What does it mean to challenge yourself?
It means you've stepped outside your comfort zone and taken on a new task. You've set new goals for yourself, and you're ready to work hard to achieve them. A challenge is something that teaches you how to grow as a person. They encourage personal development and are a way to work on self-improvement.
For me the definition of a challenge came up by signing up for 2 races in a row to run them on the 8th and 9th of April at the beautiful and scenic village of Lefkara. I knew I wasn't ready for this - mostly physically - but I promised to myself you've got this Kat (as always my stubborn self).
One of the biggest hindrances to our running is our complacency. We like to be comfortable with the things we do every day and the best way to be comfortable is to continue doing things exactly the same day after day after day.
Complacency becomes a boundary we want to respect by not crossing. The respect we have for boundaries, though, is really fear. We fear trying to cross a boundary because we don’t know for certain what’s on the other side. If we want to push past the boundaries we set as runners we have to face our fears and explore new boundaries.
If you are always in your comfort zone, how will you ever know what you truly can handle and explore your real potential? Our brain is naturally protecting us from danger zones. It wants to follow routines and doesn't like changes. Stepping out of your comfort zone makes you more creative, decreases your own limiting beliefs and enables you to use new ways of thinking and acting. We extend our own limits, explore new ways of dealing with challenges and expand our potential, getting stronger and opening a new growth space with magical possibilities. Prove to yourself that you are able to handle new challenges. You are capable of more than you would ever think!
Don't be afraid to set high goals and define a vision for yourself. The limits are your thoughts. And YES I proved this to myself by breaking my boundaries. Running a 4km Vertical Challenge with 430 elev. gain followed by a 13,3km Cross Country Run the following day with 460 elev. gain was the definition moving forward towards my fears. And this was the result:
I am not sure how to describe this picture and my feelings: fatigued, dehydrated, dizzy, unable to walk and move my body, exhausted, low blood pressure, low levels of oxygen, unable to breathe, collapsed? but NO above all I am happy, accomplished, proud, lucky, grateful, blessed, and so many more....
Within this difficult moment a new 5km PB has been achieved.
Go out and explore. Explore something new...and this can be yourself!!! When you break your boundaries, you will continue to flourish in this world. Don’t settle for your current boundaries—break free of them and level up.
So, whether you believe it or not, it’s a fact. You can break free and break boundaries.
This was an extraordinary challenge. But by taking the choice out of it and working towards my own purpose of learning the science behind winning the mental battle, I was able to do it. There are so many people that I want to thank (but you know who you are).
Our bodies and minds have a certain natural momentum. So long as we feed ourselves, they’ll grow as part of the natural development that occurs in any living thing. But that growth will only continue to a certain point, which is different from person to person.
Some will grow taller, stronger, heavier, and others will be slimmer, shorter, faster. Some people will quickly grasp concepts such as math and physics, while others will be more inclined toward imagining impossible worlds or masterfully manipulating colors and sounds. None of these are mutually exclusive, by the way, and some people may have all of them, some none, and everything else in between.
The point is that without any intervention, our bodies and minds will establish their growth limit to the point where there is no additional challenge.
To make a more direct analogy, if you design your life so that you never have to lift a weight above 5 pounds, your arm muscles won’t need to develop beyond that, and they’ll stop at the limit of the current level of challenge.
“The only way of discovering the limits of the possible is to venture a little way past them into the impossible.”
-Arthur C. Clarke-
Because growth requires an elevated challenge, the question then becomes: who’s the driver? Is it your mind that rules the body or the other way around?
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