11 Jan 2017 · 6 min
Matthew Hussey shares a gym story: struggling at rep four of ten, his trainer lowered the target to eight, and his brain suddenly pushed through. He argues we sabotage ourselves with ambitious goals. Lower your target, focus on the next single task, and you'll do more than you thought.
Welcome to Love Life. I'm Matthew Hussey and I have an amazing show for you today. But first, let me ask you: Did you know that there are three female mindsets that drive men absolutely wild? Okay, you're right, confidence is one, but can you guess the other two? I'll give you a minute to think about it and we'll come back to this at the end of the show. But first, let's get into today's episode. 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 at the time, 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? Because I believe that so many of us only get four repetitions done in a day of whatever it is, four reps. We have a four rep day instead of an eight 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 instead of looking at it and saying, okay, you know what? Firstly, An eight rep day is better than a four rep day, right? So if I can just get, if I can push this to an eight 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 ten and thinking about how I couldn't possibly reach number ten, put this negativity in every part of my body and I dropped the weight or I was about to anyway. If I could just focus on getting to number five, this would be a lot easier. So 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. So that's it. 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 fell swoop. swoop in one foul 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/CoachMatthewHussy. I'll see you soon. Well, did you guess what the other two mindsets are that drive men wild? Good news, you don't have to rack your brain forever for the answer. I'm giving you free exclusive access to a Q&A session from my live seminar where I coach real women on how to deal with hot and cold men, how to find out if a guy is single, how to be strong and confident in a relationship, and more. To get your free access to three female mindsets that drive men absolutely wild, just go to lovelifepodcast.com/mindsets.
