The Five Principles of Performance By Zig Ziglar
Much of success is about performance. It’s about what we do and what we are able to inspire others to do. There are some simple performance principles I have learned in my life, and I want to share them with you.
They really bring success, and what it takes to be successful, into sharp focus. They are also the basis for developing and maintaining an expectation of success.
The Five Principles of Performance:
1. We generally get from ourselves and others what we expect.
It is a huge fact that you will either live up or down to your own expectations. If you expect to lose, you will. If you expect to be average, you will be average.
In my book, 
Down the street from my office is a very large media complex containing a TV station, several radio stations, and a large conference center. At one corner of the massive building, there is a large fenced area where several radio and TV broadcast towers soar hundreds of feet into the air. Thousands of people drive by this complex every day and have seen the towers so many times they don’t even notice them any more. 
One day my mentor Mr. Shoaff said, “Jim, if you want to be wealthy and happy, learn this lesson well: Learn to work harder on yourself than you do on your job.”
You become what you think about most of the time. And the most important part of each day is what you think about at the beginning of that day.