What comes to your mind when you think of Genius? Do you think of a person – maybe Einstein, Newton or Edison?

Most likely you will bring someone to mind who has achieved at a world class, impressive level, someone the world has heard of for their great achievement and contribution.

It’s also likely you did not think of yourself!

One of the key themes amongst those who are ambitious and driven to achieve success and perform at a high level is that they inadvertently make their work much harder than it needs to be, rather than accessing an effortless flow.

This is due to a lack belief in their own innate ability and how to access it and yet this is exactly the key they need to turn for their success.

It was only after doing everything and anything apart from the very things to help me succeed and move forward in my life & business that I accessed the key to high performance.

One of the major turning points for me was recognising how easy ‘high performance’ can be, until we get in our own way.

One of the biggest challenges that stops us accessing our genius is in the way we are present and show up.

Take any performer working at a high level; whether it be Ronaldo on the football pitch, Gordon Ramsay in the kitchen, a ballet dancer, artist, singer or a speaker delivering a talk-the one thing they all have in common is they are fully present in what they are doing which helps them to be, exist and work in a flow/meditative state while accessing their skills and talent.

We all have an innate ability to perform, be creative and succeed if we can remain present and in this state of flow.

High-performance is rarely something we need to ‘figure out’ or force to happen.  Instead, being in flow and a high-performance state can become our natural state where we can simply allow our best work to flow through us.

Interference reduces Performance

As Tim Galloway said in his book, The Inner Game of Tennis – Performance= Potential – Interference.

Meaning our own interference reduces the potential of our performance. This can be anything from second guessing, procrastination, self- doubt and worry about the future to self-criticism, comparison to others, high expectations, over working and fear of failure.

The less we interfere with our potential in such ways, the better we perform.

High Performance Mindset

Frequently, high achievers don’t view themselves as genius. Their desire and need to operate at a high level of performance along with a fear of failure and letting others down can cause them to recreate an alter-ego element that drives them – almost like the voice of a boss or someone else but often an inner critic too, chipping in and making the journey unpleasant.

This signifies the need to up level and shift into a new, high performance mindset to create more useful thinking with the actions to match.

One of the other biggest inhibitors that distracts you from accessing your genius and invites excess stress is living too much in the past or the future. Neither of these exist, so the most powerful thinking is only ever in the present.

The mindset that worries about what was, what’s missing or what needs to get done is a lack one that believes there isn’t enough of anything; time, money, opportunity and this takes you further away from the present moment which is all you ever have.

Accessing your genius

To access your genius and create the impact you desire, there’s a simple but powerful 2-step process to follow;

1. Show up empty.

When we take on tasks or activities, it’s easy to do so while carrying the weight of the world, worrying about what’s ahead or about past mistakes and failures. The more we feel overwhelmed in these moments, the more our performance is inhibited and everything we then do feels difficult and harder.

A question I like to ask my clients is ‘Where do you usually get your best ideas from?’

The reply is often ‘in the shower’ or ‘on a walk.’  This makes sense as the more we can relax and ease into what we are doing, the more genius and creativity we can access.

We often work ourselves up to the point where we struggle to perform, feel creative, inspired and then become unable to do our best work so showing up empty means staying present with only the task at hand. Create from the moment without questioning all the other tasks; simply achieve and accomplish with a laser-like focus.

2. Slow down to Speed up

In Greg McKeown’s book, Essentialism, he talks about how so many of us live our days overwhelmed and overloaded with tasks, ideas, priorities & to do lists.

He suggests that using the word ‘priorities’ is the problem and that we should have only one ‘priority’ in any given moment. When we focus just on one task at a time is when we perform best. You’ll find everything boils down to 1-2 key tasks at any one time and you overwhelm yourself with ‘priorities’ which stop you from feeling clear, focused and in flow.

To access your zone of genius you need to slow down. This may feel counter intuitive at first as you may think speeding up would equal more success but it’s the opposite; you end up overwhelmed, less focused and missing opportunities.

You have infinite creative genius and if you allow yourself to access this, you will find you are far more powerful than you ever realised.

Raghav Parkash is a qualified Executive & Life Coach who shares his best tools, strategies and insights in high performance to help executives, entrepreneurs and CEO’s perform at their very best and achieve both professionally and personally.

Raghav regularly speaks on High Performance & Leadership for organisations and conferences including Prudential Insurance, The NatWest Business Hub, Kallo Foods, Aldermore Bank and the annual Women’s Economic Forum in Delhi.

He’s also been featured on SKY TV & in Yahoo Finance.

www.raghavparkash.com