrinsic drivers are aligned and goals are stacked, everything else is about scheduling.

Kotler, Steven. The Art of Impossible: A Peak Performance Primer (pp. 270-271). HarperCollins. Kindle Edition.

In total, there are seven daily practices and six weekly practices that are nonnegotiables. If you want to sustain peak performance long enough to accomplish the impossible—whatever that is for you—you’re going to need to weave these items into your schedule. But this doesn’t have to happen all at once. Start by starting. Add in what you can right now, and as these practices begin to improve your performance, they’ll end up saving you time. Now that you have a little more free time, layer in a few more of these activities. One thing to note: the two biggest time sucks on this list are the need to start your day with 90 to 120 minutes of uninterrupted concentration devoted to your hardest task and the need, at least once a week, to spend two to six hours doing your highest-flow activity. If you can’t commit that much time in the beginning, commit less. Start with 20 minutes of daily uninterrupted concentration and 40 minutes of weekly high-flow activities. Start with 10 and 20. Then, once these practices pay performance dividends, reinvest the extra time in your schedule.

Kotler, Steven. The Art of Impossible: A Peak Performance Primer (p. 271). HarperCollins. Kindle Edition.

Here’s the full list: DAILY Ninety to 120 minutes of uninterrupted concentration. Spend this time on your most important task—the one that will produce the biggest victory, the one that, once completed, will leave you feeling like you won your day. Also, try to apply one strength in a new way while inside of this 90- to 120-minute block (which allows you to fold strength training into your daily activity). And be sure to push yourself during that activity, so that you’re a little outside your comfort zone and always sitting inside the challenge-skills sweet spot. Over time, this constant pushing on yourself and your skills will result in both an astounding amount of grit and, even better, the habit of ferocity. Five minutes for distraction management. Place these minutes at the end of your workday to prepare for the next day’s uninterrupted concentration period. Turn off everything that regularly breaks your focus: messages, alerts, email, social media, cell phone ringers, the works. Five minutes for making a clear-goals list—also usually at the end of a workday to prepare for the next day’s uninterrupted concentration period. Remember, order tasks from the most difficult (and most rewarding) to the least. Also, don’t just put “work tasks” on your clear goals list. Write down everything you want to do in a day, including things like workouts and active recovery periods (that is, “go to the gym” or “take a hot bath” or “practice mindfulness for twenty minutes”) on your list. Finally, always check off all the items on the list. This is the one rule you cannot violate. If it goes on the list, you accomplish it during the day. The only exception being those rare occasions when you missed the challenge-skills sweet spot and the task you’re trying to do is just too hard. Then chunk it down, accomplish what you can today, and bump the rest onto tomorrow’s list. Five minutes for a daily gratitude practice. Twenty minutes for release and/or twenty minutes for mindfulness. You can go longer, but this appears to be the minimum time frame needed to start getting results. Remember to preload the release phase with the MacGyver method, so your brain can problem solve while you take a break from the problem-solving. Twenty-five minutes to load the pattern recognition system (reading outside your core area). Remember, the ROI on reading says books are the best way to go. If you’re trying to master a skill rather than learn new information, these twenty-five minutes can also be spent 80/20’ing that skill. Also, those twenty-five minutes are an estimate. What you’re aiming for is a minimum of about twenty-five pages’ worth of reading. Seven to eight hours of sleep a night. WEEKLY Two to six hours, one or two times a week: highest-flow activity (skiing, dancing, singing, whatever). These are the activities that often get edited out of our lives as responsibilities pile up and schedules get crowded. But the more flow you get, the more flow you get. It’s a focusing skill. So spending extra time in an activity that is all but guaranteed to produce flow will help maximize flow in activities that aren’t quite as flowy. During this activity, try to deploy as many flow triggers as you can. Always push on the challenge-skills sweet spot. Be creative. Take risks. Seek out novelty, complexity, and unpredictability. Also, try to use these sessions to train grit, and to use one or more of your core strengths in a new way. Sixty minutes, three times a week: regular exercise. Be sure to push yourself during these sessions. The same challenge-skills balance rules apply. If you’re outside your comfort zone, then exercise is a great way to cross-train grit while resetting the nervous system. Also, for reasons that have to do with how exercise impacts brain function, aim for exercises that are cognitively challenging—meaning run outdoors on a trail (so the brain has to do route finding and spatial mapping and such) rather than indoors on a treadmill. Twenty to forty minutes, three times a week: active recovery (sauna, massage, long mindfulness session, light yoga, and so on). Thirty to sixty minutes, one time a week: train a weakness and/or train being your best when at your worst and/or practice taking risks. Thirty to sixty minutes, one time a week: get feedback on the work you’ve been doing during those 90- to 120-minute periods of uninterrupted concentration. One hundred and twenty minutes a week: social support. Make time for other people, especially if you’re an introvert. Having loving, supportive people in our lives and being a loving, supportive person ourselves helps keep us calm and happy, but it also helps us be psychologically prepared to attack the challenge-skills sweet spot. Plus, it gives us a place to practice our emotional intelligence skills. STACKING PRACTICES Use your three-times-a-week exercise sessions as a place to train grit. This is a great place to work on perseverance, but you can always triple-stack and use this session to train up a weakness and, if you exhaust yourself during the workout and still want to give a little extra, you can also train the grit to be your best when you’re at your worst. Use a few of your active recovery periods—a.k.a. the sauna and bath—to also practice mindfulness and/or to load the pattern recognition system. When loading the pattern recognition system, try to make books your primary information source, as you can’t match their data density with any other material. Use the MacGyver method before you enter your release practice. That way, the practice does double duty. While you’re still working your way through the passion recipe, use the need to play at the intersections of curiosities as a time to load up the pattern recognition system with the information it needs to find connections between ideas. Always layer flow triggers into every activity. Make novelty, complexity, and unpredictability your good friends. Make sure the items on your clear-goals list sit in that challenge-skills sweet spot. Find a feedback buddy. Practice taking safe risks. Repeat. When you’re devoting 120 minutes a week to social support, use this period to train up EQ and to practice with group flow’s triggers. Creativity and the pursuit of mastery should be built into everything you do.

Kotler, Steven. The Art of Impossible: A Peak Performance Primer (pp. 271-276). HarperCollins. Kindle Edition.

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