Without self-pity: how to push your limits

2024 Author: Malcolm Clapton | [email protected]. Last modified: 2023-12-17 03:44

What does it take to be successful? Be talented? Play by the rules? Get it out of your head! Erik Bertrand Larssen, Norwegian author and personal growth coach, will share how to walk your own path and achieve your goals.

Without pity

A military aviation officer drew a vertical line on the blackboard with chalk. At the bottom, he wrote zero. The maximum was indicated by ten. He pointed to four and said, "You think you can do so much." Then he pointed a finger at two: "Your mom thinks that you are capable of so much." He pointed up again to the number seven: “We officers know that you are ready for more,” and looked at us intently. “The reality is this,” the finger stopped at ten. "You are capable of what you cannot even think of."

This is how Eric Bertrand Larssen remembered the beginning of the first lecture on survival courses in 1992. He was nineteen, had just become a candidate for the position of an intelligence officer in the Norwegian Navy and was about to take these courses with experienced paratroopers.

These classes really tested me for strength. He learned to light a fire with two sticks and a piece of rope. He turned out to be able to sleep a couple of hours a day for a whole week, swim kilometers in icy water and even find charm in long night transitions. Since then, the phrase "You are capable of what you cannot even think about" did not leave his head. He repeated it to himself and others more than once. After eight years in the army, he became a psychological coach and helped athletes win gold at the Olympics, because he knew what it was like to push the boundaries of his capabilities. And he could teach it.

His book "" in Norway was bought by every 20th inhabitant of the country, and now it is published in Russian. In it, Larssen talks about what "versatilities" help to achieve success.

Forget talent

Eric is convinced that one word should be permanently struck off the list of terms that lead to success. Here it is - "talent". “Talent is a word that shouldn't be,” he writes.

Anyone can grow up to be a genius with a lot of practice. You can make a genius out of your child, as did Mike Agassi, the father of Andre Agassi. Mike was a very passionate person. He constantly trained three older children with a tennis cannon, and when the youngest, André, was born in 1970, he was already polishing his methods. Little Andre had not cars or animals hanging on the turntable above the bed, but a tennis ball. Mike since childhood "sharpened" the kid's attention to tennis balls. When Andre began to walk, the father tied a tennis racket to his son's arm.

David Beckham has trained since childhood. Tiger Woods was brought, or rather brought, to the golf club even before a year. And there are thousands of such examples, so cross the word "talent" off the list of what it takes to be successful.

The 80% Attention Rule

What else you have to forget is balance. Did someone tell you that he exists? Sorry, but that someone lied to you.

There is such a comic analogy, supposedly our life consists of four burners: one is friends, the second is family, the third is health and the fourth is work. In order to be successful, one hotplate must be switched off. In order to achieve outstanding success, you have to turn off two.

Of course, this is ironic, but at the initial stage, you still have to direct 80% of your attention to achieving the goal. No, not 30 or 50, but 80 and not a percent less.

You have to come to terms with the idea that there is no balance. It is a myth. And the truth is, there is simply a balance of power that suits you. So which hotplates are you ready to turn off?

Learn the rules and break them

In order to invent something qualitatively new, you must first learn to follow the rules. After you study them, feel free to break and enjoy the process.

There are many examples in sports where people who were not afraid to break the rules turned out to be pioneers.

For example, shot putter Patrick O'Brien won the Olympics and set world records 17 times. In the early 1950s, he decided to take a chance and began to come up with his own shot put technique. Before him, no one had pushed a cannonball like this: they stood with their backs to it, and then turned 180 degrees, creating an impulse. It was thanks to this technique that O'Brien set 17 world records.

American Bill Koch was the first to skate on one leg in the 80s, and this method became revolutionary. And ski jumper from Sweden Jan Boklöv came up with a new way of soaring in the air.

The conclusion is simple: rules are needed only as long as they do not constrain development. And after that - to violate and only to violate.

Good target

What is a good goal? In order to define your “native” goal, Eric suggests asking yourself this question: if you met Almighty God and he said that in the next 10 years you will get everything you dreamed of, what would you do next? In other words, if you knew for sure that you would succeed, what would you do? Answer this question honestly.

Then clarify the wording by asking yourself, “So who do I want to become? A top 50 tennis player or a top 50 tennis player? Feel the difference, as they say. If you just enter the list, then there may be 49 more people ahead of you, and if you are the best, then there is no one ahead of you.

Donald Trump gave some good advice on this: "You have to think anyway, so why not think big?"

Markers on the way

Larssen advises taking an inventory of your path every month. This means constantly keeping your finger on the pulse and throwing away everything that is no longer relevant to you without pity for yourself. How to take inventory? Very simple. You need to ask yourself questions and take enough time to honestly answer them. Ask yourself:

• Is everything going as it should?
• How satisfied am I with my progress over the past month?
• What is the key quality that helped me achieve this?
• Am I on my way?
• Am I doing my best every day?
• What is my uniqueness?

Do this regularly and be sure to learn a lot about yourself.

Be unyielding

Unbending is a deliberate choice. If you make a decision, you must be clear about why you chose this option. There must be intent behind it, and this will lead you to your chosen goal. If you want to leave the office early because the weather is great outside, it must be justified by the fact that you have a goal of spending more time with your kids this week or need some rest after a tough job.

Being die-hard means living the way you want and feel right, and it really takes a lot of courage.

The belief that life is simple is a common misconception. Life is hard. But its difficulty is connected not with how many adversities you will have, but with how many difficulties you can endure while continuing to move forward. You are a person who often gets out of your comfort zone. And more often than not, it works. Sometimes it doesn't work. But you get out anyway. And you can't even imagine how much satisfaction you will end up with.

You can do more than you think you can.

Based on the book ""