What Are We Performing For?
For the past two and a half years, I have been paying more attention to my physical health than at almost any other point in my life.
Food. Movement. Sleep. Recovery. Not obsessively, but curiously.
What works? What doesn't? What can I sustain?
And lately, a different question started bothering me:
What am I trying to be healthy for?
What am I trying to be fit for?
And more broadly:
What are we performing for?
Problem: Performance without Purpose
For years, I thought physical performance was mostly about outcomes: losing weight, becoming fitter, running further, feeling stronger.
I kept trying. But effort alone didn't always produce the results I expected.
Over the past two and a half years, I dedicated myself to my system: what I eat, how much and when; how I move; how I sleep and recover; what changes when I travel; and what I can actually sustain when life becomes busy.
I observed. I adjusted. I refined. And I repeated.
Gradually, results that had felt impossible for decades became achievable and sustainable.
Insight: Capacity for Purpose
In his 2017 TEDx talk, Making Change Stick, Nigel Parker explores change through his own health journey. He built a digital assistant that collected his health data, predicted when he was going off track and nudged him to adjust his behaviour.
His story resonated with my own experience.
Sustainable change, in my opinion, requires building the capacity and conditions that allow a different way of living and working to become possible, rather than repeatedly pushing ourselves from guilt, pressure or expectation.
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And this brought me back to my question:
What matters enough to me to build that capacity in the first place?
For me, physical capacity gives me far more than fitness.
It gives me energy to think, write, coach, learn and create. It allows me to continue doing work that matters to me: helping people see possibilities they may no longer see for themselves, navigate meaningful change and build lives and careers in which more of their abilities can come alive.
To inspire, empower and guide people.
That is what I am performing for.
3 Things to Start Practicing
💎 Get clear on what matters enough to change: A meaningful reason gives our effort direction.
💎 Design and observe the system before adding more effort: Look at your behaviour, environment, rhythms and feedback. Small mismatches can keep producing the same unwanted results.
💎 Adjust, repeat and give change time: Sustainable change is built through learning and recalibration, not one perfect decision or action.
A Human Performance Architecture Reflection:
This is becoming central to how I think about Human Performance Architecture:
intentionally designing the purpose, biology, behaviours, environments, rhythms and systems that support our capacity for meaningful change.
Because...
✓ Purpose gives us direction.
✓ Capacity makes movement possible.
✓ Performance turns that capacity into action.
✓ Contribution gives it meaning.
So, I leave you with the question I am currently asking myself:
What are you building your capacity for?
FROM INDIVIDUAL CHANGE to ORGANISATIONAL CHANGE
On 13 October, I will explore another dimension of change with dear Cornelia Walter in our FREE EVENT : The Unspoken Truths About Change Management in 2026.
We will talk about what really happens to people during organisational change and what leaders can do differently when they understand its human side.
If change is part of your work or leadership right now, we would love to have you with us.
Warmly from Vienna,
Dilek
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Check further resources and reading:
TEDx talk, Making Change Stick, Nigel Parker
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★ Lead Coach at the global coaching platform BetterUp based in USA.
★ Executive Coach and Trainer at SparkUs based in Turkey and Netherlands.
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★ Leadership Coach at Percoms AG, based in Switzerland.
