Growth is good. Being able to grow in multiple areas of your life is exceptional.

Getting better in all four areas of the Potential Matrix—performing, learning, thinking, and reflecting—is a powerful strategy for overall improvement. But you don’t maximize one area unless you’re advancing in the others as well. Combined, all four create a powerful synergy for bettering your best.

But the performing quadrant is the most visible and measurable. After all, the proof is in the performance—and so is the payoff. Everyone can see the progress you’ve made in this area, including your clients, your employer, and your family. Growth here brings the results you want, like a thriving career and a happy home.

In The Potential Principle, we’ll look at the life of a man who was a master at enhancing performance. And I’ll share several ways to help you grow in this important quadrant. Here’s one of my favorite tips:

Codify your performance.

As you live and learn, trying and failing and then eventually gaining ground, make a note of what works. Pay attention to your mistakes and triumphs, and use that experience as a guide. Develop your own personal rules for outstanding performance, and keep fine-tuning them over time. That’s what successful, accomplished people do. The unsuccessful miss these lessons.

Write out your rules for performance, arranging them in a systematic order. This will make them easier to remember and use. It will give you a checklist to go through before you embark on each endeavor—like a pilot going over his plane and procedures before takeoff.

One item on my checklist for business success is the abbreviation PP. It stands for Prepare Powerfully. I’ve found that everything from meetings to sales calls are greatly improved when I prepare myself more than most people are willing to do.

Codifying your performance is an effective discipline. It builds consistency, and it dramatically improves outcomes. So get in the habit of writing down what you’ve learned you must do to be your best. Review your checklist regularly and revise it as needed. Use abbreviations and acronyms to make it simple to memorize, so you can use it anywhere.

When it’s go time, go over your checklist first. Not only will it help you focus on the essentials, but it will boost your confidence. When you know the key to performing at full potential, you can count on yourself to come through for the people who are counting on you.

Codify your performance. Use a preflight checklist to soar to higher achievement!

Order The Potential Principle at http://bit.ly/potentialprinciple.

New York Times bestselling author Mark Sanborn’s new book The Potential Principle: A Proven System for Closing the Gap Between How Good You Are and How Good You Could Be is scheduled to release September 5, 2017 and provides a map and method for becoming better than best. By identifying the four key areas in which growth is possible—thinking, performing, learning, and reflecting—and applying the four tools of improvement in those areas—disrupt, refocus, engage, and expand— Sanborn reveals the secret for achieving breakthrough improvement in any area of life. Mark is president of Sanborn and Associates Inc., an idea studio dedicated to developing leaders in business and in life. He is a noted authority and an in-demand speaker on leadership, customer service, and extraordinary performance.