How well do you know your limitations?
From ultra-marathon runners to Navy SEALS, we have heard about individuals who have pushed past their perceived physical limits and achieved near-super human feats.
The David Goggins story abounds across social media, and when it comes to training mindset, there are few people who reach his influence on such a scale.
Goggins has a theory, which states: when you think you’re at 100% of your output, you’re really only at 40%. In essence, You can do A LOT more than what you think you can do.
Where do our thoughts come from?
Our thoughts are perceptions often based on what we have previously experienced. Experiencing it could include doing something yourself or experiencing it second-hand, learning about it, etc.
In other words, thoughts are stories – stories you have been told and then tell yourself.
We should be wary of thinking we know anything. A better practice would be to base our thoughts on what we can do at that very moment.
If you’re resting on your past laurels, if you’re patting yourself on the back for what you did yesterday, you mustn’t be doing much today.
Overcoming Barriers
So, Do you know your limits?
The peripheral nervous system seems to think so!
The peripheral nervous system has a job, and that job is to anticipate resistance and, when conditioned properly, provide a response to prepare you for that resistance.
If you have every picked up an item which was either much heavier or lighter than you expected, you have experienced the nervous system’s anticipation to a false perception. Basically, you thought you knew something. But you didn’t.
The peripheral nervous system can assist you in knowing your limits, but it is a system. And systems govern behavior. Systems can be a good thing, if they are part of a Plan. But without a plan, you are stagnant in your progression – you cannot reach past the false perceptions which tell you an untrue story – a lie.
Much of this is energetically rooted in our psychology – the way we were taught (patterns of behavior), and thus the stories we tell ourselves, or in other words: excuses!
– Tall Tales and White Lies, Part 2
To overcome barriers, or reach past your supposed limitations, you have to be free of the tyrant and his insurgents. You have to prepare for war.
Nations that desire peace must be prepared to go to war.
Preparing for War means to invoke the sympathetic nervous system (read more) with various levels of stress. Remember that actual resistance is relative to the preparation for said resistance.
The sympathetic response of the nervous system is incredibly powerful. It seems to place a wedge between our carnal desires for food and comfort – it forces us to push every soft and nice thing out of the way (for a short time) so we can accomplish the hard thing.
If we should seek to know anything, it is our limits. We must come to know ourselves.
Immediate Action Drill
Along with daily invocation of a sympathetic response, whether that be exercise, breath, or fasting rituals, I would suggest one meditation which will assist you in breaking down barriers so that you may surpass your perceived limits.
You will need access to a mirror you can sit in front of. Using a bathroom mirror may prove difficult for this meditation since you will need to be seated. Unless you sit on the bathroom counter like I do.
You should sit with your face about 3 feet away from the mirror and begin the meditation with several deep breaths in through the nose and out through the mouth. Fill your belly with air – don’t let the breath stop in your chest (shallow breaths).
Fixate your eyes on one of your eyes and gaze into the mirror first for 5 minutes. Break eye contact and roll your eyes around in their sockets counter-clockwise for 30 seconds. Then begin a 10 minute mirror gazing segment.
Finish the meditation by lying on your back and looking up at the ceiling, breathing deeply until you feel ready to get up.
Warcloud Elite Fitness 