Matthew Hussey shares a gym story where lowering his rep target from ten to eight helped him push through exhaustion. He argues most people set goals too high and quit early, then offers two fixes: deliberately lower your target to build momentum, and focus on the next single task instead of your whole day.
Matthew Hussey here with Love Life. I was at the gym the other day and I was lifting what was for me at least a really heavy weight. And my trainer, he'd originally said to me that I had to get to 10 with these reps and I was lifting this weight and I got to number, I think it was number four and it was so heavy that I was about to drop it. He could literally see me about to drop the weight. And then here's what he said, all right, get to eight. And all of a sudden my brain did something really interesting. Instead of saying, put the weight down, my brain said, oh, we have to get to eight, okay, maybe that's possible, maybe I could do that. So I started lifting again. Miraculously, because I thought I had nothing left, I started lifting again and I went 5, 6, 7 and I just about pushed out the eighth repetition. Now here's what's really interesting to me about that. I wasn't faking it at number four when I thought I had to put the weight down. I thought I was realistically losing all of my steam and had nothing left to give. And yet when the expectation was lowered a little bit to eight, all of a sudden my psychology was I can push through and get to number eight. Now why is this so important in life in general? I believe that most of us have a 4 rep day when we could have had an 8 rep day because we believe we have to make it a 10 rep day. In other words, the expectation of just how much you have to do before you go to sleep tonight. And processing all of that and thinking about all of that is exactly the thing that makes you short circuit early in the day and decide to give up. I know that there are days, I know today, if I thought of everything that I have to do between now and the moment I go to sleep. If I really thought through all of those things right now, my brain, I know what it would do. It would say, you know what, let's just go back to sleep. This is, this is too much. This is, no one can do this, no human being can do this. I would get all dramatic about it, I'd be like, this is impossible, let's just go back to sleep. We really do need sleep. We didn't sleep much last night, we must escape. And I would go into escape mode instead of looking at it and saying, okay, you know what, firstly, an 8 rep day is better than a 4 rep day, right? So, so if I can just get, if I can push this to an 8 out of 10. That's a fantastic day. Sometimes the key to getting more done in a day is to lower your expectations. Because when you lower your expectations a little bit and you push through the things you have to do, it gives you the encouragement to keep going anyway. And, you know, you may even get to eight and decide to push out the last two anyway. But it's also about focusing on what's right in front of you. See, when I gave up on four or when I was about to give up on four, my brain wasn't thinking about the one repetition right in front of me to get to number five. It was thinking about how I couldn't fathom how I would reach number 10. So I'm. I really believe in focusing on the thing that's right in front of you. The next step, before worrying about the thing that's behind that, it's really, really important. Two tips in there. One, don't be afraid initially, to lower your expectations to give yourself the confidence to get more done. And secondly, focus on the thing that's in front of you. Now, focus on the task at hand before you try and digest the entirety of the rest of your day and everything that will make it a productive day. If you get it done. If you can focus on the thing in front of you, get that done, and then focus on the next thing, you'll find that you'll trick your brain into being able to do more than trying to eat the whole day at once. In one foul swoop. In one fell swoop. No, wrong. Wrong metaphor. In one meal. Keep that in. Don't even edit that. Let's just leave it in. Let's not try and be perfect. All right, I'll speak to you soon, my friends. Take care. I love you all. Come join me on Facebook. By the way, facebook.com coach Matthew Hussey. I'll see you soon, Sa.
