Prior Best = New Baseline #264

In our last +1, we entered our World Champion You Training Camp.

* Cue Rocky theme song *

Here’s one way Josh Waitzkin tells us we can go about doing that.

Think about you at your absolute best. And make that your new baseline.

In The Art of Learning, Josh tells us about his quest to be the best Tai Chi Push Hands martial artist in the world. His training was jaw-droppingly inspiring.

He’d film his sparring sessions, reviewing moments when he performed a new move that was better than something he had done before. He’d study it in the finest detail until he figured out how to make that prior best his new baseline — discovering little things like the fact that his opponent was vulnerable at the moment he was blinking.

He tells us: “I want to use that experience as a new baseline for my everyday capabilities. In other words, now that I have seen what real focus is all about, I want to get there all the time… So a deep mastery of performance psychology involves the internal creation of inspiring conditions.”

That’s what we need to do with our lives.

With that in mind, let’s review the video of your last best day. What were you doing?

Seriously. Dust off the film. Review. Let’s take some notes.

Eating: __________________________
Moving: _________________________
Sleeping: ________________________
Focusing: ________________________
Self-Talking: ______________________
Relating: _________________________

What else? _______________________

Who are you at your BEST? Let’s make that your new baseline.