Lauren Balukjian ‘06 spoke to us this past Monday about her personal story and how to change our mindsets for success. She played field hockey in college, and that experience has informed how she goes about life. She has always been really competitive and ambitious. After graduating from Dartmouth, she was not sure what she wanted to do and thought that law school was a good opportunity. However, she had no “why” for going, so she recalculated and went abroad for a year. After that, she realized that she has always liked bringing people together and planning, so she got a job in the event industry. From there, she worked at a startup where the work was very intense. She traveled a lot and had 4 kids in 5 years. Her husband ended up having an affair which left her feeling like an imposter, scared, and alone. She took a year to herself to figure things out and learned about the coaching industry. Now, she has dedicated herself to coaching other women.
She outlined the difference between high achieving and high performing. High achieving is when you are focused on results. You might take short cuts or have unsustainable methods for getting what you want. On the other hand, high performance is more process focused. Instead of fixating on the endpoint, you work on sustainable growth towards a goal. Over the long term, being a high performer will create more lasting improvement and you will not get as burned out. You can find Lauren’s “7 Secrets to High Performance” below.
At the end of the talk, we had breakout rooms where we talked about 3 questions: the “why” for our sport, the strategy for high performance that spoke to us, and how the shift from high achieving to high performing would positively impact our game. It was a great opportunity to get to know other people in the club and reflect. Thank you to Lauren and everyone else for coming!
