One Ability that Makes You Better at Life
What is one of the single most important qualities that you can possess in life, regardless of your background, current life situation, goals, dreams, and aspirations?
It’s the ability to not quit. The ability to keep going when you feel like you can’t.
I know some of you hoped for a more “profound” quality—something more intellectual.
And I don’t want to reduce life to an Instagram motivational quote.
A meaningful and fulfilling life requires more than not quitting.
But not quitting lies at the foundation of anything that you would want your life to look like.
Before we continue:
The enrollment for the Sisyphus Society ends on Sunday. Inside the society, you will find:
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-Consistency Challenge
-Cognitive Reframing course
-Personality Building framework
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It is a fact of human existence that, no matter how unique your life is, it has one thing in common with all the lives that have been lived and all that will be lived.
You will, like everyone else, be met with your share of moments in life where you'll feel like you can’t keep going anymore. You'll want to quit.
Whether it’s in pursuing a specific goal or just in life.
Whether it’s wanting to quit on your dream when faced with an obstacle that seems too great to overcome.
Or wanting to quit on life itself when your world seems to be falling apart or you’ve felt empty for way too long.
The range of human experience is wide, and all across this range, there are moments that will test your ability to not quit.
Having this in mind, I think we should want to become better at not quitting.
So what is the only way to actively, and in a controlled manner, test and develop this ability to not quit?
It’s by engaging in difficult things—things that make you want to quit.
And I’m going to argue that, out of all types of difficult things you can do for this purpose, physical challenges are by far the best.
More specifically, I advocate for intense physical training where your point of failure is determined by that ability to not quit, not by your physical strength.
For most of you reading this, if I put 200kg (or 440 lbs) on a barbell and tell you to squat it, you won’t be able to do it. And it wouldn’t be a question of your mental strength and resilience. Your ability to not quit wouldn’t help.
But if I told you to do 500 burpees or run a long-distance race like a half-marathon or maybe even a full marathon, almost every single one of you would be able to complete the task, or at least get 2-3 times further than you thought you would. It would "only" be a matter of you not quitting.
How much time you would need for that and how much your body would be banged up after it is another question. I am not advocating doing this. At least not often.
But the point is that, in physical activities where your limit is psychological, you have a far better chance to test your ability to not quit. (Sorry, powerlifters; I still have massive respect for you.)
At the end of the day, you don’t have to listen to me. You can train your ability to not quit with different types of difficult things. I encourage you to try as many different ones as you can.
For example, as much as I love writing, it is often difficult.
While writing my previous essay, I had three points where I had a strong urge to quit. I obviously didn't, and, that night when I finished it, I was filled with a sense of pride for exercising my ability to keep going.
However, my whole body and mind screaming at me to stop while engaged in an intense physical activity tests my ability to not quit much better than having trouble with writing an essay. That’s at least my experience.
Whatever your struggle of choice is, my point is this:
If, every single day, you intentionally get yourself to the point of wanting to quit and you don’t, let’s say that’s just 1% of the feeling when life throws a challenge at you that makes you want to quit.
Experiencing even that 1% every single day and pushing past it is still infinitely better than how most people live, never testing their ability to not quit and eventually getting defeated by a challenge they could’ve overcome.
Paradoxically, daily voluntary struggle compounds into a life that is not limited by struggle.
Thank you for reading.
P.S. If you are willing to engage in some voluntary struggle, my training programs Daily Struggle Zero and Daily Struggle Minimal are available inside the Sisyphus Society.
They require, as their names suggest, zero or minimal equipment and minimal time out of your day. Alongside those 2, I have 3 additional training programs available inside the Sisyphus Society.
Enrollment and the chance to access an outrageous amount of value ends on Sunday night.
Free Resources:
My free ebook: The Lost Art of Reading
Paid Resources:
The Art of Showing Up: A Clear and Practical Method for Mastering Consistency
The Gold Pill: Timeless Ideas for a Life Worth Living
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