I’ve got 50kg of bare metal dangling between my legs.

I swing up on the parallel bars … brace my core and push down my shoulders … I take a deep breath. And off I go.

It’s my last set of weighted dips for the day.

This should be easy – just 5 reps.

The first one feels almost effortless. The second … smooth as butter. Number three? No problemo. During the fourth rep, I’m starting to feel a bit fatigued. But still… an easy rep. And even rep #5 feels smooth.

“Might as well go for a couple more.”

…I think to myself.

I go for rep number 6 – getting more difficult.

And as I go down for rep 7, I hear what no weightlifter ever wants to hear…

CRACK! 

A stinging pain shoots up my left arm.

As I sit down to examine what happened, the pain intensifies.

“This is BAAAAD! 😬”

Well, it turns out that this injury would haunt me for the next 6 months. I still haven’t recovered to this day.

But this experience (and the ongoing recovery process) has taught me an important lesson:

Sustainable progress is
all about pacing yourself.

The only reason I sustained this injury? I wanted too much too soon.

I wasn’t ready for this weight yet. Especially in the fourth set.

But even more tragic?

I made the same mistake again in the following few months.

Got back into training dips too soon … got injured again … was out for another few weeks … just to make the same mistake once more.

Until one day…

I’d had enough.

I was tired of flip-flopping. Tired of not making any progress.

And that’s when I made a point to train sustainably – lighter weights, less intensity, better form.

At first, it was a blow to my ego knowing that I could lift more.

But after a few months? I made progress TWICE as fast as I had been. Soon, I was able to rep my former 1 rep maxes. 

This doesn’t only apply to weight training … it also applies to intellectual work.

Back when I used to do these crazy “3-month monk mode” protocols, I’d go so hard right out of the gate … that all my energy for the rest of the “sprint” was diminished.

In the end … most of my “monk modes” lasted for about 2 weeks instead of the scheduled 3 months. 🥴

Here’s what I realized:

Sustainable progress is all about doing LESS than you could in the beginning … and MORE than you think you can towards the end. (And usually it’s much less than you would be capable of).

This is NOT
a call for laziness.

Pacing yourself isn’t lazy. In fact, it requires so much more discipline to do LESS than you could do.

Any gym goer knows that once you’ve built the initial momentum, it’s incredibly hard to STOP.

It’s the same in business, relationships, creative work, and everything else.

Loading up too much weight might be seductive … but it will ruin your progress in the long run.

Perhaps this is just a symptom of my obsessive and perfectionist personality type.

But chances are…

If you’re reading emails like these, you have similar tendencies.

If that’s the case, one of the most important skills you’ll EVER develop is learning to pace yourself.

Because remember:

Great things aren’t built in a few weeks of intensity … they’re built in decades of consistent effort.

Hopefully, this email resonated with you. If so, feel free to let me know by replying to this email.

Thanks for reading and talk soon,

Tim <3

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