Do You Know Your Limits?

Know Your Limits

When someone makes the comment, “Know Your Limits” it typically is in reference to the idea of NOT going too far. NOT to push so hard as you may endanger yourself, etc. I am not a fan of hurting myself or risking dear things in my life, but I also feel it is just as dangerous to NOT “know your limits”.

The danger in that statement is this…If you have never truly tested your limits…How do you know how far you can go??? Most people stop WAY too soon! They stop when things start to get difficult. What they don’t realize is they are capable of way more than what they think they are capable of. This is when it is so important to have a coach whether that be a fitness coach, a business coach or mentor, a spouse, a pastor, a good friend that knows you and can help push you to those levels to help you find your limits of what you are capable of. The other important issue is here is that our personal limits are constantly changing if you are challenging them. They will increase. The opposite is also true when you don’t push yourself…Your personal abilities and limits decrease.

Life throws us challenges and trials from time to time. I think most of you would agree with me on that. Truly “knowing your limits” (because you’ve pushed those limits before) can give you confidence when one of those challenges hits you again, because it will.

We often get to play this out in a physical sense much more than we do in other scenarios. We can regularly test our limits of our physical and mental capabilities through the fitness regimen we put ourselves through. This is why I love CrossFit so much as each week we test and measure our limits so that we can regularly and systematically push those limits to greater and greater degrees. There is confidence in knowing what your body and mind are capable of when faced with new and seemingly daunting challenges.

The beauty of knowing your limits in a physical sense can also be translated to other challenges in life. You get to practice this “limit challenge” in each workout. You are training your brain and your resilience/heart with each session. In coaching water polo we encourage our athletes to take with them the knowledge of what they have achieved and to never forget it. We encourage them to fuel their success in the academic and business arenas of life by knowing they’ve tested and pushed their physical and mental limits to great degrees. If they can conquer one of the most physically demanding sports in the world like water polo, well we hope they can have confidence to know they conquer any challenge thrown at them. We help them find limits they never knew they could reach. How valuable is that to a young person?

To know your limits, you often must force yourself to explore your limits. Sometimes it means you take it failure. Pain and discomfort may occur. Sometimes this is under your control, sometimes it is not.

Either way get to “Know Your Limits”. Comfort isn’t always such a good thing.

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Your Monterey Chiropractor – Watching Your Back,

Dr. Aaron Gaily, D.C.
www.chiropractorsmonterey.com

P.S. Same disclaimer as usual. Check with your doc before you begin really testing those limits! Make sure the car is ready to drive if you know what I mean. Be smart.

Related posts:

1. Secrets of Success, Challenging “Self” and CrossFit
2. Dr. Gaily’s CrossFit Challenge – Week 1 Update