Yesterday I had one of those moments that quietly changes the way you see yourself.
It happened in the gym.
As part of the latest training block Jordan has put together for the Executive Athlete Club, he has included pull-ups.
I’ll be honest, when I saw them in the programme a few weeks ago, my heart sank a little.
Pull-ups and I have had a mixed relationship over the years.
When I first started CrossFit about ten years ago, I eventually worked my way up to six or seven strict pull-ups.
More recently, working with Jordan, I’d consistently reached eight.
A while back I managed to get to nine and, once, ten. Just.
I never managed to repeat it.
A couple of months ago Jordan sent me a video outlining seven Universal Fitness Standards.
For pull-ups, the standards were simple.
10 was considered good.
15 was elite.
20 was professional.
Fifteen felt a long way away.
If I’m honest, it didn’t even feel like it belonged in my future.
What I didn’t fully appreciate was that Jordan had already been preparing me.
Over the previous training blocks, he’d quietly been building strength in me in ways I hadn’t connected to pull-ups at all.
When this block began, I surprised myself.
Week one…
10, 9, 9.
Week two…
10, 10, 10.
It wasn’t pretty.
The final rep of the final set took everything I had.
Yesterday was pull-up day again.
As I warmed up, my mind immediately went back to how hard those three sets of ten had felt.
Then Jordan said something he’d probably said dozens of times before.
“Just try to get one or two more reps across the three sets.”
I don’t know why it landed differently yesterday.
I did the maths.
One extra rep wasn’t another ten pull-ups.
It was just one.
Suddenly eleven didn’t feel impossible.
It just felt like the next step.
I jumped onto the bar.
The first five felt comfortable.
At six I told myself, “Only five to go.”
By eight I was slowing.
At ten I knew I’d matched my best.
One more.
I got my chin over the bar for an eleventh rep for the first time in my life.
I dropped down smiling.
Second set…
Ten.
Then came the third.
By now Jordan had wandered over to watch.
The fascinating thing was that ten no longer felt like the goal.
It felt inevitable.
I reached ten.
Paused.
Pulled again.
Eleven.
Then somehow…
…there was one more.
Twelve.
In the space of twenty minutes something had shifted.
What had been a ceiling…
…had become a floor.
It reminded me of Roger Bannister.
For years the four-minute mile was believed to be impossible.
Then Bannister ran 3:59.
He didn’t just break a record.
He broke an idea.
Once the ceiling disappeared, people started to realise it had never really been there.
It makes me wonder how many of the ceilings in my own life are simply ideas I’ve accepted for too long.
That’s the funny thing about possibility.
It rarely stays where you first discover it.
If I can do twelve pull-ups…
…maybe fifteen isn’t nearly as far away as I thought.
If fifteen becomes possible…
…maybe taking another five or ten minutes off my Hyrox time is possible too.
If that’s possible…
…maybe the growth I still dream about in my coaching business isn’t nearly as unrealistic as I’ve been telling myself.
Progress doesn’t just change what we’re capable of.
It changes what we believe we’re capable of.
Maybe that’s why breakthroughs matter so much.
Not because of what they achieve.
Because of what they make possible next.
As I finish writing this, I’m wondering…
Where in your life are you accepting a ceiling that may already have become a floor?
Much love
Peter