My 2022 Challenge - 12 Monthly High-Performance Experiments

I’ve decided to undergo a series of 12 monthly experiments/challenges in 2022 with the intention of sharing my reflections on them with you all on my free SubStack.

(…ah, damn, am I really doing this?)

The monthly experiments will be things that the ‘elite’ performers in our society recommend to us to achieve high performance in our lives, and as such may range from scientifically-backed tools through to anecdotal/esoteric ideas.

I will consistently carry out the action over the course of the month, and then write my daily reflections on them here. Fun fun.

Examples of proposed daily experiments I’m considering:

• Diet-related: Whole-food plant-based diet (no meat, no dairy, no eggs, no added oil, no added sugar, no gluten) - *this will be the challenge I’ll be starting from tomorrow!*
• Exercise-related: Running daily, swimming daily, cycling, etc.
• Health-related: Sleep timings/duration, yoga, meditation, Non-Sleep Deep Rest protocols, step count target, etc.
• Stress-tolerance related: Cyclic hyperventilation protocols, cold showers, etc. (please don’t make me take a daily cold shower…)
• Career-related: Once-a-day posting, cold emailing, ‘curiosity call’ with someone I’ve never spoken to.
• Learning-related: Reading target, listening to podcasts, etc.
• Mindset-related: Affirmations, gratitude practice, multiple prayers per day, etc.

Which experiments I select will be based partly on my own curiosity, but I also want them to be guided by you, the reader. Not only do I hope the information from each experiment will be helpful to you in your life journey, but it may also invite you to experiment with me during that month.

The condition I will adhere to is that the experiment has to be:

• Something I’ve never done before (e.g. yoga, reading targets)
• Something that I have done inconsistently to the extent where I haven’t generated results from it (e.g. cold showers)
• Something that builds significantly on an existing habit in a way which could improve performance according to scientific literature or anecdotal experience (e.g. running every day at a specific distance/heart rate, affirmations multiple times per day as opposed to once a day, daily meditation for a set number of minutes based on scientific literature)

So, why am I doing this?

(Because I’m an idiot, and I’m going to regret this in a week when my dark chocolate cravings are at an all time high…)

No, but really, there are 5 key reasons:

1.Serving My Clients: I’m a performance coach with a personal philosophy around sustainable, holistic performance - that is to say, not being in the top 1% in one thing at the expense of other areas of our lives, but being in the top 3% in key priority areas of our lives (often career, relationships and health). In helping people optimise their performance in various areas of their life, practicing what I preach is something I’ve held myself to as best I can since I started out this path.

However, the complexities of life mean that there are always external variables that can unpredictably arise and contribute to our performance falling by the wayside - and, believe me, I am no exception! There is no ultimate balance in life - every equilibrium we encounter in life is unstable.

As such, I’m always looking for tools that can help myself and others not just remain centred when our unstable equilibrium is challenged, but to minimise our ‘bounce-back’ time to a new unstable equilibrium when we are inevitably knocked off-centre.

2. Exploring The Relationship Between Fulfilment & High Performance: I believe that internal fulfilment is paramount to sustainable high performance. You can achieve short bursts of high performance out of pressure, dissatisfaction, insecurity, a desire to prove, and all sorts of other external motivators.

But true sustainable performance arises through feeling fulfilled by the action being taken, such that it aligns deeply with our values and becomes a part of our identity. As such, in these experiments, I’ll not just be gauging how my performance shifts, but also how fulfilled I feel. My hypothesis is that the fulfilment factor will be the driving force as to whether I sustain the habit after the monthly experiment is over.

3. Making Performance Easy: ‘High performance habits’ are vital to holistic performance, but can be tough to maintain for many of us - especially when external life changes occur. Discomfort makes our brain crave short-term satisfaction. As such, new habits break down. Inertia appears. Unwholesome behaviours seep in. With repetition, they become habits. Our tolerance for discomfort continues to decline.

To me, sustainable performance requires a gentle vigilance around these habits - not obsessive, but attentive. It is my intention to experiment with these tools in a gentle way - they shouldn’t be the focal point of my life; rather, their aim should be to supplement and augment my life while requiring minimal energy to maintain. Initially, I expect high discomfort. Part of my reflections will be around sharing how I do my utmost to navigate that.

4. Accountability & Vulnerability: In publishing my results each day, I will be as honest as possible. If I can’t create and maintain these habits as someone who has dedicated his life to coaching others on performance, or more importantly, own up to when I fall short, how can I expect to show up with integrity each day for others? This means that any inevitable slip-ups will be shared.

High performance isn’t perfection - it’s being able to minimise our ‘bounce-back’ time such that we return to a high-performance state effectively. I don’t believe performance has to be externally comparative. Seeing how far we’ve come in relation to where we started is beautifully rewarding, as is being compassionate & honest with ourselves when we slip up in order to mitigate the damage and ease back into our flow of high performance when we’re knocked off-centre. I’ll be reflecting more on why compassion when we slip-up is vital for recovering performance during the journey.

5. Personal Curiosity. Performance & fulfilment are dear to my heart. Experimentation is something I’ve always been afraid of (who wants to waste time doing something that may not work?) but that I have learned the necessity of over the last 10 years. I’m at a time in my life when a lot of things are in flux. I am proud of my performance in 2021 across all aspects of my life, and I feel fulfilled in my life…

But the truth is that 2022 requires me to level up to handle the new demands I’m facing around my career growth, relationships and health - and I am ready to level up.

However, a desire to level up can contribute to unrealistic expectations and unsustainable pressure. I would prefer to use a more sustainable form of fuel for these experiments - curiosity. These experiments will be the platform to help me identify how to sustainably focus my energy going forwards when it comes to any project, as well as share how I deal with the unsustainable emotional reactions caused by any pressure I feel. My hope is that levelling-up won’t be a result of pressure & expectation; rather, it will be a by-product of consistent action, thorough reflection and effective iteration.

How will I be structuring my posts & measuring my performance?

I’ll be looking each day at:

1. How effectively I carried out the experiment - when I did it, how I did it, what obstacles I faced, etc.
2. How it impacted career performance in terms of: A) full presence with clients, B) energy to do creative work e.g. content creation, posts, etc, C) business development work.
3. How it impacted my mood in terms of energy and motivation.
4. How it impacted my physical health and fitness goals.
5. How it impacted my relationships with my partner and family.
6. How fulfilled and satisfied I feel. (Subjective 1-10 scale)

At the end of the month, I’ll aim to summarise my learnings from carrying out the 30-day experiment.

Of course, whatever results I attain won’t necessarily be the same for anyone else. But I hope that the journey is insightful for you, whether in terms of helping you become more aware of obstacles you may face when creating fulfilment and/or performance, or whether it would be worth your time to run a similar experiment.

“Caminante, no hay camino; se hace camino al andar” - Antonio Machado

“Traveller, there is no path; the path must be forged as you walk”

Thank you for choosing to walk alongside me.

See you tomorrow on my SubStack with some reflections on my first day on a whole-food, plant-based diet with no added oil, no added sugar, and no gluten. Damn, the dark chocolate and olive bread cravings are going to be horrific…

With gratitude,

Kam

You may never have heard of Kam Taj before, so he should probably introduce himself. Kam is a performance & mindset coach, speaker and founder of the ‘Own It’ Self-Leadership Coaching Programme. He graduated from Cambridge University with a 1st class Engineering degree (2011-2015) after almost dropping-out, following which he endured a brief career as a management consultant. He speaks at companies and conferences on emotional intelligence, resilience, wellbeing and sustainable high performance. He also works with students, schools and universities to cultivate these skills as part of our academic journey (while getting awesome grades), having created the Exam Success Academy online resource and written The Ultimate Guide To Exam Success. When he’s not working, he can be found on tennis courts, basketball courts or in the gym hanging on gymnastic rings. He plays tennis with his mum on Tuesday afternoons and chess with his dad on Saturday evenings.