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Framework explained · updated September 2026
What Are Brendon Burchard's 6 High Performance Habits?
Seek clarity, generate energy, raise necessity, increase productivity, develop influence and demonstrate courage. Here is what each habit means in practice, the three concrete practices behind each one, which of them an app can actually help with, and a fair criticism of the framework.
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TL;DR
Brendon Burchard's six high performance habits, often called HP6, come from his 2017 book High Performance Habits. Three are personal habits: seek clarity, generate energy and raise necessity. Three are social habits: increase productivity, develop influence and demonstrate courage. Each comes with three practices. The same framework is the backbone of GrowthDay, the app Burchard founded, but the whole method is available in the book.
- Framework
- HP6, six high performance habits
- Source
- High Performance Habits (2017), by Brendon Burchard
- Personal habits
- Clarity, energy, necessity
- Social habits
- Productivity, influence, courage
- Self-assessment
- High Performance Indicator
- App built on it
- GrowthDay
What Does "High Performance" Mean in Burchard's Framework?
Burchard defines high performance as succeeding beyond standard norms consistently over the long term, while staying well and keeping positive relationships. The emphasis on "consistently" and "while staying well" is what separates the idea from plain hustle: someone who hits a big goal once and burns out is not a high performer in his sense.
The book argues that high performance is not a personality type or a talent, but the result of a small number of deliberate habits that anyone can practice. That claim is what makes the framework easy to turn into an app: habits can be prompted, tracked and repeated. Whether an app is the best way to practice them is a separate question, and we come back to it below. If you are here because you are considering GrowthDay, our full GrowthDay review covers that decision directly.
What Are the Three Personal Habits?
The personal habits are about how you manage yourself: your direction, your physical and emotional state, and your reasons for performing at all.
1. Seek clarity
Know who you want to be, how you want to interact with others, what you want and how you want to feel. High performers ask these questions often, not once a year.
- Envision the future you across your self-image, your relationships, your skills and how you serve others.
- Determine the feeling you are after in each situation, instead of only the outcome.
- Define what is meaningful, so effort goes to what matters rather than to what is merely available.
Where an app helps: a lot. Daily journaling prompts and a morning question are exactly the kind of repetition clarity needs.
2. Generate energy
Manage your mental, physical and emotional energy deliberately, so you can sustain effort without burning out.
- Release tension, set intention at every transition between activities, instead of carrying the last meeting into the next.
- Bring the joy, choosing positive emotion on purpose rather than waiting for it.
- Optimize health through sleep, exercise and nutrition, the unglamorous base under everything else.
Where an app helps: some. Reminders and check-ins help with transitions and routines; sleep and exercise still happen away from the screen.
3. Raise necessity
Turn performing well from a preference into a must, by connecting it to your identity, to people who depend on you and to a clear reason why.
- Know who needs you on your best form, and keep them in mind.
- Affirm the why, saying your reasons out loud or in writing, often.
- Level up your squad, spending time with people who expect more of you.
Where an app helps: a little. Affirmations and a community can help, but necessity mostly comes from your real commitments and relationships.
What Are the Three Social Habits?
The social habits are about how you work with and affect other people: what you produce, how you lead and whether you act when it is hard.
4. Increase productivity
Focus on the outputs that matter most in your field, not on being busy, and build mastery in the skills that drive them.
- Increase the outputs that matter, the few results your work is really judged on.
- Chart your path to mastery by mapping the five big moves toward your main goal.
- Get incredibly good at key skills, practiced deliberately rather than casually.
Where an app helps: a fair amount. Planning tools, priorities and a daily check-in support focus; the skills themselves are built in real work.
5. Develop influence
Get better at shaping how others think and act, in a way that helps them grow.
- Teach people how to think about themselves, others and the world.
- Challenge people to grow and to live up to their potential.
- Role model the way, behaving as the person you want others to follow.
Where an app helps: only indirectly. Influence is practiced with people; an app can remind you, not do it for you.
6. Demonstrate courage
Take action in the face of fear, uncertainty or risk, and speak up for yourself and others.
- Honor the struggle, treating difficulty as a normal part of growth rather than a sign you are failing.
- Share your truth and ambitions openly, even when it feels exposed.
- Find someone to fight for, because courage comes more easily on behalf of others.
Where an app helps: least of all. Courage is a real-world act. A prompt can nudge you, but the moment itself happens off the app.
Which Habits Can an App Actually Help With?
| Habit | Type | How much an app helps |
|---|---|---|
| Seek clarity | Personal | A lot: daily prompts and journaling |
| Generate energy | Personal | Some: routines and transition reminders |
| Raise necessity | Personal | A little: affirmations and community |
| Increase productivity | Social | A fair amount: planning and priorities |
| Develop influence | Social | Indirectly: reminders only |
| Demonstrate courage | Social | Least: it happens off the app |
The pattern is clear: an app is strongest on the habits that are about repetition and self-reflection, and weakest on the ones that happen between you and other people. That is not a flaw of any particular app, it is the nature of the habits.
Should You Start With the Book or the App?
Start with the book if your question is "what are the habits and do they make sense to me?". It contains the whole framework, the practices and the reasoning, for a small fraction of a year of any subscription.
Consider the app if your question is "why do I keep not doing what I already know I should?". That is a consistency problem, and it is what GrowthDay is built for: a daily audio, journal prompts and streaks around these six habits, plus live sessions and Brendon AI, an AI coach trained on this framework. The GrowthDay trial is 7 days, which is enough to see whether a daily prompt changes your behavior.
More detail on what the subscription includes and costs is in our GrowthDay review and pricing guide.
7-Day Free Trial • Card Required • Cancel Before Day 7 To Pay Nothing
What Is a Fair Criticism of the Framework?
- Much of it is familiar. Clarity, energy and courage are not new ideas. The framework's value is in the organization and the practices, not in discovery.
- The evidence is mostly self-reported. Burchard presents the habits as the product of research and coaching, but self-assessment scores and surveys are weaker evidence than controlled studies.
- "High performance" can tip into pressure. Read carelessly, it becomes one more demand to be better at everything. Burchard's own definition includes staying well, which is worth holding on to.
- It is broad, not specific. The habits describe how to operate, not how to reach one particular goal. Someone who needs a plan for a specific outcome will need more than this framework.
None of that makes the habits wrong. It means they work best as a lens for looking at your own week, not as a formula.
High Performance Habits: Common Questions
What are Brendon Burchard's 6 high performance habits?
Seek clarity, generate energy, raise necessity, increase productivity, develop influence and demonstrate courage. The first three are personal habits and the last three are social habits, as laid out in his book High Performance Habits.
What is HP6?
HP6 is shorthand for the six high performance habits in Brendon Burchard's framework. GrowthDay, the app he founded, is built around the same habits.
Which high performance habit matters most?
Burchard presents them as a set that works together, but clarity is the natural starting point: the other five are hard to apply until you know what you are aiming for and how you want to feel along the way.
Do I need the GrowthDay app to use the habits?
No. The whole framework is in the book, which costs far less than a subscription. The app adds a daily routine, prompts, live sessions and an AI coach to help you practice it, which matters mainly if consistency is your problem.
Is High Performance Habits worth reading?
Yes, if you want a structured way to think about energy, focus and influence, and you do not mind a motivational tone. Readers who want hard evidence for every claim, or a step-by-step plan for one specific goal, tend to be less satisfied.
What is the High Performance Indicator?
A self-assessment Burchard promotes alongside the book, which scores you on the six habits. It is useful as a starting point for reflection, but it is self-reported, so treat the score as a mirror, not a measurement.
The Six Habits, in One Paragraph
Brendon Burchard's HP6 framework says consistent, healthy success comes from six habits: three about managing yourself (clarity, energy, necessity) and three about how you work with others (productivity, influence, courage), each with three practical behaviors. The whole method fits in one book. An app like GrowthDay adds repetition, which helps most with the personal habits and least with the social ones. Read the book to decide whether the framework fits you, and consider the app only if your real problem is doing it every day.
What Else Should You Read Before Deciding?
GrowthDay Review: Is it worth $49 a month? What you get, the three recurring complaints, the ratings gap, and who should skip it.
GrowthDay Pricing: Every price we could find, reconciled: web vs app store, monthly vs Year of Mastery, and the upsell ladder up to $15,000.
GrowthDay vs Mindvalley: Same annual price in the US, opposite philosophies: one coach every day, or a library of many teachers.
GrowthDay Free Trial and How to Cancel: How the 7-day trial bills, the plan change trap in the Terms, and how to cancel on the web, iPhone and Android.
Transformation Week Free Challenge: Brendon Burchard's free 5-day challenge, no card needed: what each day teaches and what comes after it.
Brendon AI Review: GrowthDay's 24/7 AI life coach: what it is, what it costs inside and outside the app, and where it falls short.
High Performance Coach Certification Review: The $15,000 coaching certification: what the checkout fine print says about format, refunds and renewal.
ULTRA Mastermind Review: The 12-month mastermind with Brendon Burchard and Lewis Howes: what it includes and what it likely costs.
The Brendon Burchard guide: the starting point, with the key facts on one page and links to everything above.
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