First, let’s get clear on the terms. What is spirituality? (in practical terms)

Spirituality is not an area of your life or lifestyle, nor is it’s practice one of the 12 proficiencies you need to know to become a pro at living healthy and higher achievement; it is more than all of that. All Performance Lifestyle proficiencies are empowered greatly by a practical spiritual context and practice, including meditation.

Spirituality is the context from which you live your life.

It’s not religion or an “ism” of any kind, and it’s not escaping from your life to attain some kind of impractical enlightenment that may work for some very poor person with no attachments, or a rich person with the resources to quickly change or escape circumstances to do whatever she pleases; both of whom can more easily leave their life as they know it and sit on a rock with their legs crossed, transcending the real world in pure awareness.

Practical spirituality, does not require you to leave the life you live, although you will come to know your life from a whole new place.

It is, a context for who you really are, why and how to more fully engage with the world unencumbered and no longer at the mercy of the ego’s past.

We already speak of life at the next level as relative freedom from the hidden lifestyle challenges that hold you back. But is there something behind all the hidden challenges? Deeper than the alignment of how your life is structured, proficiency in the Lifestyle skills, and the direction and clarity of your goals?

Every aspect of a Performance Lifestyle is guided by your spiritual context. If you don’t have a practical spiritual context from which to live from you will be held back with the biggest challenge of all; not knowing who you are, why and how to fully more engage in the world.

When I first started teaching Performance Lifestyle I was on a quest to resolve many of my own hidden lifestyle challenges as I helped others resolve theirs. I was desperate for answers and I knew others were too; so what better way to get answers than lead the charge towards a better way of life.

What I never factored in, was an understanding of spiritual enlightenment and it’s practical purpose for living better.

Bringing Performance Lifestyle model together would take longer than I would have thought and mostly because of an unenlightened perspective and the encumbrances of my own ego. As I did, many people asked about spirituality, and if a Performance Lifestyle included spirituality in any way. The best answer I could deliver was “it’s all spiritual”.

Even early on, I knew that a practical spiritual context was the basis of the Lifestyle that would work for you, only I was unable to explain it in much depth and frankly wasn’t sure I quite embodied it yet.

I myself had big issues here, living out of ego riddled with distorted thinking; the whole concept of spirituality was confusing for me; a mix of religious dogma, flightiness and philosophy with no context that really made sense.

That’s why I co-authored the book. The Curse of the Capable, “change your story“, to help myself and others improve their psychological self identity (ego) from negative to positive and more supportive of what they want. In that book, we introduced a 4-stage process for changing any inaccurate or unsupportive story(s) you have about your life, to one (s) that supports you, what you want and how you want to feel. This opened up the door for more conscious creation as you move forward in life.

The book, ended with the concept of the spiritual learner who stays open-minded and learning from all relevant sources, so as not to get stuck again with stories (philosophies, rules, and values…) that just don’t work for you. But while the feeling of freedom and peace of mind increased substantially with greater resolution and evolution of the psychological self, the feeling of complete liberation was still hard to find. And that, is what I have learned is why you also want a practical spiritual context, so that liberation and complete freedom is attainable… even the middle of a busy day.

As my spiritual teacher Andrew Cohen states, “freedom has no history”.

I was able to succeed at making massive lifestyle improvements even without a truly enlightened spiritual context, particularly in the positive self psychology I created by changing so many of the unsupport5ive stories in my mind; but the ease at which such changes could be made and a true feeling of wellness did not kick in until a practical spiritual context was established; knowing where I was coming from, where I was headed and why.

Today, the clearer I now become on the spiritual context of my life, the easier life get’s, even amidst the incredible challenging times that everyone is experiencing.

Do you need to change your spiritual context to get your lifestyle working better for you?

No, but remember a practical spiritual context is not a new religion, or some impractical approach to enlightenment that only those with little to no worldly attachments or with enough resources to exit life can maintain; where the only answer is simply to meditate more.

Don’t get me wrong, meditation is very important in life, now matter what your lifestyle, but having a deeper spiritual context or framework within which to live, that explains nothing less than who you really are, why and how to fully engage in the world will drive you right. In a world where people drive themselves into the ground that’s a pretty welcome potential. Don’t you think?

You must admit, even if you don’t know what I’m saying 100%, if you were to know who you really are, why and how to engage fully in the world unencumbered by the negative influences of your ego, you would be much more inclined to improve your lifestyle, wouldn’t you?

Believe me, you would.

Here at PerformanceLifestyle.com we have been acknowledging the culture of achievement for sometime, because it has thrown most people’s lifestyles into a tailspin with overwhelm and burnout leading to overweight and health complications.

Simply put, your lifestyle is the way in which you achieve your goals and most people have never had lifestyle training, or coaching much the way an athlete would have to learn how to structure their lives, manage their energy, eat and train to achieve their goals.

The general public works longer, more consistently, and has to achieve more goals throughout the year than the typical athlete does under performance conditions, yet they don’t have anywhere near the level of lifestyle support that enables an athlete to function and perform as well as they do.

Hence, this is the reason why we don’t cater to athletes here at PerformanceLifestyle.com, but have opened up the Performance Lifestyle idea to the other 97% who may not be into sports or even a fitness enthusiast, but live in the culture of achievement and need to to change “improve” their lifestyle.

The benchmark is the PerformanceLifestyle formula above, but most people, including our children, have never learned the lifestyle mindset and skills set, and that’s why obesity and other dis-ease statistics keep going up and up in the wrong direction. We are driving ourselves so out of balance with a constant drive to achieve, that are bodies are not functioning and performing nearly as well as they could due to a depleted state.

That much change.

You can only burn the candle a both ends, eat nutrient poor food, be busy yet physically inactive and deal with all the unresolved issues that challenge you day to day and drive you to the point where you feel like you can’t stop to solve the real problem for so long before you run into real problems.

It’s happening with our kids and it creates performance addiction.

We think the need is to start living life at the next level where you buy into a new and improved set of concepts, and leave that old mentality behind. It’s the same mindset athletes and other healthy high achieving people have. It’s extra ordinary not overly exceptional, but you will appear “extraordinary” and exceptional without trying when you begin applying your rights to live in balance with vibrant health and peace of mind so you can achieve even your most ambitious goals.

Key is, our kids need to learn this out of the gate, so they don’t run the race to nowhere!

It read:

“John,

This story reminds me of our conversation on how “doing nothing” is sometimes the best thing for us…

You may remember the name Alex Tew. He’s was that young, aspiring student that found internet fame in 2005 after making $1m with his ‘Million Dollar Homepage’, set-up to fund his university education. He now hopes his new site will provide an antidote to information overload.

A website that invites users to log on and do nothing has now become a web phenomenon.

The site – donothingfor2minutes.com – has received more than 2 million visitors since launching nearly two weeks ago, according to its creators, entrepreneur Alex Tew and developer Ben Dowling.

Users arriving at the site are presented with a sunset view and the sound of ocean waves, together with a countdown that resets to 2 minutes if the mouse or keyboard are touched.

Not everyone is up to the challenge though, explains Tew, “only 38% of visitors are managing to take a step back and do a full 2 minutes of nothing, which I think highlights the point of the site.”

“The idea is to use technology to give back what it has taken away: calm,” explains Tew, “I read somewhere that our brains are being re-wired by the internet, because we get a little dopamine kick every time we check our e-mail or Twitter or Facebook and there’s a new update.

So we’re all developing a bit of ADD, which can’t be good.”

According to Tew, the site – which has received more than 250,000 “likes” on Facebook – is not a business venture but simply “a fun side-project” and a “meditation on how technology is changing the way we think and behave.”

~end

I say…Hat’s off again to Alex Tew.

When I first read the email I was just in from the gym after a nice conversation with one of the trainers. No sooner did I walk in the house, I read the email and my first impulse was to do something, then do nothing, but that kind of thinking always flag’s me to look at the order at which I do things. So, I did the nothing option first.

I often meditate to determine my next steps or actions throughout the day, so it was very familiar to me, but since there was countdown clock on this site and I was aware that I was going to be doing nothing for 2 minutes, it was very interesting to experience what doing nothing for 2 minutes actually is like.

Many of us have done nothing before.  In fact very soon I am going to do nothing for two whole weeks as I embark on a rejuvenating and medically supervised fast. I’m not even going to digest food!

But you may not be ready for the ultimate in rejuvenation, a fast, so try this. Doing nothing for even two minutes is a challenge and during that time, what makes it a challenge is this:

When you do nothing for a period of time you end up facing your true present condition energetically, psychologically, physically and sometimes even emotionally. Hint: This is why living in balance, with vibrant health and peace of mind so you can achieve even your most ambitious goals, is a lifestyle, not something you do after your lifestyle drives you into a wall.

Basically, when your energy is not directed outwards in some form of achievement, which can often masque your present condition, you begin to restore yourself. Facing your true condition can be uncomfortable and that’s one really good reason why people can’t and often don’t stop themselves. It’s just too uncomfortable; which, is why you want your lifestyle working for you, supporting you every step of the way, so that when you do stop and take care of yourself and your body, it is a peaceful experience.

If you have significantly low energy, two minutes is just enough time to begin the process of restoration, to help you in your day, maybe even a little longer, without getting groggy which would signal you’ve gone too far at a time when you are not prepared to go into a rest or sleep mode.

So, if you start to get lethargic and feel like a tidal wave of exhaustion is on its way, you are in personal energy debt and you need to learn how to manage your energy better.

Give it a shot and do nothing for two minutes. Remember to breathe and focus inward on your thoughts.

In a world where we define our lifestyle mostly by things we own, what we can afford to do and our personal preferences – true, true and true – it is only through a PerformanceLifestyle that we can build a mindset and the skill sets we need to live in balance, with vibrant health and peace of mind. These skills all function as our core lifestyle while enhancing our ability to achieve even our most ambitious goals – all without sacrificing our quality of life. This is the mission of living a PerformanceLifestyle.

I acknowledge the tall order of living this mission, but your lifestyle is what drives and serves you as a foundation that enables your capacity for achievement – and so I ask you now – why not think bigger, smarter and with a more proactive perspective?

This perspective shift can also begin answering practical questions that we all want answers to – such as “how do I live at or near my ideal weight all year round!”

Having a firm grasp on “your style” of eating, thinking and living enables you take a much greater, proactive stance on improving your life each day. By addressing you life from a PerformanceLifestyle perspective, you are improving your whole life – not simply living one more day on the latest “program” or having information change you that does not provide any real practical context.

When you truly understand your lifestyle, you will have something tangible to work from, develop and improve. Without understanding your lifestyle, the word itself is nothing more than an abstract concept. Even though your mind may be filled with motivational and insightful ideas, it ultimately has nothing to attach any new insights too in any organized way so any long-term advancement becomes almost impossible.

The more you align your life, your lifestyle (choices) and your goals – which ultimately ARE your mindset – the better you can achieve your goals and maintain a quality of life you want and desire or aspire to live.

We never use the term “mindset” and “skill set” loosely in PerformanceLifestyle training and coaching. We take lifestyle design seriously and understand the difference between life structure, style and goals.

A fundamental question is whether your personal “mind set” in your own lifestyle works for you or against you? Remember your lifestyle – no matter how you decide to address it, manage it or modify it – is inherently yours. Our exclusive PerformanceLifestyle training and coaching helps you identify your lifestyle and begin a process to live better.

So with that in mind, here are 10 predictions for the coming decade:

1) Our fast-paced and demanding performance culture has become inadequate to support self care, personal energy management, health maintenance and physical fitness. We will inevitably begin to develop and adapt to a new lifestyle structure, mindset and skill set that protects us from being overwhelmed, exhausted, over weight and riddled with health complications. We will begin a culture that learns how to thrive!

2) People will come to the conclusion that they don’t have the time, focus or energy to have to deal with year in and year out weight loss and lifestyle-induced health complications. We will learn how to live the healthiest lifestyle possible so that we can function and perform at our best at or near our ideal weight range all year round.

3) People will realize that 95% of all health problems – from diabetes to heart disease – are lifestyle induced and avoidable! As a result they will begin improving their own lifestyle – how they eat, think and live, every day.

4) Quality of Life will be the new measurement of success, and bragging rights; not money, power or influence alone. Lifestyle will no longer be seen simply as what you own, what you can afford or your personal preferences. Nor will it be defined by how much you sleep, eat or how much you exercise. Your Life at the next level will be the alignment of how you’ve structured all aspects of your life around the goals you aim to achieve and the quality of life experiences you desire. The most important characteristic of your new lifestyle will be the energy levels you can sustain over time.

5) Personal Energy Management becomes the new big thing and we all begin to realize that managing personal energy is tied into making all our life decisions – from psychological and emotional decisions to what foods we eat and how we train, work, focus etc. Everything we do and experience will consciously depend on how well we manage our personal energy.

6) We will become less and less “creatures of habit” with positive change being seen as a tangible reality. We will develop a greater understanding of our life “Style” and how to adapt effectively even in shifting circumstances. Our personal lifestyle will be seen as the missing link between health and success and we will learn how to change our lifestyles with proficiency in the skills we learn and integrate on a daily basis.

7) People will eventually stop outsourcing their lifestyles to rigid programs and rather learn from those who have identified proven and successful principles, practices and lifestyle strategies. We will incorporate and adapt them to “My Lifestyle” and we will begin to challenge ourselves to improve regularly. This transition will free us from the burdens of constantly “sticking to a program” as our way of life, to making our healthy lifestyle our way to a better life.

8.) People will begin to live their lives more like athletes do in the performance culture we live in. We will become far more discerning about how we drive ourselves, how we manage, spend and recuperate our own energy and the quality of the food we choose to eat as well as understanding how our lifestyle works with achieving our goals.

9) It will become very un-popular to ignore your own wellness and your body and your lifestyle will be held accountable to whether or not it supports the environment. People will begin to change to “save face” as we push to save our planet. What you eat over a lifetime, could save a town’s size piece of land from being ravaged and depleted.

10) We will rise and change the world for the better not by looking towards any outside entity to change so that we can change but by changing ourselves first. “Be the change“is what comes to mind and it starts from wherever you are right now and the lifestyle choice you make!

I hope these predictions provide some insight for improving your own lifestyle and inspire you to begin making changes today. You can live at a new level.

The following was adapted from The Need for a Performance Lifestyle, by Ian Jeffreys, who wrote about the Performance Lifestyle for enhancing recovery in athletes. Uniquely, the key pillars of the Performance Lifestyle approach can yield results in all walks of life and business,  not solely competitive sport.

Why I adapted this lifestyle, it’s mindset and skills for the non athlete is simple; we all face athlete-like performance demands in today’s competitive world. When we don’t handle and respond to these stresses in a practical, balanced and healthy way,  with an emphasis in regeneration or “recovery” we naturally go into the the downward energy trend, and begin experiencing the symptoms of metabolic syndrome and fat loss resistance.

To live at or near our ideal weight all year round, we have got to learn how to recuperate and manage our energy, including the food we eat and our activity levels. We’ve got to have a more comprehensive view of taking care of ourselves, our bodies and our course in life and bring it all together in our “lifestyles” – how we think and live.

When we handle and respond to the stresses in our lives with the Performance Lifestyle mindset and skill set, we end up living the healthiest lifestyle around, naturally and without the pressure and can better achieve our goals.

Have a read about Performance Lifestyle from an athletic perspective and see how the key pillars of a Performance Lifestyle approach can yield results in all walks of life and business,  not solely competitive sport.

In today’s rapidly changing world of competitive sport, athletes and coaches are constantly looking for competitive advantages. Today’s training programs are the most sophisticated ever, with athlete’s spending hours training in order to gain an advantage over their opponents. Yet , no matter how sophisticated an athlete’s training programme, it alone cannot guarantee success, and crucially a key area of advantage for athlete’s may actually lie away from the training environment. An athlete’s response to any training programme will be dictated not by the programme alone, but by their individual responses to each training stimulus. This response is not fixed, and will depend not only upon the stimulus itself, but crucially upon the given capacity of an athlete to cope with the training stress at any given time.  This capacity is constantly in flux, and depends upon the complex interaction of all elements of an athlete’s life, with all stresses having the capacity to affect energy positively and negatively. Maximising any training response requires creating an optimal internal environment whereby an athlete is able to respond appropriately to the training programme. This internal environment will only ever be optimised when an athlete is best able to balance all areas of their life, and make appropriate adjustments to balance stress with recovery and regeneration.

The Performance Lifestyle is a unique approach to maximising performance. Utilising this approach, an athlete is able to create an environment where they are able to optimise the optimal internal conditions required for maximal performance.  Its key is being multi-dimensional in nature, addressing all areas that have the capacity to impact upon performance, and not just those relating to the training environment. This multi-dimensional approach allows athlete’s to create an individualised approach to managing performance, which can directly address the precise factors affecting their own performance. Being lifestyle based, it allows athletes to make constant shifts and adjustments in relation to their situation at any given time, and creates an environment, both internal and external, that facilitates maximal performance in the short term, but also crucially, over the long term.

There is no method for natural weight loss, more powerful than living a performance lifestyle as it explains how to live a healthy lifestyle successfully.

You see, the need for a performance lifestyle is not to replace a diet, exercise or fitness plan.

The reality is, your diet, exercise or fitness plan is all built into your lifestyle, even now, even if you’re not giving these aspects of your lifestyle any attention. But speaking to that point, from time to time, we can challenge ourselves in these areas with various programs created by others and unless we are in a position of strength when we engage in a challenge, the results we’ll get will be far from par.

It’s always true that 20% of the people who participate in any program get the best results. The others, coming from a position of weakness and unable to follow through or are left disappointed.

When your lifestyle is not supporting your training, fat loss resistance or “metabolic syndrome” can ensue and it’s that position that I’m speaking of… it’s when you’re steeped in a downward energy trend.

Regardless of your motivation, the need for a performance lifestyle is to make sure that you have the lifestyle to support the results you are seeking. The body responds to new stimulus only when you have enough vital energy, nutrients and strength to adapt to that stimulus and for many of us, when you are over stressed and burning out, even the stress of exercise which should help you burn fat, can have the opposite effect and actually promoting weight gain.

Living out of balance in a downward energy trend will ensure that you are wasting your workouts and that can be a real motivation killer.

Read this article by Ian Jeffreys, author of the book, Coaches Guide to Enhancing Recovery in Athletes: A Multi Dimensional Approach to Developing a Performance Lifestyle who has rapidly established himself as one of the most respected strength and conditioning coaches in the UK.

Back in 2009 I discovered Ian’s book, and was amazed at how two people on opposite sides of the ocean had arrived at such a similar idea for defining a Performance Lifestyle. Ian, a world class strength coaching, came to terms with the need for a performance lifestyle to maximize training results.

Here’s a preview for “The Need for a Performance Lifestyle”.

Today’s training programs are the most sophisticated ever, with athlete’s spending hours training in order to gain an advantage over their opponents. Yet , no matter how sophisticated an athlete’s training programme, it alone cannot guarantee success, and crucially a key area of advantage for athlete’s may actually lie away from the training environment. An athlete’s response to any training programme will be dictated not by the programme alone, but by their individual responses to each training stimulus. This response is not fixed, and will depend not only upon the stimulus itself, but crucially upon the given capacity of an athlete to cope with the training stress at any given time.  This capacity is constantly in flux, and depends upon the complex interaction of all elements of an athlete’s life, with all stresses having the capacity to affect energy positively and negatively. Maximising any training response requires creating an optimal internal environment whereby an athlete is able to respond appropriately to the training programme. This internal environment will only ever be optimised when an athlete is best able to balance all areas of their life, and make appropriate adjustments to balance stress with recovery and regeneration.