There's a theory called "hysterical strength", where people achieve crazy physical feats when faced with life or death situations. 

 

For example, a mother suddenly gets superhuman strength and lifts a car to save her child (which is apparently how the co-creator of The Hulk, Jack Kirby, got the idea for that character). 

 

People rarely give themselves the chance to really push their limits. They give up at the first hint of feeling tired - or because they don't want to "burn themselves out". 

 

I recently finished creating one week's worth of content in just one sitting, despite not being in the mood to do that much content creation when I started.

 

But I forced myself to sit down at the laptop and do just one day of content.. Then I said "Ok, how about one more day Marc?" and finished day two, and then kept going as momentum had been built until seven days were finished. 

 

I was motivated to do this after re-watching the movie "Unbreakable". There's a scene in it where David Dunn (Bruce Willis) is bench pressing weights in his basement while his son watches. He's never really tested his limits before, so he gets his son to keep adding more and more weight to see how much he can handle (they had to use paint cans after running out of weights). 

 

He benches 350 pounds, but in a deleted scene from the movie he gets up to about 500 pounds - with no signs of slowing down. 

 

I'm not suggesting that you try to bench press 500 pounds, or that you go days without sleep to get a project done. But once you hit that imaginary wall that you'd normally stop at, go just a little bit further ... you might surprise yourself with how much further you can go past it. 

 

If you need a place to test your limits, The Coaching Jungle Mastermind could be for you. Members set goals every week and keep each other accountable to hit them. 

 

We currently have an opening in one of the groups, and you can apply for it here: 

 

 

Marc Mawhinney