More Than You Can Handle

Like the baby bear in The Story of the Three Bears, most are looking for just right. Not too hot. Not too cold. Not too hard. Not too soft.

You want to find a place in life in which everything is comfortable.

But how do you ever learning something new? How will you grow?

Runners train their bodies to run faster and farther. When they start, they aren’t able to do either. The goal of training is to increase stamina and to increase strength. The only way training will work is if the runner tries to do more than they can handle.

The only way they grow stronger is to ask more of their legs than they ever have before. They only way they become faster is to ask more of their lungs and heart than the day before.

Through the slow, painful process of training, runner farther and faster is a choice.

photo by Alessandro Pautasso (creative commons license)

Growing and learning are choices too.

You choose to grow and learn by choosing to take on more than you can handle. To try something you don’t know how to do. To try something bigger than you have ever done before.

Maybe even by trying the impossible.

How do you know how hard you should push yourself? How far past your comfort zones should you go? That’s a choice too.

Some run five minutes miles. Some run ten minute miles. The question isn’t how fast you are running but how fast you are running compared to yesterday.  Or last week. Or last year.

Of course, there can be a down side. You can take on too much. You don’t grow when you run too fast. Instead you injure yourself. And then it becomes even harder to train.

But staying comfortable, not taking on more than you are capable of, is a choice of its own. A choice to remain the same.