Being Brilliant Every Day

Since Yerkes and Dodson’s experiment in 1908 there has been a clear and definitive relationship between pressure and performance that has stood the test of time.  Pressure increases performance up to a certain point and then too much pressure impedes performance. This relationship holds true for people, computers, complex systems and corporations. Yet today, 100 years on, more people than ever are suffering the health and performance effects of too much pressure.   In order to optimise performance you need to understand where you are on the pressure performance curve. Are you on the upslope building capacity, at the apex of peak performance, or on the downslope heading towards crisis and burnout?   Too many people today fail to recognise the signs of that downslope. Mind-sets such as “I want 120 per cent effort” reinforce this problem. But as any elite athlete will tell you in order to increase capacity you have to work on the healthy side of the performance curve at 80-85 per