If you set out to do 10 pushups, you’ll get tired at 9. If you set out to do 20, you’ll blow right past 9 without fatigue.
While some physical barriers are genuine, many of the things that hold us back from achieving our potential are actual mental barriers in disguise as physical barriers. A study of cyclists had them cycle as fast as they could for 10 minutes on a stationary bike. Later they were tested again against a ghost of their previous performance. Unbeknownst to them, their ghosted avatar was actually sped up and cycled faster than their previous “best performance possible”… and yet most cyclists believing they were already capable of achieving that managed to not only keep up, but surpass their artificially enhanced performances.
If you set out to do 10 pushups, you feel tired after 8 or 9. If you set out to do 20 pushups, you blow right by 8 or 9 without thinking about it or feeling the fatigue.