Sunday evening at my apartment. The air was thick after a sunny Juli day. I sat on my balcony totally engrossed by a book I was reading. At the time I’d forgot all about my plans of having a nice evening jog before watching the football World Cup final between Netherlands and Spain.
Suddenly I realized, that the time was 20:12 – 18 minutes to kickoff! Now, most sane people would probably have ditched or postponed the running plans, and instead getting ready for the match. After thinking about the problem for a few seconds, I found that I would not allow myself to do that. I planned a jog before watching the match, and that was what I was going to do.
This turned out to be one of my best runs in quite a while. I really wanted to get back in time for the kickoff, so I pressed myself harder than I’ve done for a long time. In just 20 minutes I managed to change clothes, lock up the apartment, and run 3,5 kms. At 20:32 (two minutes into the final) I was back at my couch planting my warm feet into an ice cold bowl of water, greeted by the world’s largest vuvuzela-orchestra as I turned on the TV to watch the match.
That day I coincidentally experienced first hand, how setting personal stakes pushes you to perform better. The reason I feel like mentioning this, is that to many people it sounds counter intuitive to intentionally setup personal risks. But the value of increasing your performance significantly, is most often worth putting on the extra risk.
Woaw, very good post i enjoy every second!. And you’re right, i really dont know what to say, but that was a pretty good post :-)
I must agree with this! :-)
It’s a great post aswell!