Destroy Your Limits: How to 50x Your Performance

I was previously a part of a digital media startup developing content for entrepreneurs. A few months into our existence, we met with the CEO of a much larger, more successful publication to get his advice. He told us we were doing all the right things and our content was killer… we just needed to produce more if it — 50X more.

At first, we were shell-shocked. There was no way that could be possible. After getting over our initial panic, we opened our minds and started a dialogue about how we could make it happen. Along the way, we realized that this challenge doesn’t just apply to us in this given situation. It applies to everyone.

Whatever you are achieving right now, you are capable of achieving 50X more. The first step to getting there is to believe you can.

Believe it is possible

Every single limit you have is entirely self-constructed. Every single one.

It is easy to think that, based on where you live, or what you studied in school, or what your current career is, that there are limits to what you can achieve. There are not; unless you put them there.

Realizing that all of your limits are self-constructed is incredibly empowering. It means recognizing that you also have the power to make yourself limitless.

Before you can achieve 50X performance, you need to believe it is possible.

If you earn $60,000, you can earn $3 million. If you can run 3 miles, you can do a 140.6-mile Ironman. If you have 10,000 monthly readers, you can get to 500,000.

How do we know these things are possible? Because someone else has already done them. And you are no different from them.

Have an enormously powerful why

What do you think is a reasonable distance to walk? I’m talking end of the night, you just want to get home, and Lyft (you wouldn’t even consider Uber because you have morals) is at a 4X charge. How far would you walk to get home? A half mile? A mile? Let’s stretch it out and call it a mile and a half.

Now imagine walking 50X that — 73.1 miles to be exact.

Unthinkable, right?

Well, that is exactly what my very good friend, Pat McElroy did last September.

For the last 3 years, Pat had fundraised for the St. Jude Walk/Run to End Childhood Cancer, raising just shy of $15,000 over that time and shaving his head and beard each time he hit his goal to show solidarity with the kids of St. Jude that lose their hair without choice.

This time, he set out to raise $15,000 in a single year. And to do so, he knew he needed to up his commitment. So, instead of just walking or running the 3.1 miles of the race, he committed to walking the 70 miles from his home in Coatesville, PA to the race start line in Harrisburg, PA. Look at this shit. That is far.

How did he do it? Pat had an enormously powerful “why” — raising money to support the kids of St. Jude suffering from the horrors of pediatric cancer.

Pat documented his walk via Snapchat and throughout the four days told stories of patients and their families and other fundraisers who inspired him.

His focus was not on himself or even directly on the task at hand. It was on a larger purpose. Something far larger than himself. That made what he could achieve far larger, too.

What is your why? Is it as big as Pat’s?

It needs to be.

Invest time to discover how you work best

How long does the average office worker spends actually working over the course of an 8-hour day? A whopping 2 hours and 53 minutes.

A huge implication of this is that, if you can find a way to work longer and be efficient with that work, you can increase your performance by orders of magnitude.

I previously wrote about this, giving 6 ways to increase your efficiency by working better, instead of just harder.

The last of those 6 tips: Find what works for you.

That section starts like this:

“The most important thing I can tell you about this article is that it may be best to ignore everything in it. None of it may apply to you.”

The message is that the tips I supplied in that article — knowing when good is good enough, using procrastination to your advantage, using a daily plan bar, and practicing the Pomodoro Technique — may not work for everyone.

But you need to commit the necessary time to try these and other techniques out to determine what works for you.

Take something as simple as this — how do you spend the first hour of your day? You could work out, bang out emails, meditate, journal, read, tackle your most difficult task, tackle your easiest task, et cetera. None of these answers is wrong and if you look for an answer on the internet, you could find support for any of these choices.

The takeaway is that you need to invest the time to try every option until you find what works for you. And not many people are willing to do that.

Believe in the 40% Rule

Jesse Itzler met Navy SEAL David Goggins during a race. Jesse was running the race as a relay with a team of 6. Goggins was running the race by himself. It was 100 miles long.

After the race, Itzler invited Goggins to live with him, thinking he could learn a thing or two. He documented the experience in his New York Times Bestseller, Living with a SEAL.

His most important takeaway? The 40% rule: When you think you’re done, when you think you’ve reached your limit, you have actually only reached 40% of your capacity.

There is a significant difference between being at your end and being at the end of your comfort zone. When our brains first tell us to quit, we are simply at the end of our comfort zone. But we all have a reserve tank that allows us to dig deeper than we initially think possible.

The next time you want to call it quits, know that you have a whole lot left. More than you could think possible.

Collaborate, don’t compete

People who focus on competing against other people will set their goals based on what others are doing, not what is possible.

As Benjamin P. Hardy explains, people who focus on collaborating through win-win strategic partnerships have the ability to achieve orders of magnitude more than those focused on competition.

The reason? Finding someone whose strengths complement your weaknesses is incredibly more efficient than taking the time necessary to turn your weaknesses into strengths. Finding win-win partnerships creates a synergy that allows both parties to produce more than they could on their own.

To do this, do not focus on what other people can do for you; first, focus on what you can do for other people. What can you provide others to help them achieve their goals? Give first, and you will receive so much more.

By helping other people achieve more, you both achieve more.

The recap

“Everything around you that you call life was made up by people that were no smarter than you.” — Steve Jobs

You can achieve 50X what you are achieving at the current moment. How do we know this is possible? Because other people are doing it right now. So, you can too.

Start by simply believing it is possible.

Find your why and make it a damn good one.

Invest time to figure out how you work best.

Know that your limit is only 40% of your real limit.

Collaborate to achieve more.

Any life you can imagine is possible. The point at which you aim is crucial. Where will you set your sights?

At your current level, or 50X above it?