Your reserve tank.
Trying to do something new can be hard. I know. Unless you have someone guiding you all the way or have a lot of related experience, it can be draining.
If you feel you have given all you have, look again. We are not used to pushing ourselves to our limits. Heck, we don’t even know what our limits are. You may be going down this new path and asking “Am I there yet?”. How many times have you thought you reached the peak just to find a small valley and a new peak? That is what you find on the road to success. Even the most successful people have had that experience over and over again.
Sometimes I think that we make some random maximum that we can do. Or we create some maximum effort a thing will take to accomplish. But how can we determine what that maximum can be? You can’t determine that until you get to doing a thing. There are no magic numbers.
It is better to just start without some preconceived maximums. If, for example you want to see how far you can walk. Maybe you think you can walk 2 miles. So, you figure out a route to take to walk two miles. So then what? Is it absolutely impossible for you to take another step? Maybe. You really don’t know how far you can walk if you limit your effort to the two mile cap. Your legs will not stop functioning at the two mile point. The same is true for anything you take on as a challenge.
You have heard this before— one more. If you are fortunate enough to have the right person in your corner, you have someone that will encourage you to do one more.
Sometimes we have a goal line in our sights. We know we can meet that goal. But we don’t think we can go past that. We hit that goal and stop. And that is perfectly fine. If you don’t desire or need to get past that goal, good for you! You reached your goal. Enjoy! But if you would like more than that, then change your focus to beyond that goal. Keep the momentum going.
I told you before to celebrate meeting goals. And you should. But if you hit a major goal, and think I can’t get past this look in your reserve tank. You are probably only about 40% of your capacity.
Think about a foot ball field. You are on the 50 yard line. Imagine having to do a fireman carry 30 yards. You are determined. You pick up the person and you make it the 30 yards. Then you drop the person. OK, maybe you did not drop him. Now. what if you were blindfolded? What if you did it without knowing where the 30 yards end? You have a fitness instructor watching who says he will let you know when you have met the goal. So you carry the person down field. 10 yards. 20 yards. 30 yards. Boy, this is hard. 40 yards… am I there yet? No, Keep going. 45 yards… not yet? No. Keep going. 50 yards. The instructor says OK, you made it. You drop the person. You remove the blind fold and see you went 50 yards. You surpassed that random number of capability 30 yards and went 50. You tapped into your reserves.
Look, if you only want to go 30 yards that is fine, but if you want to get into the end zone tap into your reserve tank. The best way to do that is with encouragement from a friend. So, find someone who believes in you enough to get you there.
How hot is it?
Sometimes not knowing how hard it is to do a thing is a good thing. I remember one hot summer day. My mom was weeding in the front yard. She told me that as she worked she looked at the people driving by and they were all shaking their heads. They thought she was crazy. Why? Well, it turns out the temperature was 101. Yep! There was my mom working in that triple digit heat. She must have been in her 60s. She told me, “I didn’t know it was that hot.” And not knowing how hot it was, she didn’t think anything about working in the yard. She did not know it was too hot to work. If she had known it was that hot, she might have stayed inside and not accomplish what she accomplished.
Keep going.
It may be tough sometimes, but keep going. Find your reserve tank and forget about the heat.
Coach
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