25 Lessons on Peak Performance
My yearly reflections and takeaways for living and performing better.
The end of the year is for reflection. For the past decade, my process has been the same. Go through all the notes in my notebook and pick out the key ideas and takeaways to carry forward.
It’s a mechanism to force me to go from collecting information to synthesizing and translating it into action.
With all that, here are 25 lessons and insights on peak performance for sport and life. They come from interviewing 75+ elite performers, reading hundreds of research studies, and dozens of books.
I hope you enjoy:
1. Do real things in the real world with real people. Your nervous system knows what’s fake
2. Chase belonging, not fitting in. One is performative. The other demands honesty.
3. Don’t let outcomes become a surrogate for character. Results are feedback. They aren’t a verdict on who you are.
4. Care deeply, but be able to let go. It’s the paradox of performance. We need enough attachment to show up, but enough distance to be free .
5. When you feel yourself spiraling, widen your world. Fear narrows. Counter it, by zooming out and gaining perspective.
6. Self-sabotage is usually self-protection. Confronting your limits is a scary thing. It’s much easier to give ourselves an out beforehand.
7. Approach instead of avoid. Curiosity is the antidote to fear.
8. Your environment is stronger than your willpower. Make the right thing the easy thing.
9. Confidence comes from evidence. Keep receipts of hard moments you’ve handled to pull out when you need it the most.
10. Toughness is good decision-making under stress. Respond > react.
11. Don’t confuse suffering with growth. Finding discomfort is easy. But it needs to be meaningful to cause growth.
12. Chase mastery over metrics. Cheap wins feel good today and hollow you out tomorrow.
13. Play is not a luxury. It’s how adults remember they’re alive.
14. Disrupt the pattern when you’re stuck. Change the place, the people, or the script. When you are stuck, change the scene.
15. Re-align with reality often. Your brain predicts; your job is to update.
16. Make tradeoffs. Balance isn’t about doing everything. It's being aware of the costs. And retaining the power to choose what you prioritizze.
17. Consistency beats intensity. Show up. Give what you’ve got. Repeat.
18. Use checkpoints. Big goals become doable when you shrink the next step.
19. Practice losing well. Create space between who you are and what you do. It will allow you to stay in the game for much longer.
20. Be the healer-in-chief after conflict. Repair beats being right. Too often, we let our ego get in the way of mending.
21. If you’re a parent: the car ride home is the whole game. Support first. Coach second (if ever).
22. Love people for who they are, not what they produce. Including yourself.
23. Don’t “burn the boats.” Most people do their best when they feel free to perform, not trapped by stakes.
24. Live in the sweet spot. Seek challenges that make you feel a little out of control—but not overwhelmed.
25. Stress needs an ending. Even “good stress” turns bad when it’s endless. Build in stop points and recovery.
If you take nothing else from this list...build a life that makes you feel more alive: more connected, more present, more purposeful. It’s the antidote to a world filled with superficial, performative nonsense and disconnection.
-Steve