Beside the tangible benefits that competent performance can bring (e.g. recognition. financial rewards) it also enhances self-esteem and a sense of achievement. Moreover, psychologists claim that ‘human beings have an innate need to be competent, effective and self-determining’(1) – in other words, doing well feels good. So, we will focus here on what contributes to competent performance.

Precursors to competence

These steps can prepare you to perform competently:

• Practice: competence depends more on how effectively we utilise our abilities (whatever they are) than what abilities we have. Research supports the notion that talent plays a smaller role in an achievement than effort and time put into an activity(2). So, saying ‘I am not good at it’ is just an excuse. The more you practise, the better you will get.
• Doing everything well: trying always to do well regardless of what you are doing and its importance will help you perform competently when under pressure because it becomes a habit.
• Importance: giving too little importance to what you do can make you overly laid back, while giving too much importance can increase anxiety to the point of being paralysing. So try to find your own ‘Goldilocks zone’ in regard to this and keep importance within that range – this simply means taking what you are doing seriously but not too seriously.
• Being your own judge: if your priority is to satisfy your own standards rather than those of others, their praise or criticism can still have a positive effect on your performance but the negative effect will be reduced.
• A good physical and mental shape: if you don’t feel well or are tired or worrying about something, you will hardly be able to concentrate and perform well.

This area focuses on the ways we structure our lives and activities. Organisation is often perceived as an imposition, a chore that many people engage with reluctantly. So this is firstly an invitation to consider that organisation not only has many benefits but it can be a creative process – there is more than one way to plan and organise your life and activities!

Why organisation matters

There are a number of reasons why organisation may be of value:

• It saves you time and makes your life easier
• Harmony outside contributes to harmony inside
• It helps you achieve your goals
• It is socially desirable (e.g. always being late is not cool)
• It reduces stress – and it can be nice

How do you feel about organising? It is easier if you feel good, so spare a moment to consider how you can make it more appealing. For example, do you want to be more creative in your life? Be creative in organising your files, kitchen, clothes or music files!

This area is important as our energy level not only affects our performance, but also our emotional state and cognitive functions. We will address first the factors that affect our energy (body – mind; rest – activity) and how it can be preserved. Exercises that can be used to enhance energy will be suggested at the end.

Maintaining energy

Body care: taking care of your body is crucial for retaining an optimal level of energy. This is what body care requires:

• Good conditions and maintenance (warmth, nutrition, hygiene).
• Being responsible with what may be harmful (drugs, alcohol, tobacco, processed sugar and fats, etc.).
• Poised posture and the balanced use of the body (e.g. if you carry something, try to distribute the weight evenly rather than carrying it on one side). These not only save energy but also prevent wear and tear of the spine, joints, ligaments and muscles as well as protect against injury.
• All the above is common sense, but probably the most important and often neglected element of body care is listening to your body. Try to remember to listen to your body as often as you can and you will see what difference it will make.

State of mind: it is well known that our state of mind can affect the level of our energy (compare, for example, the level of energy exhibited by winners and losers after a sport competition). Emotions can have a debilitating effect (as in the case of depression), but they can also increase energy extraordinarily. Emotional blocks and inner conflicts consume energy and make you weaker. On the other hand, good moods, enthusiasm and laughter can release energy trapped by tension or worries and provide an energy boost.

Motivation is an inner push to act. Psychologists suggest that it ‘is an innate human drive and begins in infants as an undifferentiated need for competence and self-determination’.(1) There is no doubt that being able to affect our motivation is of great value, as little can be done without it. We are all too familiar with the debilitating effect that a lack of motivation can have. Learning about it is important not only to motivate ourselves, but also to be able to motivate others. This area will consider various types of motivation and how it can be increased.

Negative and positive motivation

• Negative motivation (an aspiration to preserve the existing state and avoid whatever threatens to make it worse) is associated with negative feelings (e.g. fear).
• Positive motivation (moving further, expanding, improving the existing state) is associated with positive feelings.

The former can sometimes be stronger, but the latter is more effective in the long run. Besides, negative motivation often ends in experiencing a lack of energy and desire for rest – not from the trigger, but from the unpleasant feelings that one is motivated by. It is interesting though that whether motivation is positive or negative often depends on our perspective (e.g. you can run from an attacker, or you can run for safety). To transform negative motivation into positive, you need to focus on what can be gained, rather than on what has been or can be lost; for example, you can motivate yourself to prepare for an exam by the fear of failure, or by a desire to do well. The former can jolt you into action but the latter is better in sustaining your motivation because it feels good.

Now, there are several categories of positive motivation – it can be useful to become familiar with them as they can help us expand our repertoire of possible ways to motivate ourselves.

Having a sense of control is a universal need. An infant’s crying, for example, is a way for her to control her environment. Yet what control really means can be easily misunderstood. So in this area we will consider various types of control, what affects control, and the difference between control and being controlling. But let’s see first why this subject is important.

Why a sense of control matters

Experiments on both humans and animals show that ‘the organism responds differently to conditions characterised by controllability on the one hand, and lack of control on the other’.(1) Diminished control increases feelings of insecurity and discontent, and reduces efficiency. On the other hand, having a sense of control has a positive effect on coping and also decreases the after-effects of distressing situations. The evidence from several sources indicates that this sense is an important factor not only in coping with stress, but for health more generally.(2) This is because it reduces excessive anxiety and physiological stress responses (such as adrenaline and cortisol secretion). Furthermore, it can also enhance motivation (e.g. if you feel that you are in charge of your kitchen, you may be more enthusiastic about cleaning it).

Control feeling: remember a situation when you had a sense of control. How did it feel? Where did you feel it in your body? Make a mental image or draw a picture of that state (e.g. sitting on top of a big balloon). Next time when you feel that you are losing the sense of control, recall that image in your mind and this should bring with it the sensation of control too. Beside an image, word or even movement (such as flicking one’s fingers) can serve the same purpose, as long as it is not used in other situations.

Coping is defined as an attempt to overcome or come to terms with difficulties or occurred losses. We will focus here mainly on coping strategies, but let’s have a look at stress and distress first.

Stress and distress

Two broad groups of situations require coping: losing situations that cause stress (e.g. running late for work), and situations in which a loss has already occurred, that cause distress (e.g. losing your job for being late). Stress relates to setbacks, distress to loss. Distress typically has a more profound effect because a loss cannot be prevented any more, but stress is far more common.

What triggers stress

Stress is usually instigated by your perception of a discrepancy between demands on you and your ability to deal with them. In other words, stress arises when there is a conflict between what you want or would like and what is actually happening. This means, for example, that you don’t get stressed when you are in a hurry but when you have to force yourself to stop despite being in a hurry. Such situations are common in modern society (waiting for a bus or lift, queuing, traffic jams, crowds, etc.). So, taking into account that something may go wrong, stop you or slow you down can go a long way – although it cannot eradicate stress completely, as things are not always predictable. Accumulated stress can affect our body (e.g. the immune and cardio-vascular systems), mind (e.g. the sleep, concentration), as well as relationships. Sometimes we use food, alcohol or drugs to deal with stress and distress, but the trouble is that they make us feel even worse after their effect is gone. Prescribed medication can be useful in providing a respite so that we can gather energy to deal with the situation, but they do not provide answers, they are not a solution. This is why we need coping strategies (to deal with both stress and distress).