Promises may fit the friends, but non-performance will turn them into enemies. – Benjamin Franklin

A promise gives other person a basis to expect something humanly tangible from you. He is then less worried about the uncertainties and this makes him at ease to some extent. But if you want to rise beyond expectations, over deliver.

Why to deliver more than promised?

1. For personal satisfaction: I try to keep promises I make. That makes me a responsible person. But there is nothing unpredictable in it. Fun is when I over-deliver and exceed the expectations. Whenever I deliver more than promised, I feel good for doing a quality job, and my confidence gets a boost. Moreover, my ‘extra’ efforts are recognized and appreciated by others.

2. To gain trust: Once people around you know that you put in extra efforts to deliver beyond expectations, they start trusting you. They will stick with you as long as possible since they know that at the least they are going to get what is promised. I am a vegetarian and I face problems when I go out to dine because of limited choices. But in a few restaurants, they understand my plight and offer me more options than stated on the menu. So, I visit those restaurants more often.

3. To take relationships to the next level: Delivering more than promised makes you extraordinary. You not only gain trust but also win a following. You create evangelists for your brand. Why people love Google, Firefox and Apple so much? Why their users become their marketers too? It is because they deliver more than what other search engines, internet browsers, and personal computers offer. The relationship between them and their users has advanced to the next level. Please find me a user who is not happy with them.

Have you ever under-promised and over-delivered? Do you put extra efforts to rise above expectations?

However, sometimes we are not able to keep our promises, even if we want to. After all we are humans. Things do go wrong and mistakes happen. It is important to remember that mistakes are allowed provided we accept and don’t repeat the same.

What to do if we could not keep our promise?

Instead of hiding, ignoring or lying about it, if we just communicate and accept it openly, we can still maintain the relationship and not lose the trust.

- Accept it. Tell the truth. Move on.

- Learn from your mistake or keep your mouth shut next time.

[Update]

Also Read:

• The brand formula – Seth Godin
• Ego – Seth Godin
• Who says we need our logo on every slide? – Garr Reynolds
• Overdeliver – Yuri Filimonov

So the key is to identify different kinds of barriers. Based on my experiences and readings, I consider mainly two kinds of barriers.

1. Primary barriers

First type of barriers are those which hamper your progress. These barriers interfere with your strengths and that’s why you are not able to reach your full potential. These are the primary barriers.

2. Secondary barriers

Second type of barriers are those which do not block your progress. These barriers do not prevent you from exercising your strengths to full extent. These are the secondary barriers.

For example, in cricket fastest bowlers are not the best bowlers. So, lack of speed in my bowling is not the real cause of my average performance. Speed is the secondary barrier. My primary barrier is the lack of good length and tight line. So, instead of practicing for fastest delivery, I should be practicing for good line and length.

What to do?

The trick is to distinguish between these types of barriers and work only on the primary barriers. Working on secondary barriers is a waste of time unless you have already overcome your primary barriers and overcoming the secondary barriers will help you perform better. Overcoming primary barriers will allow you to play to your strengths with full potential. Do understand that this will improve your effectiveness but not necessarily your efficiency. In essence, to become a great performer what you have to answer is – how to be more effective (in practice sessions).

To be able to distinguish between these two types of barriers requires clear understanding of what you want to achieve. If your goals are not clear to you, you will never be able to identify and focus on your primary barriers. Another important thing to remember is to keep your mind open to suggestions. Sometimes, when you can’t see the primary barriers, external sources, like your teachers, parents, siblings, or friends, might help.

For example

When I was in 7th standard, we were learning how to balance chemical equations in our chemistry class. Every one was practicing hard on it because that was the only topic that was supposed to be in our midterms. Like everyone, I was also practicing a lot to solve the equations using mathematical concepts. But maths alone was not enough to make it work. I was not getting the right answers, no matter how much I practiced.

Thanks to my mother, she saw me in frustration and came to help.

The first thing she made me to do was to memorize the periodic table and learn the atomicity of all the elements in the table. Knowing whether the element is diatomic, triatomic, etc. helped me deciding what multiplication factors can be used to balance the equations. Then we set up some rules, e.g., tackle the complex molecules first and the independent elements last.

So, this time I practiced with the knowledge of atomicity of the elements keeping the rules in my mind. The result – I was the only student in my batch to get all the answers correct in the midterms. That definitely made me popular in the school but the important thing was the lesson I learned.

Finale

Lesson learned was: know what is obstructing your progress and work only on it.

What really matters is your ability to recognize what really matters. You cannot run blindly for one thing today and for another tomorrow. Identify the limiting factors, differentiate them into primary and secondary barriers, and focus completely on the primary barriers.

Practice with a plan and the knowledge of the primary barriers. Some people are able to do it subconsciously, while others, including me, need to be explicit about it.

Read also: Bend it like Beckham. But how? Part 1

Finally, I gave up hope. But as soon as I turned around, the room got louder as the balloon started losing its pressure and soon all the air escaped through a small hole. I won a prize, a $5.00 Subway coupon. What an achievement right? Not as big as the joy of bursting the target in atmost 2 chances.

Moral of the story that I learnt is “Don’t ever give up. Even a small impact at the right place might win you an award“. I will have this picture in my memory for ever.
——

This reminds me of a female who lost her voice in an accident when she was 18 but suddenly started speaking again after 20 years. Though the two incidences cannot be compared but both have a common thread of hope. It is easy to give up after initial setbacks. But hope and faith keep us moving forward. Believe in yourself and keep trying.

Be a Eveready bunny. Never say die.

How David Beckham is able to bend football so much? Watch this video that demonstrates his talent. Did you see the turn football makes before entering the goal post? People still wonder how he did what he did.

Some researchers studied Beckham’s game and came up with this explanation,

The wind tunnel technique we’ve developed at the University of Sheffield enabled us to analyse in detail, for example, David Beckham’s sensational goal against Greece in the World Cup qualifiers. We know that the shot left his foot at 80mph from 27 metres out, moved laterally over two metres during its flight due to the amount of spin applied and during the last half of its flight suddenly slowed to 42mph, dipping into the top corner of the goal.

This does explain the physics but doesn’t really tell how Beckham managed to pull it. He didn’t study physics to compute the acceleration, projectile motion, or wind effect for his kicks. But his brain was surely computing such factors based on his experiences, practice and instincts.

How Tiger Woods is able to swing the golf ball into the pocket? Watch this video that shows his master shot. What was he exactly thinking before playing his shot?

Was he computing all the physics factor with his brain? Well, yes in a sense. He was using his experience, practice and instincts to figure out the best way to play this shot.

Why more than 1 billion people are die-hard fans of Sachin Tendulkar ? Watch the master blaster in action in this video. How he is able to play such classy shots with such ease?

If you look into their past, you’ll be surprised to find how much hard work they put in to become the best of the best. As reported in a Fortune article,

Research now shows that the lack of natural talent is irrelevant to great success. The secret? Painful and demanding practice and hard work.

It is evident that only those people who have worked hard for thousands of hours with proper mindset achieve greatness. Every great person has failed number of times in his life, but it is after such learning experiences they beat the odds and shine. But most of us are so blinded by their shine that we only see their present and fail to remember their past. What differentiate an average from a great are dedication and persistence.

However, we should not forget that any two persons working equally hard might not reap the same fruit of their labor. This can be attributed to their different mindset. Attitude plays a key role in one’s success. If you want to get out of your comfort zone and become an expert in something that you enjoy doing then you are in right mindset. And long hours won’t bother you. All great achievers like Beckham, Woods, and Tendulkar enjoy what they do. That’s why they can put in so many hours of practice without any complaints. But they are not practicing same shot again and again. Instead they keep trying new and difficult shots. They take one step forward with each moment and become comfortable with uncomfortable drives.

So, basically to achieve greatness,

• we need to have a suitable mental attitude to be able to enjoy the things we do.
• we should be willing to put long hours with dedication and persistence.
• we should be willing to overcome the barriers and take one step at a time towards the unknown.

In conclusion, I would like to quote what Kathy pointed out from the book The New Brain:

For the superior performer the goal isn’t just repeating the same thing again and again but achieving higher levels of control over every aspect of their performance. That’s why they don’t find practice boring. Each practice session they are working on doing something better than they did the last time.

Read also: Bend it like Beckham. But how? Part 2.

Drill. Persistence.

How experts become experts? Through hard work and practice. So where do you stand? To make things easy for you, let me show you a graph by Creating Passionate Users. Now where do you find yourself?

It was a lightening jolt for me when I saw that graph for the first time. It makes you think about your attitude towards important things in life. It reminds you to keep working on improving yourself and excel in every aspect of life, something which I was forgetting gradually.

It is so easy to get trapped in that comfort zone where you can get your work done in a suboptimal way. Once you are satisfied with what you know and where you are, you become stagnant. And that’s where experts get ahead of you.

Do you think you are too old to learn anything now? Or you think you just can’t do it? Well, then you are putting limits on yourself. Remember it is never too late to become an expert.

Strive to be the best.

I thought a lot about what I should do. In the past I had started a couple of projects and hobbies which faced premature death. The reason I figured out was that I was trying to do something just for the sake of keeping my self away from TV. Wrong strategy. I sat down and tried to figure out what is it that I think about and/or do nearly on daily basis; what is it that I really feel strongly for.

I realized that I enjoy helping prospective/fellow students decide their career paths in my capacity. Also, I read a lot about personal enrichment and growth, be it in learning or teaching. So I thought why not put my thoughts into words and make them open to public to read. May be someone else will also benefit. But believe me, writing is the most difficult part I have to deal with. I can hardly think when I write and write when I think. Trying to do them simultaneously is a training in itself for me.

But most importantly, I think I just want to connect with others who can bring a different perspective to what I write about. I want to learn from your experiences and share mine. I have benefited a lot from reading websites by some great writers(which I’ll list later). I don’t consider myself of that caliber but I definitely want to put my 2 cents here with a hope that it might make positive difference in someone’s life even if minimal.