Peak Performer

Welcome to 30 Days of Mental Skills, where I’m breaking down the 9 core psychological skills of peak performers. Each day, I’m posting a new video discussing a key aspect, including Mindset, Motivation, Goal Setting, People Skills, Self-Talk, Mental Imagery, Managing Stress, Emotional Agility, and focus and attention. This material is adapted from my lectures on the Performance Psychology module,...

Despite popular belief, money doesn’t motivate people. I ran a few ad hoc polls on this topic with readers in the past, and generally, most people “believe” that money is a significant motivator of behaviour. According to this idea, if you want to get people to do what you want, pay them. And if you want them to do better or do more, pay them more, like a bonus. When they have financial skin in th...

Let's discuss motivation. Self-Determination Theory says that human beings are active organisms with evolved tendencies toward growth, mastery, and integration of new experiences into a coherent sense of self. These natural tendencies toward growth and development are automatic, however. The social context is an essential factor, and it can either support or thwart our development. And so, there e...

Welcome to Day 4 of 30 Days of Mental Skills. Today I’m discussing Two Thinking Systems, or Dual-process Thinking. Dual Process Thinking is a fundamental concept that explains how our minds process information and make decisions through two distinct yet complimentary systems of mind. Understanding this concept of mind can help us develop the mental skills required for peak performance . Nobel laur...

Within field of psychology, Locus of Control is considered an important aspect of personality and behaviour. Julian Rotter was a behaviourist but he also understood the role of cognition in learning and development and originally developed the concept in the 1950s. Locus of Control refers to a person’s perception about the underlying main causes of events in their life. Or, more simply, it is how...

Hello friends, welcome to day two of 30 days of mental skills. I'm Larry Maguire, this is humanperformance.ie, and yesterday I introduced you to this programme, this 30 day programme where I get into some detail on psychological skills. Those skills that are fundamental to achievement, success and, of course, well-being, not only in sport and in business and so on and work, but also in general lif...

I teach my clients the psychological skills, not only of peak performance in work and sport, but of everyday living and wellbeing. These are skills for life, not just for material gain and worldly success . Material gain and worldly success come as a consequence of developing these skills, so if a better life circumstance eludes you, start with this. Every day for the next 30 days, I’ll be bringin...

Discussing the TFOW article from this week on Cognitive Offloading. You can read that here; Join me for my next live video in the app This is a public episode. If you would like to discuss this with other subscribers or get access to bonus episodes, visit peak.humanperformance.ie

I’m Larry Maguire, a work psychologist and lecturer. Welcome to this edition of Peak Performer, where we discuss the mental skills of peak performance. If you like this work and find it valuable, consider sharing this episode with a friend and posting a comment. Many thanks for your support! Welcome to this episode of Peak Performer . Today, we will explore the intricate and often misunderstood to...

Welcome to this week’s edition of the podcast. If you like what I’m doing here, share this episode with a friend, and post a comment. Many thanks for your support! Welcome to episode 15 of Peak Performer. Today, we're exploring the mental skills that elite performers use to excel in their fields, whether it is business, education, sport, the workplace or elsewhere. The skills we’ll discuss in this...

Welcome to this week’s edition of the podcast. If you like what I’m doing here, share this episode with a friend, post a comment. Many thanks for your support! The Myers-Briggs Type Indicator (MBTI) is one of the most popular personality tests in the world. Developed by Katharine Cook Briggs and her daughter Isabel Briggs Myers and based upon Carl Jung's work, it categorises individuals into 16 di...

Peak Performer is a reader-supported publication. Sign up here to get new articles, episodes and other content to your inbox. For one-to-one coaching, go here . To hire me for talks and workshops, get in touch here or post a comment on any article. Unlock the secrets of personality in this webinar recording, "Understanding Personality." Dive into the science and psychology behind what makes us who...

Peak Performer is a reader-supported publication. Sign up here to get new articles, episodes and other content to your inbox. For one-to-one coaching, go here. To hire me for talks and workshops, get in touch here or post a comment on any article. Welcome to Peak Performer. I'm Larry Maguire, a work and organisational psychologist. Some people refer to my field as industrial-organisational psychol...

In this podcast episode, I'm reading Chapter 3 of Stewart Cotterill's The Psychology of Performance and discussing the difference between self-confidence and self-efficacy. Throughout this reading, I interrupt the narrative to offer my input, clarity on certain aspects, and tips and advice on building up your sense of efficacy. Cotterill defines confidence as a belief in one's abilities to achieve...

In this week's episode of The Mental Game, I'm talking with Rob O'Donohue from Gartner Consulting on how to create positive workplace culture for small organisations. You'll learn in this episode that even if you are a solo business owner, you can begin to create the right workplace culture for the future. The seeds planted now while you build your business will be vital for positive workplace cul...

Why do airline manufacturers hide potentially catastrophic faults from their customers? Why does big tech use behavioural psychology to take advantage of young developing brains? And why do car makers hide vehicle emission data from the public? At the core of these breeches, is unethical decision-making by business leaders with concern for profit at all costs. Unethical Leadership results from a s...

Self-determination is an important concept when considering the human motivation to work and perform. Self-determination theory (SDT)1 explains human motivation, and according to Edward Deci, it is “the energy for action. It gets us up in the morning and moves us through the day”. Motivation allows us to make personal choices based on survival, integration, and work with others and allows us to fe...

In the pursuit of success, we can lead ourselves astray. Caught up in how we might be perceived or in anticipation of the prize, we lose our focus. The work itself becomes less important than the material results. This is detrimental to high performance. High performance can only ever be seen in retrospect. In other words, it's only when the job is done that we get to see the fruit of our work. It...

In this episode, we will explore the autotelic personality and the aspects of the self essential for peak experience in work, sport and indeed, life. We will also explore the nine optimal conditions for Flow according to psychologist Mihaly Csikszentmihalyi. High performance in all domains of work and play requires it, and the degree to which we may cultivate these aspects of personality will almo...

The Performatist is a concept of the individualised yet universal self. It is that version of humanity that grows out of self-direction and autonomy. The Performatist is the one who makes a dent in their own particular corner of the world. Whether that dent is small or large is irrelevant. What is important is that we become the active agent in command of our own work and life experience. This is...

Physiological skills are important, but it is the psychological and emotional that have the final say in performance. In today's episode, I'm exploring five key psychological skills of elite performers. Elite performers in all fields of work, sport, the arts, and beyond possess psychological skills that enable their higher-level output. Research reports that psychological skills training, comprisi...

Read more about The PERMA Model; humanperformance.ie/what-is-resilience In the late 1960s, the father of positive psychology, Martin Seligman and his research associate, Steven Maier, were part of a team that discovered the phenomenon of “learned helplessness." They found that dogs, rats, and mice, when subjected to mild electric shock over which they had no control, would learn to accept it, maki...

Welcome to this introduction to resilience. Resilience in all domains of performance, be it work, sport or otherwise, in simple terms, is said to be our personal ability to cope with, and bounce back from adverse conditions. As such, it is an important aspect of the performer's repertoire, be it considered a stable trait or a dynamic process. (We'll discuss more on the question of stable trait ver...