Some people seem able to accomplish far more each day without breaking a sweat. They push hard, achieve 10x what others do, and repeat it over and over again.
Usually, the consensus is that these people are just built different: more talented, gifted or, less pleasing to admit, simply smarter. But when they’re asked to share their secret, most of them continue to preach that they don’t do anything special, except the usual cliches: being disciplined, focused, and committed. And for them, none of it even feels particularly hard.
Imagine you want to start lifting. You go to the nearest gym, warm up on the treadmill, and finally approach the bench press. You can’t lift any serious weights, as you start feeling it in your elbows, so you end up doing just three sets with the empty bar. Your chest is burning. You feel exhausted, but happy. You did enough for today.
Years later, an empty bar is part of your warm up routine. To feel as exhausted as you did on that first day, you now need to do far more. And this much greater workload doesn’t wreck you, it is simply your new normal. You’ve pushed your limits farther away, and your body has adapted. You spend the same 40 minutes in the gym as you did during your first session, but the quality and efficiency of that time are vastly different.
With physical training, the process is obvious. In other areas of life, it is much harder to see. We rarely push through the first signs of resistance. We often see them as proof that we did a great job. It’s time to relax. And this sets our limits much lower. It makes both body and mind adapt to those limits. And when you start to obey those signals, they give you even more proof that you’ve had enough.
But if you never challenge those limits, consciously and practically, how can you be sure you’re not living far below your real potential? And if so, how many chances in this life are left unchased?
On some rare days, influenced by external events or random internal excitement, you accidentally forget to stop yourself. You push through again and again, and instead of burning out, you catch a glimpse of something. Something that reveals that you might be far more capable than you think.