Have you heard of the 40% rule?
It’s a Navy Seals saying that when you think you’ve reached your limit, you still have 60% left. I have put this to the test many times and can vouch that it is absolutely true.
Enduring extreme sea sickness on the row, I continued to row 3 hours on, 3 hours off for 23 days with almost no food inside me. I spent 11 days enduring physical beastings and brutal mental interrogation on SAS: Who Dares Wins on little more than 90 minutes sleep a night. I snow-shoed through the Arctic in temperatures as low as -35 degrees for periods of as long as 18 hours per day.
I say this not to boast about my endeavours (forgive me if it appears this way) but to prove that we are ALL capable of far more than we think. Only on SAS did I have the option to quit – and eventually, after 8 hours in an intolerable cycle of interrogation and stress positions, I did! But to have walked away earlier I would have had to deal with feelings of very public disappointment. SO in a sense it didn’t really feel like a choice at all. There is no easy way to quit in the middle of the Pacific, nor in exposed Arctic terrain. Your fate would be far worse than to keep going.
The truth of it is, that when it really matters, you can discover limits you previously thought beyond your capabilities. That is your secret 60%. And the more you explore those limits, the more you discover about yourself and your true capabilities – the more you do, the more you can do.
‘All’ you have to do is put yourself in the frame. Step into the arena. Create ‘peak experiences’ in your life that help you realise your potential. Sign up for that marathon, share your resolutions publicly to keep yourself accountable, fund-raise to give your endeavours higher purpose and a no back-out policy.
Once you get a taste of what you can do, I promise you’ll Never look back.
