How to Shift What You Think Is Possible
“That’s impossible. I can’t do that.”
We’ve all said it at some point in our lives. Most commonly, we’re starting a new endeavor, looking at what it’s going to take, and the task before us seems insurmountable. We’re the primary school students staring at the blank screen, unsure how in the world we’ll get to 15 double-spaced pages. We’re the novice athlete who shows up to a new running club and wonders what in the world we’ve gotten ourselves into when we hear that one of the groups is going 10 miles. We’re the junior associate who just got a stack of work dumped on her desk, and we can’t imagine reading all of it in time, let alone filing the report that goes with it.
The Beginner’s Trap
When we take on a new challenge, what might seem “normal” for others seems unimaginable for us. But normal is relative. It depends on our comparison point. When our comparison point is set too high, it is hard to understand how we’ll ever measure up. We can’t process how it’s possible. There’s too large a gap between where we are and what we’re being asked to consider.
Both of us have experienced this. If we think back to when we were novice athletes, a four-mile run seemed like a long way, a task that would make us need to lie in bed to recuperate. When we built up to four miles, eight sounded impossible. When we made it to eight, fifteen was insane. And yet, when we were running fifteen miles, eight became an easy day, and four was a recovery run. The reference point for “normal” shifted.
This isn’t just about sports. You could say the same for writing, music, or any number of other activities. Whenever you step up to a challenge, your brain runs a mental calculation: what are the demands of the task, and are you capable of handling them? But your mental model is only as good as the data you are feeding it. So if you’ve never run four miles, let alone known anyone who has, then your brain rightfully sounds the alarm. “Danger, Danger, Do NOT attempt this!” Your brain is protecting you, which is what it evolved to do.
But the problem is that the alarm system often stands in the way of progress. It prevents you from getting started because the demands of a new activity seem too hard. You can’t fathom taking the first step, because the end-goal is lightyears away.
You have to shift what normal is. And for the most part, that means incrementally bridging the gap between where you are and where you want to be. It’s about taking on just manageable challenges to ever so slightly push the bounds of what is possible. You don’t jump from writing a tweet to a book, from a mile to a marathon. You gradually increase your capacity, giving your brain evidence that you can pull it off. Step by step, mile by mile, page by page. Slowly but surely, what once seemed unmanageable becomes a real possibility.
Over time, your benchmark for what is “normal” shifts. As it does, you’re able to push harder without the mental burden. When you’ve written a book, a regular article doesn’t seem so daunting. It takes less mental energy to get started. When you’ve run a few marathons, an eight-mile run requires less willpower to get out the door, because now it’s considered short. Your perspective has shifted, and so, too, has the activation energy needed to get going.
The Expert’s Trap
In most contexts, working toward gradual progress is the best path forward. We incrementally rewire our reference point, our sense of normalcy. But once we’ve reached a certain level of expertise, we often get stuck in a different type of impossibility: We become so experienced at what we do that we can’t imagine going a step further. We know our capabilities well. We’ve been in the arena so many times that our performance is predictable. We start going through the motions and risk losing the initial spark and curiosity to find out what we’re capable of.
When you find yourself stuck in a rut of expertise, you need a different kind of perspective shifter. Not gradual, but drastic.
In Win the Inside Game, Steve wrote about how once or twice a year, he’d do a “Go See God” workout. The entire point was to go as far into the well as possible. The goal wasn’t to run a certain time, but rather to drastically change his perspective of how far he could push. It was permission to take a big swing, even if he fell short. The adaptation he was going after wasn’t physical. It was psychological.
When Steve wrote his first book, The Science of Running. He had no business doing so. It was rejected by all agents and publishers. He took a big swing. It wasn’t perfect. There were a ton of mistakes. Even so, it sold over 50,000 copies as a self-published book and gave him confidence that with the right help, writing could be a career.
Still, it’s important not to be reckless. When Brad first locked out 500 pounds for the deadlift, he didn’t jump into it. Rather, he pulled from blocks, which essentially means the bar has to travel a bit less, making the lift less fatiguing and risky. But simply seeing that he could lock out that weight was the entire point. It was a psychological shift. A few weeks later, he pulled 510 off the ground.
When he wrote The Practice of Groundedness, Brad didn’t quit his day job. He took the big swing, but he made sure to have a cushion, which, paradoxically, allowed him to take an even bigger risk. Why? Because even if he failed, he could still make rent.
You break the expert’s rut by taking big swings in ways that are kind of crazy but not dangerously so.
A Tool for All of Life
You see the importance of shifting “normal” in so many different contexts.
For instance, when people are recovering from injuries or managing chronic pain, the evidence-based approach is first to gradually expose the system to more stress, desensitize the alarm system, and help the nervous system realize it no longer needs to protect itself. If that doesn’t work, sometimes you just go for it (again, in a thoughtful way) to show yourself (or your patient) that they are actually okay.
You can even see the effect of shifting the normal collectively. It’s a common occurrence that when someone breaks a long-standing record, many more tend to break it shortly thereafter. All of these are examples of resetting the reference point for what is possible, for what is within the realm of normal.
It’s true for our daily lives, too. You see it with our reliance on technology. A few hours away from the phone here or there might feel nice, but it never pushes us over the hump of feeling what it’s like to truly be free. To break the spell, we often need to go without our devices for an entire day, if not longer.
So much of what holds us back is our own expectations. We define what is normal before we’ve even given ourselves a chance to explore and see what may be possible. Often, the solution is to gradually increase the effort. But every so often, you need to do the equivalent of a “go see God” workout, and completely shift the reference point, disrupt the system, and prove to yourself that you are capable of more.
Normal is a moving target. It’s up to you to shift it.
-Steve and Brad