The Olympics are a big deal in our house. We watched them every night. We even let our daughter stay up an hour past her bed time for 13 days to enjoy. There were amazing physical feats this year: from the Chinese synchronized platform divers entering the water like feathers floating through the air, to Usain Bolt crushing world sprint records, to 42 year old Dana Torres winning three silver medals in swimming to Michael Phelps’ astonishing eight golds.

It was thrilling to watch people achieve the seemingly impossible. It inspired me to increase my exercise regime from 30 minutes every other day to 90 minutes every day! More importantly, these heroic achievements reminded me about what it takes to achieve extraordinary results. I noticed these 5 things:

1. Exploit what you are good at   All of the Olympians are building on their strengths: Michael Phelps had a lot of extra energy, so his mom enrolled him in swimming; Nastia Lukin has gymnastics in her genes. The same is true of people who excel in business: Oprah’s is great at connecting with people’s lives; Bill Gates has a keen understanding of technology and how to apply it (as well as a great understanding of business law). All of us have things we are naturally good at. These are the areas you will have the most success in. Find those skills and develop them and you are on your way to high performance.

2. Surround yourself with people to help you.   Building on the above point, you can’t succeed completely on your own. We all need people with more experience and special talents to support and complement ours. For example, Dana Torres did not create that hard body and 3 silver medals on her own. She had a team of personal trainers, massage therapists and swimming coaches. Who do you have on your team? What mentors coaches and advisors are helping you to achieve extraordinary results? Finding even one person to support you can elevate your results from average to above average.

3. Visualize success.   All high performing athletes know that the mind can undermine or activate the body. Brain research shows that what you focus on in your mind’s eye creates neural pathways in your brain. Repeated focus on what success looks like will condition your mind to create that success. Worrying about failing or possible problems will condition your brain to look for those problems. An excellent book on this topic is Liberating Greatness, by Hal Williamson. Think about the success you are trying to create. See it happen repeatedly in your mind and high performance will result.

4. Talk to yourself.   I laughed when I saw all of the women 100 meter sprinters talking to themselves minutes before the race. What were they doing? They understand that everyone’s mind (even Olympians) produces negative thoughts and fears. They were replacing these negative thoughts with positive thoughts. Try this at your desk. Catch yourself doubting if a project can be completed with the limited time and resources available. Tell yourself: “I am going to get this done. I am going to figure out how to make this happen.” You will find you’ll experience less stress and better results.

5. Work really hard.   None of these techniques replace hard work. Telling yourself you will succeed in the face of a challenge without working hard will not magically create the results you want. All high performing people put in the time to master their technical specialty. The Olympians practice and work out five to eight hours a day for 4 or more years to prepare themselves for the challenge of the event. So put in effort (lots of it) and watch your results soar.

These 5 steps are not complicated. Why then are there only a few stars in each area of sports, business, arts, science? Is it that only a few people are “naturals” for each discipline? Or is it we don’t tap into what we naturally excel at? Is it personal drive and discipline? Is it good parenting? Is it overbearing parenting? Who knows.

What I do know is that I have both personally applied all of these 5 steps in business, music and health and achieved extraordinary results. I also have coached others to do the same. These steps work!

Leveraging these best practices may not win you a gold, but they will enable you to move to higher level of performance. Try them. Experience the thrill of victory.

And as always, let me know how it is going out there in the trenches.