Do What You Think You Can't
Getting better is about systematically stretching our capabilities.
If it doesn’t challenge you, it won’t change you.
Fred DeVito
This newsletter is about one thing: becoming a bit better each day.
Whether we like it or not, humans have an innate desire to improve themselves and their position in the world.
The best way to do so is not with grand one off improvements but with slow and steady progress.
To make slow and steady progress, we must deliberately stretch our capabilities. The only way to stretch our capabilities is to do something we’ve never done before. It doesn’t need to be impressive or grand or dramatic, but it must be something that’s outside of our current ability.
To become a bit better each day, we need to do something that we think we can’t do every day.
Stretching Our Capabilities
The deliberate expansion of our capabilities is easy to see in physical pursuits because it’s easy to quantify our progress.
After weeks or months of running, lifting, or something similar, we slowly build the capacity to do things we couldn’t have imagined just a few weeks prior.
This progress isn’t the result of consistency on its own. Doing the same workout that’s comfortable and easy day after day and week after week won’t result in any progress.
To accomplish a big goal we never thought possible, we need to do small things we don’t think we can do as often as we can. If we ran five miles last week, this week should be six. If we got two reps of a heavy lift last week, this week should be three.
In physical pursuits, the intentional effort to do things we think we can’t is called Progressive Overload. Deliberate Practice refers to the same principles applied in pursuits outside the realm of physical fitness.
Each word in both of these concepts reveals something important about what it takes to become a bit better each day.
Deliberately Practicing Progressive Overload
Deliberate is the first tenet of improving. Getting better has never happened and will never happen by accident. To become better, we need to intentionally plan the work that will continuously challenge our current capabilities.
After planning what will stretch our capacity, we actually have to do the work and practice the pursuits or skills we’re trying to improve. We need to be intentional, but we also need to be disciplined enough to show up and do the work.
Progressive means developing gradually or in stages. This is exactly how we should approach our challenges and practice. If we attempt anything too far outside our capabilities, we’ll fail and get discouraged, and if we don’t challenge ourselves enough, we’ll never see results.
Finally, and most importantly, whatever we’re doing needs to overload our current capabilities. It has to be something we don’t think we can do.
Growth comes from choosing to do something that we believe is outside of our current capabilities, pushing through the doubt in our minds while we’re doing it, and gaining confidence from accomplishing it anyway. The more confident we become, the comfortable we are pushing ourselves and the more growth we’ll experience.
The foundation of becoming better is doing things we think we can’t. The more opportunities we take to do this on our own and the more communities we join where this behavior is normal and encouraged, the better off we’ll be.
Prompts
What is something you thought you couldn’t do and surprised yourself when you accomplished it?
What is something hard you can do every day to progressively overload your current capabilities?
In what area of life do you need to improve the most? What does Deliberate Practice look like for that pursuit?
Deep Dive
Can’t Hurt Me by David Goggins
A now world-famous Navy Seal’s take on an extreme version of pushing your limits.
Thanks for reading! I’ll see you next Sunday.
Kevin