15/01/2026
Are you someone who has found it difficult to achieve you goals, or are currently trying to achieve a goal or get to the next level of performance, whatever that may be, and are struggling? Are you someone who self-sabotages and doesn’t know why, or someone who lets their self talk get in the way and it doesn’t matter what you do, you can’t seem to get passed it?
If this applies to you, you might find this article about the performance equation an interesting read. It explains what gets in the way, how it manifests itself and ultimately what you can do to change it.
Tim Gallwey, author of the Inner Game, defines the performance equation as “performance = potential - interference’. He recognises that it is always the level of interference that will inhibit our ability to perform to full capacity. This equation is central to his coaching method, which is known as the Inner Game and a coach will help you identify the interference and help you create strategies to overcome them. Let us explore this equation further and help you understand the driving forces behind interference but also what you can do to change without the need for strategies or coping mechanisms, freeing up more energy and mind space to increase your potential.
So what is interference? I wonder whether you realise that every goal you set - no matter the area of life - acts as a mirror, reflecting where you have been. The richness or hardship of your past experiences shapes your ability to reach your goals and determines how easy or stressful the journey is. When we ask our mind for something, it instinctively wants to deliver, but first, it must reveal the obstacles in our path. It does this in varying degrees of subtlety, as we are all different, surfacing as thoughts, emotions, or even physical sensations which demand our attention. Some people may know this as the Chimp paradox. If you have an awareness of your internal world, you will probably know that some of your self talk can be unhelpful and self effacing and sometimes filled with criticism or judgement. Of course, we can have conversations with ourselves to direct our thoughts to more positive ones, but that robs us of energy which we could better directed and utilised. Some people might say that these thoughts drive them to do better and that is great, but who would you be without the thoughts and how much more mind space would you have?
Let’s explore interference in greater depth. The thoughts that tell us we can’t do things, the thoughts which judge our selves or place expectations upon us or cause us to compare ourselves to someone else. Thoughts which might tell us that we aren’t good enough, create doubt or undue pressure and so much more. Have you ever wondered what drives this internal rhetoric and wished you could be without it? The three common denominators of under performance, and therefore interference, are the presence of a negative emotion, a limiting belief, or an internal conflict which are part time problems, for example, part of me believes I can succeed, part of me believes I will fail; part of me wants to leave my job and part of me wants to stay. We can be filled with many conflicts and contradictions when we really explore and observe our mind and behaviours. Sometimes we may see contradictory behaviours in ourselves or others. For example, someone who was bullied may never have been able to stand up for themselves, yet, when they saw others being bullied, could easily step forward, and question why that is. Different layers of experience drive these situations, unbeknown to ourselves. They create different personalities. When being bullied, sadness and hurt might be more present, which drives a person to withdraw, hide and lack courage. This is what sadness and hurt do - they take us inside. Conversely, maybe injustice drives the other situation of being able to defend someone else. This is likely because it is field by anger. Anger is an outward emotion, as is fear and anxiety and tend to make us aggress others.
We are all completely unique and have different levels and depths of interference which is determined by the emotional quality of our past and the expectations we place upon ourselves. Our interference presents itself in the form of negative self talk, overwhelm, confusion or a bodily response such as a panic attack, shaking, or sweating and is supported by the layers of life experience we gather. Imagine someone who played tennis and all they ever did was lose, or panic, or constantly entered a negative mindset. This would not set them up for success in that area later of their life. So imagine them playing tennis again or setting a goal around tennis, what level of interference do you think they would have? What would their self talk be like? How easily do you think they would achieve their goal? This is where a goal becomes a trigger and every trigger has a driving negative emotion and limiting belief which results in a behaviour or performance. In this instance, the interference could be the fear of failure; pressure to win; worrying about the competition and criticising or judging themselves for losing and making comparisons to their peers. They may place expectations upon themselves and then feel disappointment for not achieving what they set out to do. This is where our thoughts can have a habit of predicting the outcome or make the journey more stressful. Each of these words we speak, like judgement, criticism, competition, comparing, disappointment, pressure all hold feelings and beliefs and each word represents the layers of experience we accumulate, like layers of an onion. Some layers are bigger than others and hold more feelings.
Playing again or setting a goal around tennis would simply trigger a neurological stimulus response as the mind reminds us of our previous experiences, which in this case, meant they lost. It is the emotional attachment to the word that creates the story and imagination in our mind. Now compare that to someone who has had positive experiences around tennis. The level of interference would be much less and therefore, the quality of their performance would be higher and their ability to achieve their goal would be greater. We have discussed tennis but tennis could equally represent a new relationship, a new job, taking an exam, moving house - everyday life experiences which gather feelings, and in each of these different situations, we see different parts to us which creates a different personality. In some situations we may be more outgoing and confident yet in others, more withdrawn.
If we are clever, we can observe the quality of our internal self talk and explore how much it is supporting or hindering our ability to achieve what we want out of life. We are setting goals all the time, some we set more consciously than others. Even a statement like I want to be happy is goal; applying for a new job. Of course, some people can push through their negative self talk, but it will make the journey harder and more stressful; it will take more energy and the more interference there is the more stressful it will become and some may never achieve what they want. There is a direct correlation between the level of our interference and our emotional loading. The busier and more negative our mind, the more neurology we have accumulated in life.
So how much of our behaviour is conscious choice? According to the psychodynamic perspective, started by Freud, very little of our behaviour is controlled by our conscious mind. It states that our behaviour depends on unconscious powers over which we have very little control. According to cognitive neuroscientists, we are conscious of only about five percent of our cognitive activity, so most of our decisions, actions, emotions, and behaviour depends on the ninety five percent of brain activity that goes on beyond our conscious awareness. This is what we have found at Spectrum for Change; when people start to deal with the layers of gathered experiences at the unconscious level, they begin to realise that they had never dealt with them. Instead, they were buried, pushed to one side or compartmentalised; a very natural thing to do until we become too emotionally full that we can no longer function. This really explains why it is very difficult to consciously change unwanted behavioural patterns because they are driven by unconscious drivers.
So, if we really want to change, we have to dive into the unconscious as this is what determines our responses which are driven by our emotions (positive and negative) our beliefs (positive and negative) and our values. Our behaviours are our values in action and our values are supported by our emotions and beliefs and can be pain or pleasure driven. Values are the unconscious tick list that is running all the time and are represent what is important to us in any given situation. As we accumulate experiences, those values and what is important to us can become finely focussed which can be witnessed in the form of hypervigiliance. On the tennis court, someone’s values might be winning, strength, acknowledgement, fun yet in a relationship, it might be trust, safety, love. This is the reason any relationship breakdown whether it be our relationship with our favourite sport or the relationship with a loved one. The moment those values are not supported, we start to become unhappy. Just because a value seems positive, it is often the opposite that shed light on what is driving that value. For example, if we take a value of trust in a relationship, the moment we ask “compared to what”, we can identify whether the value is positively or negatively motivated. For example, if someone says trust compared to betrayal, we now know that the person is holding feelings around betrayal. We call this the comparative deletion, and if we want growth, provides insight into what we hold. Whenever the emotions are resolved around whatever the opposite is, the value of trust will disappear because its a give in side of use. The feelings around betrayal are resolved. Equally, if someones value in tennis is winning and we ask compared what, and the answer is losing, disappointment or failure, we know they have had some experiences around those words which is now impacting on their play. Of course, winning is important, and when we can relax around it, it becomes easier to achieve and that is done by severing the emotional connection to losing, disappointment or failure.
The unconscious holds the glue to everything we think, feel and do; it holds the interference. This is why it can be difficult to change a behaviour. We can spend a lifetime practicing a new behaviour and it still not change or it requires a lot of effort - either in our mind or physically, both of which take energy which could be used elsewhere. Of course, having the theory around what is getting in the way is great but imagine how empowering it would be to know that you can change it to create a different reality; a new performance. The most misunderstood component of performance is mindset and yet it has the greatest impact on our ability to get what we want out of life, whatever that is.
We have discussed a lot of theory, and there is plenty more that can be written on this subject, and you might be asking your self how to change your interference? This is where the real magic is. Having an awareness is great and knowing how you can change it is even more empowering. At Spectrum for Change, we use Spectrum, which is a tool to make transitioning from one mindset to another, one place in life to another, easier. That could be from one job to another, it could be leaving home, coming out of the army and transitioning to civilian life, or going to university. Life is full of transitions and it is our mindset that will determine how well we do it. At Spectrum for Change, we get to the glue of the problem; it provides the unconscious an opportunity to reevaluate itself and it’s experiences that have held us back until this point. Spectrum changes our negative emotions and limiting beliefs to positive ones, in whole areas of life such as mum, dad, loss, rejection, competition, disappointment, divorce, bullying etc, creating immediate new and adaptive behaviours. It reduces the interference, increases performance and facilitates a smooth transition from one mindset to another at the unconscious level.
If you want more from any area of your life, Spectrum Transition Coaching was designed to help you achieve this. If you would like to discuss how we can help you, please do make contact at info@spectrumforchange.co.uk
Thank you for reading and as usual, if you have any questions, please feel free to ask.
Thank you for reading
Victoria
