It doesn’t matter how strong you are. How clever you are. How capable you are.
All that matters is how much you’re willing to give.
In his book Living with a SEAL, author and entrepreneur Jesse Itzler discusses living with a former member of the Navy SEALs after meeting seeing him run an ultra marathon.
Some context: an ultra marathon is just over 42km long. The unnamed SEAL weighed around 100kg, was running with an arterial septum defect that limited his endurance, broke every small bone in his feet, and suffered kidney damage.
He finished though, as did 99% of the other competitors. In fact, 99% of competitors complete every marathon they take part in. It’s an astounding figure, but one that makes sense when you consider the amount of training, energy, and determination it takes to even begin.
Even then, that’s not enough. Itzler goes on to talk about the point where every runner on that track began to doubt whether they could carry on. The 40% point.
You see, common belief says that the hardest part of anything is starting. Common belief is wrong though.
Sure, it is difficult to start typing the opening words to that book you want to write, or taking the opening steps on your first jog after a long hiatus from exercise. However, it’s at the 40% point that you start having doubts, and doubts are much deadlier than indecision.
“Am I good enough?”
“Could I do better?”
“Is this really what I want?”
“Have I failed already?”
These are the questions you start asking 40% of the way into achieving whatever it is that you once decided was even worth beginning. There’s no time for doubt; you have to push on, because enough is never enough.
So how do you overcome that doubt? How do you move past 40%?
By understanding when you’ve hit that mark, so that you have the power to remind yourself you’re not done yet.
“If it doesn’t suck, we don’t do it” was the motto by which the SEAL lived. By that, he meant it is only when things getting hard, when we start to waver, that we know what we’re doing is worth it.
Whoever says success came easy to them is someone who could not have created their success. Success is not easy. Not for a billionaire entrepreneur like Itzler, not for an elite soldier like the SEAL, and not for you and me.
We must build our mental resolution one task at a time. Throw yourself into the adversity of challenge, and focus on the signs trying to tell you you’re done. Then start working harder.
You can check out the BigThink interview with Itzler that inspired this article below: