They may not always be distinguishable, and that’s normal.
A way to think about them is in terms of the objective and measurement one links to either.
To progress one needs to know where one is in one’s performance and decide how to measure change. That provides a way to define an objective.
One can also decide what one wants to achieve. That objective defines how one wants to be better than before. Achieving the objective becomes the measurement. The drawback is that one doesn’t know how difficult it is to achieve that objective or how much work it is. If the time frame to achieve that objective is too small, it may be very frustrating or exhausting.
Performance on the other hand needs a measurement to enable a sense of noticing one’s progress. In sports, this would for example be to determine the weight with which one can do a given number of reps. That provides a clear measurement even if that day’s fitness plays a role.
However, not every situation allows for such a clear measurement. It’s how, often, the only measurement available is comparison.
It’s how winning comes in.
Achieving progress might be understood as one’s ability to be better than others.
It’s easy, from there to conclude, that real progress is one’s ability to be the best.
But how can this be feasible?
Take golf as an example. In the world, there are more than 61 million golfers. In the USA the Professional Golf Association (PGA) has about 30.000 members. For a professional golfer participating in the PGA tour is the ultimate goal. It is possible to achieve this through the FedEx Cup standings as the 125 best players on that list automatically gain the status allowing them to participate in the PGA tour. It’s possible to join the PGA tour based on other rules, however, the number of participants is limited to about 215 players.
Given these numbers, it is easy to imagine that it takes a lot of time and effort to become the best golfer in the world. Tiger Woods succeeded in winning the PGA Tour 10 times, and Jack Nicklaus 8 times.
Being the best in the world every year is one out of 61 million golfers.
Since 1934, only 17 golfers were able to achieve that performance twice.
