Diligence, focus, determination; these are the key elements that every entrepreneur strives for on the grueling journey to success. These very elements allow you to step up and be the person you need to be in order to succeed.

These qualities could take years – with countless hours of directionless trial and error, to develop and refine. What if I told you there was a way to easily achieve these things plus everything else you need to take your greatness to the next level?

Well, the good news is that there is a way. The bad news, it will take preparation, hard work, and patience.

Here are 5 ways to achieve peak performance:

1. Have a recipe

You always need to be prepared. Success doesn’t just come along, kindly present itself and wait idly for you to grab it. You need to work hard for it, which means that you need to work toward consistency, you need to have a recipe; a plan.

You can call this plan your own personal ingredients; certain list of steps that you go to every single day in order to really know what you’re doing, and what you will do if any conditions change. Not only that, you need to know every single little detail of every single little step in your recipe.

As a trader, for example, my own certain setups allow me to be effective in the market and allow me to succeed. I consider them my personal toolbox of tricks, the steps that I use if the market gaps up or it gaps down. The point is I have a certain list of steps I know I can take for any condition. I am prepared, I know what I’m doing, and my performance is consistent.

“Follow your passion, be prepared to work hard and sacrifice, and, above all, don’t let anyone limit your dreams. ” – Donovan Bailey

2. Create a routine and build habits

In the world of business there is financial capital and then there is mental capital. And mental capital is so precious. The thing is, once you exhaust your brain, once you waste your mental capital, you cannot get it back. You sit there exhausted, getting into all sorts of trouble and missing all the best opportunities to make the most out of your time.

For you to be focused, and diligent, you must not waste your mental capital on things that aren’t important. This is why creating routines and building habits is necessary. Routines and habits are a way of taking all the potentially exhausting thinking out of your day. For example, my morning routine is always the same, I eat the same, I exercise at the same time, and I finish the day the same way.

3. Collect and analyze data

To succeed, you have to be able to find out what you’re good at and maximize your strengths. Ultimately, you must allow yourself to improve. How do you do this? Well, you have to collect and analyze your performance data.

For example, what is my success rate at a given task? What is my fail rate? And so on. Log your data into a spreadsheet recording the time the task took, how much you made, and how it moved you closer to your vision.

You must know your numbers. Gather your performance stats, review them, identify what you’re doing wrong and either fix it or eliminate it. In business, there is a fine margin between profitability and unprofitability. One bad habit could be the difference between the two, and trust me, it’s a lot easier to fix a problem when you have the statistics.

4. Know your personal patterns

Among all the types of patterns you have to keep an eye on in the world of business, the most important patterns to know are your own. In every business decision, we aren’t just investing our hard earned money and time, we’re investing into our own hopes and dreams. In doing what we do, we want to be able to take care of our families, make an impact, perhaps leave a legacy.

This allows us to get emotional and make mistakes and we may become self-destructive. These emotional interjections turn into repeated patterns. We have to recognize and understand our personal patterns, through analyzing data, or perhaps through analyzing our minds, so that we can combat them, numb them, and remain focused on what we need to do.

“You can do anything as long as you have the passion, the drive, the focus, and the support.” – Sabrina Bryan

5. Build a strong mindset

In business, as with life, there are things we cannot control that may impact the outcome. The things you can always control are your own mindset, your effort, your passion, and your preparation. Take all that you’ve learned from the above, and build a strong mindset.

Choose to work your ass off! Be prepared, stick to your principles, utilize your mental capital properly, improve, visualize, and know your personal patterns. You choose your destiny. You can control the little things that lead up to success. Are you ready for success? As my performance coach always tells me, “Attack the process”.

How do you achieve peak performance? Please leave your thoughts below!