Its 10am on Sunday morning and my friend Lulu Weasel has organised a little visit for us to The Commando Temple in Deptford.

Years in the making, Proprietor Rob Blair says, ‘The Commando Temple is unlike any strength training space you have seen or heard about.’

The Commando Temple he says is, put simply, ‘is a playground for Strength and Fitness enthusiasts using the best training equipment and systems known to man! 

We currently have several World class coaches and athletes training within the space and are educating the members to move, lift and groove stronger!

Currently we offer, gymnastics, kettlebells in both hard style and kettlebell sport, weightlifting, strongman training, injury rehabilitation, BJJ, Primal Move and a host of one off events to build superior strength and conditioning!! 

If you are looking for a safe, strong space to train like a professional athlete…pay us a visit. ‘

We arrive At the Temple and are promptly greeted by our trainers, Fritz and Mayyah as well as the Temple’s owner Rob Blair, all of whom enter the gym, as one does, via a fireman’s pole from the office. Just this alone lets me know this is going to be something special!

Forms are handed out to check we are fit and healthy, but more importantly, to collect any emergency contact numbers to inform our next of kin where to collect us if things don’t go as planned.

As a training enthusiast, walking into the Commando Temple is like entering a training version of Willy Wonka’s Chocolate factory. It has everything you could possibly imagine regarding strength and conditioning equipment. I’m like a kid in a sweet shop!

Introductions are made and Rob, Fritz and Mayyah make us all feel very welcome.

Within this introduction, past training reputations are pulled out and assurances of being able to go the distance are made. But I’m not so sure. At this stage I’m worried, but I’m allowing myself to be carried on the reputation of how I performed at my teams last meet, but I know it’s not the me of today.

My training has been basic the last few months, with 2-3, 45 min sessions being the staple regime just to get me back to lifting, after a training related injury. No cardio to speak of either really, other than some super sets.

I initially believed today’s workshop was going to be on how to lift certain objects, maybe an atlas stone or an anvil with the correct form.

But it’s becoming worryingly apparent this is not what happens in what I now find out is one of Robs infamous ‘Atomic workshops’, which translates to four plus hours, of pretty much nonstop, strength and conditioning training.

Also in today’s class, as Rob kindly mentions in our pre session talk, each of us in the room is not a novice. We all come from a training background and had years of experience under our belt. No one was a beginner, so the bar was going to be set high. And with those years comes either a personal reputation, an expectation from others because of heresy of your last accomplishment, or simply a false belief in our own capabilities.

Because of this, already the sort of training going on today has to be up a few gears to cater to the cliental. It make the pros look like novices simply because of its diversity. There is nowhere to hide. Weaknesses will get the spot light treatment and egos will be popped.

A new ‘this is where I currently am line’ is about to be drawn in the sand over the next few hours.

The thinking behind this sort of training is not that you will necessarily become great at all these disciplines. There’s simply not enough hours in the day to master them all. And it’s not about it getting easier.

As another sadist coach of mine likes to say, ‘it never gets easier, we just get stronger. We walk in Strong and crawl out stronger.’

None of us had had the luxury of not knowing all the facts about today and what was involved in Rob Blairs Workshop. Well we had some facts….the wrong facts!

As I mentioned before, I initially believed I was going on a course to learn correct form in lifting things like atlas stones and other strongman equipment. This was my first mistake. Second mistake was not having a month in advance to train for what was about to be unleashed!

I’m already having the internal discussion that says ‘I should not be here today’, and had I known the truth, I probably wouldn’t have. But that’s sometimes the beauty of not knowing. As Churchill said ‘if you are going through Hell, keep going’ and this was going to be apt words.

In hindsight, not knowing about the day’s events was actually a bonus for me. When we know something unpleasant is coming up, we tend to find reasons to put it off. We look for reasons why we will do it sometime soon, but really, hopefully never.

But the real nugget that I could have been missed, is being acquainted with the part of myself that I’m not fond of. That part that we hate to meet. The part that wants to quit. That part that wants to run away.

Had I prepared a month in advance, I could have blended in, but I would have missed out on some important lessons about myself and how we think.

I have a strong passion for physical exercise, but my real interest lies in how our mind works, or more importantly what it does to sabotage our efforts and how we can override our default settings to avoid the current pain.

The mind definitely is responsible for so much for our success. Its default, as I mentioned in Part 1, is to protect us and keep us away from pain, be that real or envisaged.

It’s a constant battle, training your mind to do what it really doesn’t want you to do.  It’s easy when you are motivated and fresh, but I’m interested in how we operate during the times we are down, shattered and when real life’s beating down on us and what really works then that can enable us to keep going.

We start off todays Atomic Workshop with Fritz giving us a warmup session. This in itself gives the shoulders a little taster of what to expect from the day’s events.

Then we are off to do a selection of human ‘primal’ movement relays, from walking like a crab, or a monkey, a crocodile and a few beasties in-between. The pace is quick, but for Rob, 20 minutes or so into the session, it seems weakness is already creeping in, and attention is waning.

 So to get everyone focused a pep talk is not what we get. Instead we get 30 bastard burpees. These would continue be the punishment of the day for lack of concentration or bad time keeping.

If we had 30 seconds to get a drink that’s what Rob meant and failure to keep to this ended in every second we were over, equating to a bastard burpee. Strangely enough it always seemed to be 30 of the bastards!

After primal movement, we went onto holds like press up position with sand bags or chains for a time, a time I think that was decided in the moment. However, by using time keeping this way I believe it gives us some other valuable feedback about how we operate under pressure.

Something that many athletes struggle with in training is knowing when to hold back and when to give it their all. When we do not know the specifics of a session or the set, we are less likely to go all out. Coaches know all too well that an athlete who believes they can do no more, can usually muster more strength when they are told ‘come on this is the last one’ or come on hold it, just 10 seconds left. If the mind has not got specific information to focus on, it tends to panic and we often give in before time. Again with introspection, we can examine what we do personally when we give in to early, and learn to override it.

Side planks and core work followed for time.

All the way through, the team came round and corrected our positioning.

This is fundamental to the Temples teaching, and correct form is King no matter how long that takes to master.

 We go from here to another room and due to me not getting my shoes on in the time, we all get another 30 bastards to perform.

I’d be happy to finish now but the nightmare is just about to begin.

100 metre dash, jump over two plyometric boxes, monkey crawl over a pommel horse and repeat 5 times comes next.

I have nothing left. My cardio is badly down. It reminds me of the rude wakeup call I got during County Cross Country trials, where I experienced the hard way, what was needed to compete at this level.

I was last in, and time had run out for me to finish the indoor leg, and I was gutted. I felt like a loser. But there’s no pity at the temple for me.

I constantly battle with the work I do as a mind coach. Despite loving the theory and ideology of what is possible, the reality of making changes, of breaking away from painful or negative thoughts and behaviours can be really tough. There are a lot of the nice ideas regarding what we can do to counteract negative thoughts, but the reality is they just don’t hold up when you are hanging out of your ass!

I now feel sick and can’t breathe, which is not an ideal time to be introduced to the commando runs.

My memory is a little hazy over the order of things in this hour but basically the commando run is about a 600 hundred metre run round the block, some of the block being the high street. We do 3 laps of this for a warm up, but I’m already sweating and some of the guys here are sprinting rather than warming up!

I often say to my clients, if I could simulate myself into how you feel when you are suffering, I believe I could find you a solution. The reality is I cannot do this simulation.

However whenever I find myself in a place like I did today, with my mind screaming quit! This is stupid! You’re not ready! Go home! – I begin to empathise with how my weight lose clients tell me they feel during exercise classes. In those moments, I am them. I’m slow and in pain. I’m carrying too much weight for this distance and pace. I want to quit. I hate being last by more than 50 metres and because we are out of time I’m also not allowed to finish the circuit.

I practically know all the techniques available to combat negative thought patterns. What we are supposed to say to ourselves, the techniques we should use to think constructive thoughts and eliminate the negative ones.

But that’s all great when its theory, when you are fresh. Try using these techniques when you are broken and only half way round the course. Climbing a rope is easy. Try climbing it after carry a sandbag 100 metres and it becomes a different animal.

I’ve spoken about this before and the reality of what works and it’s unglamorous and unmarketable because it’s bloody basic!

Today it was ‘just put one foot in front of the other. If it takes all night that’s fine, but don’t quit.

I hang onto how I felt in the past when I’ve given up and how it eats away at me.

I make those painful memories override my current one.

I think of my overweight clients and am in a weird way I’m grateful to be in this situation, to experience first-hand how I imagine it must feel. I can empathise in those moments and get busy finding out what to do mentally to get me over the line and still returning the next day. For me this is the authentic information I can share.

 Just before I can crawl away home, we are stopped and told to collect kettlebells to do a lap of the run again.

Pairing up with someone, I bite off more than I should and my partner and I take two 48kg kettlebells for a walk round the Commando run. And it’s not good. When I can’t go any further my team mate does a section and so forth.

Once this is done we take the same partner, in my case, a six foot plus chap called Matty G, who I have to say, was a life saver and picked up my slack on these events, and we proceeded to do piggy backs runs round the same circuit.

The last leg saw me head down, teeth gritted and Matty G’s feet barely off the ground as we entered the temple. All of this adding to Robs amusement!

Then the infamous 512kg tyre is pulled out and we are divided into our teams. Our biggest two guys go on one side and the other three of us go the other and we start flipping the beast over for as many reps as we can for time.

Again I’m not sure as to the science of the time keeping, but if Rob thinks there’s a little more juice in our tanks, well, he wants it!

It turns out this first run is the warm up and now the comp is on, so we go again.

I like this stuff. My hearts still pounding but I’m occupied, so my mind can’t tell me to quit like the runs, which is pretty much a solo effort. In a team it’s not about me and my mind doesn’t want to quit. I can get tribal, shouting and yelling, whether it’s COME ON! Or LIFT IT! 1,2,3, LIFT! It all fires me up.

After this we go to the monkey room to do a jungle gym type competition involving climbing a rope, muscle ups, climbing across monkey bars and for the most resilient up and down a Jacobs Ladder used by climbers to improve finger strength.

Fritz leads the demonstration, but most of us struggle to give such a Stirling performance. We are shot! But we are still loving it!

Rob then gives us a metal bolt, bending demonstration. He does this I think, not to just show he’s the boss, but also to lure us into a false sense that this will be easy enough.

After three big blokes attempt to bend the same bolt and barely making a bend, we realise it isn’t.

But this isn’t about humiliation or ego and it’s greeted by the group with excitement and intrigue…because what seems impossible is, with practice and training, possible.

And we are all capable of doing it to some degree. Certainly more than we think.

At the end of the workshop, we had over run by a good hour, which is testament to how much Rob and his team love what they do, rather than just a commercial money making machine.

Time had basically run away with us because, insanely we were still loving it and enthusiastic to learn more!

And despite going over time, Rob almost pleaded with us to stay so he could finish the session like a true pro with one of his unique warm downs.

A couple of us stayed and in true Commando Temple style, we got pulled and stretched about, which let us know that these areas had been neglected for a long time!

My arms couldn’t straighten properly beforehand and my hands also could not open out perfectly flat.

A few pulls, bends and thumbs dug into flesh and hands splayed like chicken butterfly breasts at Nando’s, seem to do the trick!

Despite how it might sound I left the Commando Temple on a high. The team were amazing as were the people I trained alongside.

As well as this I felt like I had just done an authentic session. We had given it our all. It’s in these sessions that you don’t feel the niggling feeling that you have let yourself down or that you have held back. You feel like you have been worked hard.

I have done several tough Mudder type Races in the past, but I only hang one medal in my room and that’s for the ‘Nuts Challenge’ because it’s the only one that drove me every inch of the way to nearly quit.

It was winter, I was frozen and hated every minute. It was a physical and mental battle, but it’s in these times I learn something about myself, my weaknesses and my strengths and what I need to do to keep going.

This is what offering yourself up as a physical sacrifice to places like the Commando Temple does.

To hand yourself over to someone else who will take you to the places you simply can’t or won’t go voluntarily. The places you get to meet yourself and whatever happens, you know you have got that bit stronger.  

And even if you believe you have failed, or even if you quit, it doesn’t have to be the end. You can decide in these moments to pick yourself up knowing that this is simply your new starting point.

Now get down and give me 30 Bastard Burpees for taking too long to decide!

The Commando Temple Trainers can be contacted on 020 81274545 (The HQ) between 7am and 9pm Monday-Friday

8am-5pm on Saturdays, closed Sundays.

Please leave a message if we are on the gym floor and cannot pick up 

 General enquiries at info@bestronger.co.uk

 You are welcome to send us a message via our Facebook page here

https://www.facebook.com/pages/The-Commando-Temple/424974020914175

We aim to reply to all emails within 24 hours or you can send a txt

You can write to us at the following address

 Commando Temple

Units 14 – 15 – 16 Resolution way

London SE8 4NT

“Now if you are going to win any battle you have to do one thing. You have to make the mind run the body. Never let the body tell the mind what to do. The body will always give up. It is always tired in the morning, noon, and night. But the body is never tired if the mind is not tired.”

– George S. Patton, U.S. Army General, 1912 Olympian

As human beings, it’s our nature to seek pleasure. Or more accurately, we are hard wired to move away from pain.

We will always move away from distress quicker than we will move towards contentment.

And nowhere, are we more welcomed away from the impendence of pain than the sanctuary of our Comfort Zone.

Regardless of who you are, or what discipline you train in, no one is exempt from holding back in a workout every now and then. We can even start convincing ourselves that we have actually worked hard during these times.  We make up stories like needing to go easy, choosing to cut the sets and reps this time, so we can be fresh for the all-out monster session we will do tomorrow!

It’s all too easy to ride on our past endeavours and reputations and dismiss those half assed efforts in the gym, that are actually more common than we want to admit. Basically, it’s all too easy to start believing our own bullshit!

We hear time and time again that we are more capable than we think we are. However, this is an almost pointless cliché, because even though this may be true, the paradox is, because our genetic makeup dictates that we manoeuvre away from discomfort, any pleasure associated with achieving our supposed ‘full potential’, is usually blocked by the notion of pain, or alternatively the fear affiliated to acquiring it!  Most of us suffer from a fear of failure and coming face to face with our own limitations.

If we knew what laid ahead of many of our endeavours most of us would never start. However it’s interesting that once we commit to something, regardless of whether it goes as we planned, when we are in that situation, more often than not we manage to handle it. It’s amazing what you can achieve when you have to!

This is the opposite of what drives our fears and stops us – the belief that if it goes wrong we won’t be able to cope. This reflects our primal fears of rejection and not being enough.

At today’s training venue, namely The Commando Temple in Deptford, it was going to turn out to be one of those ‘primal’ experiences. Pt 2 to follow.

Many people struggle with their weight, and the obesity epidemic is more than apparent in this country. With a new diet coming out every week and with it bringing new hope of a quick fix miracle, it is no wonder that people are stuck in a vicious cycle where they never lose weight long term and usually end up gaining more weight back than before.

Not only is the physical side an issue, but also the psychological implications. Low self-esteem and low self-confidence are often the underlying cause of weight gain, and with each false promise of success, comes the reality of certain failure from an unsustainable solution to weight loss, health and happiness. This just creates a prison of self-loathing and hopelessness for the majority of those caught in this never ending cycle.

The reason I am writing this is to not only bring awareness to the ever growing amount of quick fix nonsense that is offered to those desperate for a solution to weight loss and to advise they stay well clear, but to acknowledge a friend and client of mine who has been, in my mind, a model client.

She, like many has suffered with her weight from a young age. As a result it has effected many areas of her life both physically and mentally, like is does for so many people who desperately want to lose weight but a sucked into the fantasy of the media or what others have told them from childhood.

I originally offered to work with my friend with a system I had heard about, that was, from my point of view, the best I had heard of. Also, originally being trained in Hypnotherapy and NLP I believed in a quick turn around and I thought we would have her issue sorted in a few sessions and like the stories in the book, she would be thin in no time.

This was not the case. Despite going through the process there still seemed to be something blocking the way.

It was some time after this that I made the offer for us to work together for as long as it took for free. I wanted to get to the bottom of this and to get her back on track and succeeding in getting to the weight she wanted and staying there.

I still believe in quick turnarounds and in many cases I have helped people to rid themselves of issues that have been with them for years, in as little as a one hour session.

However, this time it was not the case and I wanted to experiment with all the stuff I have learnt over the years and see what we could do. My only requirement was that my client went the distance and worked in a partnership with me. This was about team work, almost like an Athlete and Coach working together to get the medal. We both needed to want it as much as I did! I believe in many cases it has to become almost a symbiotic relationship at first to go the distance and get long lasting results.

She agreed and each week we went to work.

Every week we delved into cause, solutions, techniques, enquiry, more solutions, we shed some tears and had some laughs.

At times I lived up to my occasional name Coach Caustic, when I would not suffer the nonsense she gave me of why things were not working out and in return she taught me to see what we had achieved, however small, and not just to be driven by what we still had to discover and what in my mind we still had to fix!

The differences between someone who succeeds and someone who fails can be many things.

But one of the main ingredients I believe is the responsibility to ourselves. The ‘you fix me’ idea takes no responsibility for doing some work. It washes its hands of being resilient and of not giving in. When we look to be fixed by someone else without being willing to put in the hard work, we consistently look for cracks in the solutions we are given so we can slide back into familiarity without accusation or acknowledgment of our own part in its failure.

Part of what I believe, is that if we can only be made to believe in ourselves, we can do anything we are capable of as the best version of ourselves.

I do not subscribe to the idea we can be anything we want, but I do believe we can be ‘many things’ we want to be. All it often takes is for someone to believe in us, igniting that part of us that gives us permission to trust ourselves and allow us to go for it and still have the right to miss!

In our work together, we tried lots of different approaches and systems, but I believe, that although there may be lots of variables, it’s a lot about someone believing in us enough to stand by just to sometimes offer an ear, sometimes a solution and sometimes an ass kicking. It’s being willing to lose a friend to tell the truth we often need to hear that moves us forwards and gives us time to reflect and come to our own conclusions. It’s about showing someone you genuinely give a shit about them and that because of this fact they can find some way of believing in themselves again.

Of course there are things I do that help my clients move in in the direction they want other than simply being a cheerleader, and I insist clients keep me posted outside of sessions, because essentially it’s what they do after the session with this help that counts.

It’s the ones who do keep me informed, who ask questions and want to find solutions, which get long lasting results.

We are 6 months on now and the change in my friend is incredible. Not in the sense that I could show you the nonsense ‘before and after photos’ and the ‘happy ever after stories’ that happened weeks afterwards finding the cure, according to the latest diet, but instead the realistic approach to self-mastery that she is taking and the effect it is having on her.

I still offer my help, but she has taken the bull by the horns and taken my advice and found her own version of that information.

For example, she has changed gyms and in doing so put herself out there in uncomfortable surroundings with tough training regimes with other people telling her what to do which is what she insisted she did not want, but months of commitment has now started to earn her the respect of her instructors, her peers, and most importantly, herself. Now she loves it!

This has been months of work to get to this point. But this is about creating a new way of thinking and being. It’s not a quick fix that when things go wrong she spirals back to where she started.  And it never ends. It’s about continually developing into the person we want to be.

And for those who are ready to say ‘oh, it’s ok for her she has the luxury of a coach and trainers’ and alike, it’s not true.

She has no money for luxuries like a trainer and a coach, but what she has done is put herself out there and people have been willing to help. That’s how it works.

It may take months before anyone even says anything, but if you keep turning up, keep talking to people who are passionate about getting you to where you want to go, you will be surprised who will come out to help you. But you have to go first. No one is going to invest their time, if they can tell you won’t!

And just to give you a final example of what I am talking about, even though we have not worked together for several months now I sessions, she still sends me ‘field reports’ of her training and also what has changed in her life like getting a new job for example. Not because I asked for it, but because she cares about what she is achieving for herself and how I have been lucky enough to be part of that. And I love it! To see what can be achieved if we just believe. I can then give any coaching that is relevant if needs be from these reports which I am more than happy to do for her.

Forget the quick fixes but instead look for changes your perception towards why you want to make the changes you want and how it can be incorporated into a new way of life. Know what you want, then release the pressure of attaining it and instead enjoy the journey by learning and developing as you go.

We can all find ourselves in situations that make us frustrated because things don’t turn out the way we initially thought, despite all the best intentions.

It’s not unusual to respond in a knee jerk reaction and throw the baby out with the bath water and proclaim defeat.

I am certainly susceptible to black and white thinking. It’s all or nothing, or as someone pointed out to me today, I approach a lot of things with a ‘shit or bust’ attitude, which is great in one sense and drives me to succeed in many areas, but it can also mean I miss a lot of opportunities for growth and development. Always focused on evidence of the problem rather than on the change that has occurred.

It can be very hard to notice changes within yourself. The same person that pointed out the shit or bust mentality, also was able to point out increments of change, that I think are insignificant, but are in fact very substantial within the time frame.

The irony is when I work with people, those increments of change that I miss in myself, are the ones I can see easily in others and get them to focus on!

It’s very easy to get despondent when we can only view things through our own subjective experience.

I have mentioned before in my blogs that it’s so important to get other people involved in what you want to achieve.

Not because you want them to do it for you, but because they can see your blind spots. They can also pull you on your bullshit as well!

Also with more people, there is so much more information and advice that can assist you in getting were you want to go and also to help you to keep moving when you get stuck in the mud of your own stinking thinking.

A lot of us, including myself, like to think we can work it out by ourselves. A lot of people I speak to think if they ask for help it’s a sign of weakness.

Asking people for help because you have a victim mentality or you can’t be arsed to do it yourself is certainly a paltry way to do things.

However if you do want to achieve something, trying to work it out all by yourself can often thwart your attempts for success. Success that is often just round the corner from where the towel got dropped!

Being able to ask for help to aid us in achieving what we want is a sign of strength and intelligence rather than of weakness.

Having a goal or a dream is a great thing to do. Having something to aim for is invaluable.

What compliments these objectives is the ability to re- evaluate where you are when things don’t go quite as planned and then be able to recruit others to realign you and get you back on track in achieving what you are setting out to do.

It might take a slightly different path, or more time than you had hoped to get there in your original draft, but that’s life. And as this next article explains, it’s about perseverance and getting out of the suck!

http://www.t-nation.com/powerful-words/embrace-the-suck

Just recently a very good friend of mine gave me her old car – which was a nice thing to do…..sort of.

You see, I was excited about the car but apprehensive about driving.

I have driven for years but living and working in a City I have ever needed or justified having a car.

So the thought of driving in a busy traffic environment was not on my list of things I was looking forward to.

Left to my own devices I could always find reason for not buying a car because of expense and a like and therefore avoid this issue.

That works only until someone takes buying a car out of your hands and gives you one.

So that’s one obstruction out of the way. I would be mad to refuse it. It would be fine, I could potter in the back roads to get used to city driving I thought.

Not so. To pick up her new car my friend needed to go to Wimbledon and I was instructed I was to be the chauffeur.  Not only was I not going to be able to potter, I was now going to have to face a very busy manic roundabout and the dual carriage way!

That night and morning I was nervous I must admit. I know how the mind works and the film of worse case scenarios was playing in Technicolor with surround sound! I used some techniques to calm down and prepare for this ordeal.

There was a part of me that hoped she would cry off and I could go back to Pottering.

Anyway that didn’t happen and she picked me up. 

What happened? Did the mass collision from a Hollywood blockbuster happen? Did everyone shake there fist at me because I was one second slower at the lights that required? No.

In fact it was perfectly fine. I love driving and to find out that it was just like driving anywhere else, was a huge relief. It was as though for all this time I had been trapped in self-deception for no reason.

The classic line of ‘why didn’t I do this sooner’ was very apparent. I felt free……until the MOT bill! Although that’s another example of if you know all the problems that can happen you will never start anything. Motoring is expensive but if that’s the price of freedom then it’s worth it!

The point is even if I had analysed what was really stopping me getting on the road, used all the techniques to remove worst case scenarios etc., chances are I would still not be driving.

Because without intent, even with the fear recognised and even dissolved, the cost of a car alone can put the brakes on taking action.

What made the difference for me was someone taking the decision out of my hands – or at least the way to achieve it.

When I was offered the car it took that excuse out of the equation. When I was asked to drive to pick up the new car it opened up my own limited range of what I thought was achievable.

I could have made excuses why I could not do it I suppose, but the fact is I wanted to drive.  I just didn’t have a big enough incentive to override the fear that held me back.

Being set the challenge, even though I was nervous, I would not back down. Running away would have been unacceptable to me. How I would have felt afterwards if I had metaphorically run away, would be worse than the discomfort I would feel from my driveway to Wimbledon.

Call it pride if you want. It’s a basic instinct and one that trumped the fear of getting it wrong.

By getting out of our own way sometimes by involving others, we replace our fear of failure with a pride to succeed. 

There is a natural switch that takes place.

Just like if you are afraid of the water. By choice you don’t want to go into the water. However in the same breath if a loved one was in trouble we do not hesitate to jump in. The water is no longer the focus. We have naturally overridden our fear with another higher basic instinct and a core value in that moment.

It’s not to say that we cannot achieve things by ourselves. In fact when all is said and done it’s solely down to us as individuals.

However even the most driven people get in their own way and having people to help us get moving, even if at the time it seems overwhelming and we wish they would leave us alone, can often be quite revealing regarding our own capabilities.

What I had limited myself to believe was my perception. To me I was not capable. To my friend it was a simple, easy job for me.

Its perception of ourselves that keeps us stuck, not our capabilities.

Just like waiting at the edge of the bungee ledge, if you think you won’t jump, but want to, find someone to push you!