I could barely walk.
Felled by some bad hummus, I struggled to get up the stairs to my apartment.
I fumbled for my keys and unlocked the door, my face flushed and my body shaking from chills.
Once inside, I went straight to bed. But my sickly slumber was quickly interrupted by an ear-splitting headache.
My condition had suppressed my appetite, and now my body was revolting from the malnourishment.
So, I wearily headed to the kitchen and boiled some hot dogs. Those five minutes of cooking time felt like hours. But eventually, I was able to devour the hot dogs before stumbling back to bed.
At some point in the night, my fever broke. Although drenched in sweat, I felt a modicum of relief.
The next morning, I felt right as rain — albeit a bit depleted. I wasn’t about to have hummus again anytime soon, but at least I’d taken care of myself properly while down for the count.
I had a roadmap for the future. But following it would prove to be a challenge.
Know your limits.
This phrase is ubiquitous.
Most often, it refers to a vice — drinking, gambling, or the like — that can destroy us if not followed in moderation.
But it can apply to a much broader set of contexts as well.
I knew my limits that evening I was holed up sick. But there are plenty of times before and after where I thought I knew my limits, only to discover that I was sorely mistaken.
Sometimes, the consequences of this blunder were made plainly evident. I once ended up in the Emergency Room after passing out from heat exhaustion, for instance.
Other times, blunders are only evident in hindsight. Bad decisions that didn’t truly burn me, but easily could have.
In either case, learning my limits has helped me avoid pressing them. When I feel I’m getting relatively close to the edge, I dial back.
Better to live to fight another day than to go too far, is my thinking.
But such a concept comes with its own opportunity costs. Namely, the ability to grow my potential.
No, it might not be smart to test our limits while ill, while inebriated, or while out in the scorching hot sun.
But there are plenty of other times when it’s beneficial to push ourselves. When the challenges in our midst are nothing more than hurdles to clear.
Sure, we might feel some resistance as we level up. And giving in to that resistance might seem natural.
But if we shut it down in those moments, we’ll forever be restricted to what’s comfortable.
It’s far better to embrace what the psychologist Carol Dweck has deemed The Growth Mindset. That is, the willingness to develop our talents and capabilities through hard work, good strategies, and input from others.
Growth mindset means pushing our boundaries, but with an end in mind. And that’s something my limit avoidance strategy fails to account for.
On a sultry summer morning, I joined a group of people for a run.
I was only planning on going three miles, but the group was going 10. I’d never run that far in my life, and I didn’t feel prepared to change that fact on this day. But I didn’t want to lose face either.
And so, I hatched a plan. I would run with the group for a couple of miles, intentionally make a wrong turn, and then backtrack once everyone was out of sight. No harm, no foul.
For a while, my plan seemed ingenious. But then, several runners in front of me made the same wrong turn I was planning on.
Now, there was no losing the group. Worse still, I’d need to hustle to follow the runners who’d strayed from the route with me. If I faded, I’d lose face once again.
I ended up running the full 10 miles that day, fighting through side stitches during the home stretch. It wasn’t a pleasant experience, but it wasn’t a disaster either.
When I recounted the story at a pool party later that day, a friend urged me to sign up for a half marathon.
You’ve already run 10 miles, he said. What’s 3.1 more?
And just like that, my running adventures were underway.
I’ve since completed three half marathons, improving my finishing time in each. I’ve picked up a ton of speed, topping my age bracket in most races I enter and even finishing Top 3 overall for a few. And I’ve made plenty of friends along the way.
None of this would have happened if my plan to ditch that 10-mile run that day had panned out. Fate got in the way of my tentative nature, with the best of results.
I think about this sometimes while running. My stamina has gone way up since that first day. But there’s still a certain point on long training runs where I fade spectacularly. I go from feeling awesome to feeling awful in an instant. And I dial back.
Is this action a reflection of my own prudence? A willingness to pull back before I suffer the consequences of overexertion.
Or is it a mental block I must overcome? Is my body capable of doing far more than I give it credit for?
I believe it’s the latter. But I still haven’t tested that hypothesis.
That’s on me.
It’s time for us to delineate the limits we set. To differentiate the limits that are real from the ones that exist wholly in our minds.
This requires us to take a step back and truly assess the risks of going too far. And then, to consider how likely those are to occur.
If the chances of an adverse outcome are low, we should push ahead — regardless how scary that potential outcome might be. If not, we should be prudent and dial back.
This is not an easy adjustment to make. I know this as much as anyone.
But hard work is still worth doing, and our future depends on it getting done.
So, let’s get to it.