I have put together a guide with 26 Holistic High-Performance techniques that cross and cover the four dimensions of human potential, those are: physical, emotional, intellectual and spiritual. It is a set of essential and proven practices / super-habits that have helped individuals, groups and organisations, and it will help as well anyone to enter the path of this methodology to reach our maximum potential, resonance and alignment.
How to impulse the physical dimension of human potential: 9 Holistic High-Performance techniques
Find here some techniques focused on the physical dimension of Holistic High-Performance. The only part that is closely linked and connected to the other three, as all physical impact affects the brain, emotions and our spirit.
- Powerful breathing: Every day, in the morning, taking forceful breaths will connect your body with your mind and spirit. If you want to start, you can take the Wim Hof Method online course, or contact Sven Kimenai (Wim Hof instructor).
- Transformational Breathing: A physical breathing technique, but with immense emotional release, what starts outside and ends inside – and vice versa. Here I would include the Inner Dance Breathwork.
- Total or intermittent fasting: The benefits of fasting, which I consider as a physical technique because it has to do with the physical part of food and liquids, has a catalytic power in the whole being, including the organism. One of the most significant advantages is autophagy. I won’t make another recommendation other than having someone specialized in the field like Lou Mateos.
- Explosive Priming: Science shows us that a small, passionate and explosive sport load in the morning is enough to give us the necessary focus and mental power to win most of the day. Here you can use HIIT, Power Yoga, contact sports, Zumba, running series, cycling, swimming or anything like that.
- Optimal sports practice: Experts recommend between 30-45 minutes a day. And science again indicates that the optimal range of sports practice is between 12 noon and 4 pm, where we would regain all the momentum we gained in the morning with intense priming. Here, and to go deeper, consider contacting Manuel Castro.
- Tai Chi: I have been practising this discipline for between 10-25 minutes a day, for 150 days in a row. Now I see how physical it can be, and above all what it strengthens emotionally, spiritually and intellectually. The ability to unify your mind and pulsations with each movement helps you reaching Flow states, as well as more excellent knowledge and control of the small changes of your body.
- Qi Gong: I started this practice five days after Tai Chi, the difference, which I find, on day 145, is that you exercise more strength, elasticity, agility and balance. In addition to working in slow motion which places you in the present and makes you stay conscious. I spend 10-20 minutes a day on this practice.
- Roller foam: An essential element for massages, to release, contractures, and being on the go, because there are some that you can even take on a trip, I did it in 2018-2019 when I was travelling around the world. It serves to relieve tension, activate blood circulation, recover and activate and attack contractures. Here are some practices.
- Inversion table: this was the hack of 2017 since then I have not stopped using it. It is a tool that turns you upside down. Its effect produces the right amount of benefits to combat tensions, as well as avoiding pain in the lumbar and cervical spine (you can find out more here). Between the table and the roller foam, if you use it with discipline and habitually, you can be very unloaded and relaxed muscularly speaking.
With these techniques that work the physical dimension of Holistic High Performance, you can be a step ahead, as together with the others shared in each dimension, you can optimize your life to a new level.
12 Holistic High-Performance techniques to train and enhance our intellectual dimension
Little by little I have been designing some Holistic High-Performance techniques, we started with the physical ones. Today we share some of the techniques to train and enhance the intellectual dimension:
- Design a small journal that helps you stay focused on what matters: I call it the high-performance journal, and here’s an example to get you started.
- Prepare a series of questions that you can ask yourself in the morning, at noon, and night. Questions that serve as small checkboxes to measure what matters to you. For example, rest time, what I have learned, what gift I haven’t seen yet, what opportunity I have taken advantage of, what thought has dominated me.
- Practice “thought dumping”: This is a useful technique both in the morning just after waking up and at night before going to sleep.
- Protein as a turbo charge for the brain: studies show that 30gr of protein within 30 minutes of waking up has been shown to improve cognitive functions.
- Cognitive (and nootropic) enhancers: There is a lot said about this, there is a lot of marketing too, so it is best to experiment until you find something that works for you. You can try nootropics, you can try PQQ, with Lion’s Mane and Niacin. It is best to research and not have high expectations of anything until you try and record the effects.
- Determine the night before, what is the essential thing that needs to be done the next day. This way, when you wake up and get to work, you only have to take a little look, because you have already planned and that will not consume additional resources.
- Write down instead of memorizing: The less I learn irrelevant things, and the more I write them down, the more creative and disruptive space, I have to operate clearly.
- Create a system of metrics that you can measure on a checklist when you wake up, in the middle of the day and when you go to sleep. They can be the questions seen above, they can be the factors that determine whether you are on the right track or not, and to be able to correct if not.
- The right music is always a useful tool, here are two playlists that I have been developing and could help you, one is for focus, the other for unplugging.
- Practice psychological detachment from work. I mean, when you’re not at work, don’t do anything related to it. The same would apply regarding leisure when you are working.
- Determine your focus areas and your attention span (through experiencing and monitoring time and concentration). This will allow you to know your limitations to be able to do the best job at the best time knowing for how long to do it.
- Regulate, or even better, put on a diet the information you consume on a daily basis. Be drastically restrictive with everything that comes in and what you consume. It happens because the less you consume, the easier it is to digest it and the more you can take advantage of that with what you “feed” yourself.
Training and enhancing the intellectual dimension of Holistic High Performance is just as necessary as the other three (physical, spiritual and emotional).
The key is to find a daily balance between them, and give equal importance to them all, even if you think that one is more critical than another, it is not, especially if you want to move on an incredibly different level.
15 Holistic High-Performance techniques to train and cultivate our emotional dimension
In this part, you are going to find some Holistic High-Performance techniques for working on the emotional dimension (which also feeds back to the spiritual and intellectual dimensions):
- Radical acceptance: Accept 5 things every day that when you reflect on them that you don’t accept.
- Surrender to the experience: Write or verbalize “yes” to painful, unfair, frustrating and negative experiences that you lived through the last day.
- Observe yourself in front of a mirror, staring at yourself for more than 4 min.
- “Who are you?”: Describe (for yourself) who you are, every day, in terms of skills, traits, feelings and experiences.
- The story in my head: Write about the (unreal) story in your head when you wake up and then, just before going to sleep. “What is the repetitive and surreal story I’m telling myself?”
- Establish a system of rewards and punishments: The first must be much more than the second, at least x3.
- Create a moment of daily vulnerability: Open up to someone who is having a hard time opening up.
- Recall painful moments from time to time (monthly) and narrate (write) the full story. Then ask yourself awkward questions.
- Every morning write out the story that you are going to live in a mini-script that you either verbalize or write.
- Enable spaces for forceful conversations.
- Aim to face the most painful emotion of the day: Not by running away, but doing the opposite of what it says.
- Undertake random acts of generosity and appreciation left to right (for yourself and others), through whatever channel.
- Eliminate all harmful and toxic people from your life – no matter who they are.
- Write on your wall: “If I keep breathing, then everything works.”
- Respond “great” to any opinion, fact, attack or compliment.
Working on the emotional dimension every day is critical. This dimension is what optimises the other three: intellectual, physical and spiritual.
10 Holistic High-Performance techniques to train and cultivate our spiritual dimension
How to train, strengthen, widen, exalt and care for our spiritual dimension:
- Meditation: It is after 20 minutes (and daily) when something begins to move – just as our brain begins to react. Optimal for beginners: 20 min morning and night. And 30 min for intermediate sailors.
- Stillness: 5 min of total stillness 3/5 times a day is more than enough to connect, see, lift.
- Identify your value system and lower it to how you live: Behaviours, decisions, actions and reactions.
- Practice philosophy that values action (this has nothing to do with religion): I have found in Stoicism the perfect tool to connect everything: soul-values-principles-emotions-reason and physical-intellect.
- Breathing: As simple as that, stop and breathe calmly, consciously and gently. You can use power breathing (Wim Hof Method for example), transformational breathing, or Holotropic breathwork.
- Silence: Not silence when you are alone, but when you are surrounded by people. The more you practice it, the more power you will find in this technique.
- Loneliness: Spend time by yourself – at least 2h a week (in a row).
- Write for your soul, not your mind or emotions. Don’t think or feel when writing.
- Ask yourself questions: Check how you feel inside, push emotions and thoughts aside. For example: What is really moving me? Or what is inside me?
- Dance and sing to melodies with spiritual meaning. When you practice it long enough, you won’t believe what you can find. Here is a playlist that I am creating for this purpose.
The next step is for you, to explore and design the Holistic High-Performance techniques and “hacks” that best work for you on the 4 dimensions.
By the way, if when you finish reading this, you think “how much time do I have to invest in writing and doing all of this?”:
- Point one, save yourself the question.
- Point two (in case after the recommendation, you insist with the question) here you have the answer: “What do you think?”
P.S. Does this resonate with you? Are you interested in implementing more Holistic High-Performance techniques? If so, and you want to know (and even participate) before anyone else when the project and programs come to light, just contact me here and write in the subject “I want to be part of the ARH program”.