How Far Can You Push Yourself?

Today I found out I could do jump ropes for 20 minutes.

Not the most impressive feat known to mankind, but it was a triumphant achievement for me.

I also found out how hard it is to do jump ropes without the rope getting caught on your shoes. Until I actually started doing jump ropes, I thought I would be able to easily do it consecutively.

But when I actually challenged myself to start doing jump ropes, I realized how much coordination and concentration is needed to do it properly. I was humbled by this experience but also surprised that I was able to sustain myself far more than I initially thought.

I wanted to pace myself so I set a timer for only 20 minutes and decided not to push it beyond that. I didn’t want to push myself too hard early in the habit building, or I would risk burning out quickly and finding the challenge too difficult to continue on a daily basis.

Throughout the 20 minutes, I went through many frustrations. I didn’t know what the proper form for doing jump ropes was, so I found myself focusing on specific parts of the body and losing concentration on the rest.

When I was focusing my mind on controlling the position of my wrists, I would stop thinking about bending my knees or controlling how high I jumped.

When I would switch concentration onto my lower body, I would lose focus on my wrists, which would slow down the swinging motion and the rope would get caught on my feet, forcing me to stop.

Progressively I grew frustrated and wanted to stop, but I decided that I would not give up until the timer ran out. So for the rest of the time, I continued to attempt at achieving harmonious coordination of the different body parts involved in doing jump ropes.

I can’t say I was able to count how many jump ropes I was able to do in total, but I was still happy with myself because I had decided to push through my fatigue and frustrations. I was able to remind myself that exasperation was natural when engaging in a new activity, and was able to push through the momentary weakness to complete a challenge.

When you believe that you can do something, that is the inevitable outcome. You decide to acknowledge your shortcomings and weaknesses and push through them, understanding that momentary pain and struggle is unavoidable. You take responsibility for the successes and failures that are the consequences of your actions.

When you believe that you cannot do something, that is the inevitable outcome. You devise excuses and justifications for why you cannot push through the pain and struggle. You use the words “impossible” and “unattainable” because they automatically create limits in your mind and allow you to close the doors of potential opportunity and responsibility.

Your mind concocts self-fulfilling prophecies, so it is important to become a master of your mind and be conscious of the thoughts you acknowledge.

After I came home, my legs and arms were feeling fatigued. I wanted to take a nice warm shower and rest for the rest of the night. But I knew that I had to complete my daily exercises, and did not want to let myself make any excuses.

Before I began, I didn’t know if I could do my regular regimen. I try to do 150 push-ups and 50 pull-ups each day and have slowly attempted to increase the numbers.

But because I had introduced a new exercise into my daily structure, I didn’t want to overexert myself and potentially crash the system I had been building altogether. I didn’t want to wake up the next day feeling too sore to work out, because I believe missing a day or two would slowly lead me to abandon the regimen.

But I’m proud to say that I was able to complete the entire regimen, even after adding a new exercise.

I don’t state the numbers to brag, but to prove a point — I did not know that I could do it until I pushed myself.

I was thinking the entire time while I exercised that I was going to take it easy and not do the full exercise. I was telling myself that I would be pushing myself too hard and I should just ease up for the rest of the day. But now I realize that while these thoughts were tempting, they were not necessarily looking out for my best interest.

The thoughts that tempted me were all about comfort and rest. My mind wanted for me to seek comfort and immediate gratification. It wanted me to go eat some dinner, watch some Youtube, play video games, lay on the couch, and eat some chocolate…

It wanted me to do everything except push myself to the very limit. It wanted me to avoid any kind of discomfort and momentary pain. It continued to tell me that it was looking out for me when it was doing the exact opposite.

“The mind is an excellent servant but a terrible master.”

— David Foster Wallace

In order to find out what our limits are, we have to gain control of our minds first.

We need to fill it with encouraging and positive messages that can fend off the discouraging and negative ones.

We need to become more conscious of the thoughts we tell ourselves and brush away the ones that do not serve our interests.

We need to become masters of our own minds, rather than slaves to them.

The mind is not objectively a saboteur or a terrible thing. It’s a powerful tool that can work for us or against us. What it is capable of is only to be discovered by the competency of its owner.

When we believe we can do something, we break limits that we didn’t even realize we were placing on ourselves.

When we don’t believe we can do something, we’ve already placed barriers that impede action.