How Do You Even Know What Is Possible?

I got asked on a post about getting abs the other day…

“How do you even know what is possible for you?”

It was one of those moments where you sit back and you go…

“Well huh!”

And my honest answer back was…

“I don’t think you can fully know what is possible until you try.”

I don’t think we can ever fully know how far we can go with something until we’ve tried.

And even then, we can’t fully predict the snowball that will happen as we continue to accumulate knowledge, make those small improvements and let TIME do its work.

I say this looking back at my own photos over the years, my own lifting logs…

When I was doing 2 pull ups, I would never have said I’d get 20 beautiful ones in a row.

When I was first trying to change my body type from the orange with toothpick limbs, I would never have told you I’d have abs I wanted to show off.

Heck if you asked me if I’d have half nakey photos I’d share of myself to social media while also filming videos every week, I would have laughed at you and thought you were crazy.

Because none of these things are what I necessarily envisioned even when working toward specific goals.

Because I don’t think we can fully predict the outcome of any journey.

We can just envision what we’d like, constantly work to improve and implement and adjust habits…and stay focused on tweaking based on how things are progressing.

But I do think we have to embrace that our ultimate goals, our results may not be exactly what we expected to start.

This doesn’t mean they’ll be worse or better.

But often they are different.

But we also have to remember we can’t hold ourselves back from trying just because we don’t know what is possible.

We have to remember that line of…

Everything seems impossible until we prove it possible.

So if you want to get better at something, don’t set a limit. See you goal as your starting point to shoot for.

See a goal not so much as the expectation but a vision to drive you.

And then set your expectations to learn and grow along the way.

When we do this, we find out more about ourselves.

We learn what are truly our priorities. We learn what matters to us.

And we improve and grow.

And often, no that end result isn’t fully what we expected. But often it can even be better. And it can lead to other progress, other wins.

But I think in life we have to realize that so much can’t be predicted.

So much has to be us taking a risk and seeing where things can go!

So if there is something you want to work toward…who cares if it is even truly possible?

Why not see how close you can get?

Here are 3 tips to help you get started today seeing what is possible…

#1: List out your priorities.

So I mention to do this first because if you really want to achieve a goal, you must be willing to sacrifice to get there.

Your goal has to be a priority.

HOWEVER, often our goals, especially if they are personal records or aesthetic based and not related to health or injury, will take a back seat to other priorities in our life.

Family, work…overall lifestyle and “survival” will matter most to us. And rightly so.

BUT I think even recognizing the hierarchy of our priorities can help us place these goals within that list and even WORK AROUND the other things we have going on.

Too often our other priorities become excuses instead of being seen as non-negotiable and something to strategize around.

If you aren’t going to shift your priorities, you need to account for them. Create a plan that allows your priorities to be your priorities.

This can mean starting with small changes. It can mean planning in short workouts. It can mean tracking while planning in family meals first. It can mean using meal prep or planning in restaurant dishes.

If you want to see what is possible to achieve in terms of any goal, start with what is also realistic to your lifestyle to build and move forward.

#2: Realize that success means sacrifice.

The more you want to really make the “impossible” possible, the more you will have to embrace sacrifice. Not in a bad way but…success means prioritizing sometimes things that aren’t fun.

To push your boundaries will never be comfortable.

The more we want to really achieve something beyond what we’ve achieved, the more we have to be ready to do things we’ve never done and at times we don’t want to do them.

I think recognizing that “greatness” comes with a sacrifice in another area is key.

It even helps us realize where our goals fall on our priorities and how much we want to push what is possible.

We may have one vision of our ultimate goal and realize that halfway to that we are actually happy. Or we may realize we want more and can achieve more, embracing the sacrifices that come with it.

But the key is realizing that part of seeing what is possible is also seeing how much we can push our own boundaries!

#3: Embrace that nothing may ever be enough.

Often we will achieve one goal and just want more. It’s why we do have to find ways to love ourselves, love our lives, love the journey as cliche as that is over defining our happiness and satisfaction based on a destination.

Because there will always be more you want to explore. And often there will always be more you want to achieve.

Embrace the fact that you can always want to improve while also being happy where you are with what you have.

And then don’t just blow past the wins. Recognize them.

Give yourself credit for the journey as you continue to push forward.

But also don’t feel guilty if you do reach a goal and just want more!

To want to improve is never a bad thing as long as we also realize that no single goal will define us. We have to love the growth and learning process along the way as well!

SUMMARY:

The simple answer is we can never know what is fully possible until we’ve tried.

And even then, over the years, over the learning process, we may constantly reassess what we want and even redefine what we believe we can achieve!