These 4 habits boost performance during uncertain times

During his commencement address at Dartmouth College in 2024, Roger Federer cited a statistic that people rarely associated with his success. In the 1,526 singles matches he played in his career, while he won almost 80% of the time, he only won 54% of the points he played. He told the audience, “To succeed, you must become a master at overcoming hard moments. To me, that is the sign of a champion.”

His speech attracted millions of views because it was unusual for a champion to reveal the wrinkles beneath such a successful career. But I suspect that was the point Roger was trying to make. No successful sporting star, politician, CEO, or community activist is immune to adversity or has had a journey without some level of adversity. They prevail because they built the habits that turn stuckness into strength.

If you’re feeling a little bit stuck in today’s uncertain world, building the four following habits can take you a long way:

1. Embrace productive struggle

Productive struggle is positive because it stretches you beyond your current capability while still feeling doable. Experiencing it forces you to overcome obstacles so you can build the skills and strategies that make you smarter, stronger, and faster. You’re not just getting through it. You’re getting something from it.

Think of a struggle that you might be facing right now. Can you point to three small ways your situation has improved? If you can, keep going. The difficulty is making you better. If not, it’s time to adjust your approach. You don’t need to abandon the goal. You just need to find a better way to get there. The obstacle is trying to teach you how to get to where you want to go.

2. Transition with intention

Every day we make a series of small transitions. From a team meeting into a difficult conversation. From the office to the front door at home. From work mode to parent mode. These transitions are where your effectiveness lives or dies. The leaders who navigate uncertainty well have learned to make these transitions deliberately, rather than by default.

Before you next move from one context to the next, pause for two minutes and ask three important questions that can center your leadership and your life:

1. What role am I playing? Leader? Parent? Partner? Each role you play requires something different from you. When you are clear about your role, you can show up with clarity instead of confusion.
2. What reputation do I want? Your reputation enters the room before you do. This isn’t just what people think of you. It’s also about the energy and presence you bring to any space you enter. Choose yours wisely.
3. What result am I trying to achieve? Not every interaction needs to produce a tangible outcome, but every interaction has a purpose. When you’re clear about the result, you can prioritize what matters and let go of what doesn’t.

This is a small habit with a significant return. When you do it consistently, you’ll connect to what matters and make conscious decisions aligned to who you are and how you want to live.

3. Name your uncomfortable truths

The most powerful move a leader can make in times of uncertainty is to look inward before the situation forces it on them. High performers develop a habit of radical self-honesty and build it as a practice, not a crisis response. A simple tool I use with clients is to ask them to complete this sentence as honestly as they can.

“I’d like to _______, but if I am being honest, it’s an uncomfortable truth that _______.”

That blank is where the real opportunity lives. It might reveal that you’re avoiding a conversation that would actually move things forward. Or that you’re waiting for permission you’ll never receive. Naming these internal obstacles is the first step to dismantling them. Uncertainty has a way of surfacing these truths eventually. If you surface them yourself first, you stay in control of the response.

4. Make better mistakes

There are two kinds of mistakes. The ones you learn from and the ones you repeat. The first kind is a teacher. The second is a cage. Admired leaders build a simple weekly reflection practice that turns experience into wisdom rather than just mileage. Three questions are all you need:

1. Reflect: What happened? (Facts only. No judgment.)
2. Recognize: What worked? What choices or actions moved things forward?
3. Recalibrate: What difference or adjustment would improve the next attempt?

We often get stuck in situations that don’t serve us, not by a lack of effort, but a lack of awareness. Developing a practice of reflection prevents you from continuously facing (and being surprised by) the same setbacks. You can also stop any recurring behaviour that no longer serves you.

Uncertainty will keep coming. The messy middle isn’t a phase you move through. It’s the terrain of a life well-lived. The question isn’t how to avoid it. The question, as Roger reinforced in his speech, has always been whether you have the habits to navigate it well.

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