Most people don’t know they’re playing it safe.
I realised that at the gym yesterday.
Mid-set, a question popped in my mind
“If we’re not pushing to failure, what are we doing?”
I’d walked in planning my usual session. I track my PRs on every machine, so I knew exactly what my normal looked like.
And that was the problem.
Normal was the plan. So I added more weights and pushed harder.
Yesterday became the most I’d asked of my body in a long time. And it made me think about something I see in sales all the time.
A lot of people aren’t underperforming because they’re lazy.
They’re operating at a level that has simply become comfortable.
- The setter does their usual outreach.
- The closer runs their usual comfortable roleplays.
Everything is reasonable and defensible, but nothing is really testing the current limits.
That’s where I think we get stuck.
We confuse “I’m working hard” with “I’m working at the level required for where I want to go.”
So every now and then, I think it’s worth asking:
Is this actually my best effort, or is this just my normal?
And if the answer is normal, there’s probably another level available.
This is not about working yourself into the ground. It’s about deliberately raising the standard when your current standard has stopped challenging you.
You hit a new level. Then that level becomes normal.
Then you ask the question again.
That’s how growth compounds.
In sales, in business, in leadership, and in life.
Don’t just measure how much you’re doing. Ask whether what you’re doing is still demanding more from you.