How do You Approach Achieving and Exceeding Your Potential?

Note: This article is based on a blog post by Chris Guillebeau, in which he talks about the importance of exceeding your limits.

Also, when we continue to do something deliberately, doing more, trying harder, or discovering that the capabilities we thought we were working toward are not as defined as we once thought.

Here's a related story

Last year, I went running with runner James Lawrence, who completed 101 triathlons in 101 days and set a goal of 100 days, but he added an extra day.

James has completed 50 of these races in 50 days in all 50 states. So, he had a theory from his previous experience on training for the new project. He believed that he would prepare his body for the second half of the challenge (day 51 to day 100) in the work he had done (day 1 to day 50).

But this is not what people, myself included, expect from high-intensity activities. I've always believed that you can't keep doing the same hard things over and over and that you should take a break and recover from each one before doing the next, but what James and many others have also shown is that this isn't always true.

Yes, there are specific abilities apart from the diligent marathon runners. Most of us can't run twenty-four hours at a time, and no one can run twenty-four hours in a row repeatedly.

But this is an exaggerated example. The important point is that although there are real specific abilities, firstly, you will not know your abilities until you approach them. Secondly, to approach them, you have to do different work than usual.

Start running every day

I've been thinking of James because of my new running app called STEPN, I've been running about 60-80km a week for the past two years, but it's usually broken down like in a typical marathon runner's training schedule:

1. One long run every Sunday (20-28 km).
2. One medium run every Wednesday, Thursday, or Friday (14-16 km).
3. Shorter runs on other days (5-9km max) plus yoga, HIIT class, and some strength exercises.

Now, because I want to increase my daily earnings with the Steppen app, I run about 12km every day or at least most days, and in switching to this pattern, I quickly discovered two things:

First discovery: It's hard to run every day

Running every day instead of running most days seems like a much different matter, although the weekly distance covered is not that different from the distance I used to cover. However, I adjusted my program to allow myself to take a break after a long run.

I do most long runs at a slow pace to minimize the risk of hurting myself, and going out every day for a long distance (at least for me) with no room to recover was hard, and I started to feel that way after a few days.

I struggled a lot on Sunday after running about 12 km a day for several days in a row, knowing that I usually run more than 12 km on Sunday, but this time, I was tired from the start and never got better.

Then, when I got home, I fell asleep and felt a little better after eating, but then I took a nap for another hour that afternoon. I needed a rest.

I must change the plan a little. As I am getting old, I need days to recuperate. So, I told myself to take it easy on Monday and go for a long walk.

Second discovery: I felt fine

I went out the next Monday at noon, thinking I'd probably go for a walk, but first, I decided to do a little recovery run a short distance, which I often do on rest days to keep my muscles from cramping up.

This time, I ran for 3km in circles around the park, and I felt fine, so I ran another kilometer, then another, and finally, I got to 11km. I realized after running about 6 or 8 km that I could do it, and I wasn't as tired as the day before.

I had to travel the next day in the middle of the morning to Atlanta. So, I got up early and went out, and this time, my plan was to run a few kilometers, then walk a few more kilometers when I got to Atlanta and with that, I felt good and kept running, then I ended up finishing 11km, again beyond my limits, and I felt fine.

In conclusion

That's all I will talk about running because the real lesson is about much more than that, related to capabilities. Perhaps, you do not believe in your abilities. You cannot find your capabilities without approaching them, and this is difficult because approaching them may be full of dangers and maybe even dangerous in itself.

But again, if you want to test your abilities, you have to find them first, and you have to discard conventional wisdom and maybe even your old beliefs. Perhaps, all this time, you could have done something much bigger or "much different" than you thought. So, find your abilities, then exceed them.