You may prefer the variant on this phrase of “no pain…..no pain!” but it turns out there is some truth to the original version.

A recent NY Times article talks of mental tenacity and the ability to manage and even thrive on and push through pain. We all have our own threshold of pain and at the elite levels of competition we are looking at people who have natural physical ability AND the ability to work hard, to work through the pain, to excel.

It turns out we all have the ability to perform at higher levels. No matter where you are in your development it will take work to get to the next level. We are talking about YOUR next level. Elite performers still have to practice and work hard to get better and so do you. It still hurts.

It all comes down to pacing. But if you have not trained and learned your optimal pace you tend to hold back in fear of running out of gas. When you do this you cannot perform at your best. On the other hand, if you do not hold back you might run out of energy and not be able to finish the race.

While this research applies to fitness I think it applies to what we do in most areas of life. There is balance between not trying hard enough and running out of gas. Do you know where that lies for you? It appears most people are conserving, out of fear of failure, rather than exerting and doing better.

This entry was posted on Monday, November 15th, 2010 at 8:39 pm and is filed under Uncategorized. You can follow any responses to this entry through the RSS 2.0 feed. Both comments and pings are currently closed.