This entry is part of What Lies Within: An Entry Blank Series on Intangibles.
Let us all take a moment and think about our limits.
A few limits come to mind for me. For instance, I have a hard time dealing with people who are acting really stupidly. My limit for listening to whining is about 27 seconds. In life, I follow the three-strikes rule for acquaintances: pretty much, you can be mean to me about three times before you’re out. Do not pass GO; do not collect $200. But, I digress. I don’t even know what my fitness limits are anymore aside from the fact that I probably can’t whip out a half marathon in an hour.
A year and a half ago if you asked me what my fitness limits were I probably would have told you that a great number of things were out of reach. An 8:00 mile? No way. Martial arts and the leadership program? Not a chance—girls can’t kick or punch very well. Spin class? Scoff. Working out three times in one day? Not even if you paid me.
My, how things have changed.
As it turns out, the ability to shatter through previous limits is mainly a mental game. It all goes back to what Henry Ford said once upon a time, probably when he was tricking out a sweet new Model T:
Whether you think you can, or you think you can’t—you’re right.
Even though it seems like I’ve been Trying New Things for a really long time, it has in fact only been about three and a half months. Up until the end of February I still considered myself to be Only A Runner Who Does Jillian Michaels DVDs On The Side. Yeah, I worked out twice a day, but I stuck to my same old workouts and same old patterns. Then The Incident happened. On February 24th, I was informed by a friendly sports doctor that I was having a stress reaction in my shins and should stop running for six weeks. The phrase “stop running for six weeks” echoed in my head like Mufasa was saying it from the top of Pride Rock (although with news like that, you’d really expect Scar). I’m not ashamed to admit that I barely held it together for long enough to get out of the office and into my car. I spent the ride back to work sobbing. I called my mom and cried some more. I managed to not cry at my desk for almost an hour and then left early.
I was devastated for many reasons. The first reason was that I had finally started to run at faster speeds and I knew that six weeks of not running would destroy all my progress. The second? I was going to get fat.
If I couldn’t run and do my workout videos, what was I going to do? I could not work out any other way. It was out of my reach.
I’m not sure exactly when I had the epiphany, but when I got out to my car after work I decided to start looking for a gym. But I decided right then that my limit of only running and only doing certain videos was over. I joined a gym with a pool and had an Aquajogger (and yes, it’s possibly the dorkiest looking piece of fitness equipment ever) overnighted to my office. I decided that I would take exactly 10 days off of running, and I spent those ten days living in the gym. I spent hours in the pool and on the elliptical. And lo, I did not get fat. In fact, I lost weight. And I realized that there were a lot of things that I hadn’t tried but could if I wanted to. Why would I limit myself to endless minutes on the elliptical when I was, I realized, perfectly capable of going to spin class?
In spin class they told me that I wouldn’t be able to keep up, but I refused to believe it. I kept up from the very first class.
After the ten days were over, something even more miraculous happened. I started running faster. First I broke the 8:00 barrier on my regular runs. Then I broke it in races. And then I broke the 7:30 barrier in a race. And then I broke the 7:00 barrier. Yeah. Sub-7:00 miles in a race. Better than I ever ran in high school!
When I realized that I was becoming bored with spin class and wanted to try something new, I almost didn’t sign up for martial arts. “I can’t do that,” I thought. But why not? I can kick and punch, even if it’s kind of girly.
The main thing is that even if Henry Ford was kind of corny, he was right. It’s all in the brain. And obviously there are some things that aren’t in the brain, such as being an elite runner or having a broken leg. Those of us who are non-elite runners or who have injuries should not try to trick ourselves into going past our limits. But if it’s an arbitrary one, like “I can’t run faster than an 8:30 mile,” then get rid of it, friends!
Another thing that helps me bust past my perceived limits is the trick of going about things one step at a time. Just go a single step past your “limit.” If your limit is 15:00 of running, get to that 15-minute mark and go one extra step. Now you’ve gone past your limit. Peace out, barriers.
Be smart about which limits you choose to break, but I’d say that the best way to try new things and accomplish goals is to forget about the fact that you supposedly can’t. Think of Henry Ford…or at least Henry Ford’s sweet quote. And go shatter some limits.