Strive for 85%

I’m about to lay some knowledge on you that may sound counter to most of the advice you’ve ever gotten surrounding success. Are you ready for it?

Strive for 85%. Especially when there is a lot on the line. Especially if you really want it. Relax. Take a breath. Think about the mechanics. Don’t force anything.

Hugh Jackman always said when he was on stage that every night before the curtain went up, he would make an affirmation to strive for 85%, not his best.

Because your best is your best and it will never be anything else. Striving for your best is all or nothing. Your best has to be your best and anything less than that is failure.

But 85%. You can do that. You’re just having fun. And odds are, as long as you’ve been training, as long as you have been putting the work in, as long as you are conditioned and secure in yourself, then 85% will be more than enough.

And that’s the key to the 85% rule. It’s not that you don’t train. It’s not that you don’t put in the work. It’s not that you’re not out here grinding. It’s just that, come game day, you know you’re ready. You get your energy right.

The most successful marathon runners know this. If you start at 100%, you won’t finish the race. If you start at 50% and strive for 110% on the home stretch, you’ll finish middling, with everyone else who employed the same strategy.

What you see from the most successful runners, is they just run at a consistent 85%. They stay in the middle of the pack for the whole race, and once the final stretch get’s close, they breeze past everyone and take the medal.

Apollo Ono, the speedskater, was a master of doing this. He’d stay 3rd or 4th the entire race and then on the final or second to final lap, you’d see him just effortlessly skate by the competition.

Because he was striving for 85% and made his move once he was ready, in full composure. He wasn’t frenetic in his approach. He was calculated.

Think about the men who are successful with women. It’s the ones who show interest, but never fawn over them or over invest. They make their interest known but also let them know implicitly that if it doesn’t work out, they have other options. 85%.

Now there are times when it would serve you to put your full effort into something. You shouldn’t half ass something, especially a career, a relationship or a job.

But there is a difference between half-assing something and giving it 85%. The point of saying give 85% is not to say that you should skate by in life with minimal effort.

The point of saying give 85% is so you can be consistent. You see, consistency is the path forward to greatness. Consistency is what will turn an ordinary man into something he never thought he can be.

Your habits will make you into the person you are meant to be. Life won’t turn out how you plan it. It will turn out how you work for it. It will turn out how you wake up and you chase that dream every single morning.

Now some people may say this is giving 100%, but I’d say its giving 85. You see, if you give 100-110% every single day, you will burn out. If you wake up at 5:00 AM to study for an exam to further your education, then you go to work for eight hours, then you go the gym, then you read for another hour, then you go to finally go to bed, you will burn out.

You may be able to sustain the above lifestyle for a week, a month or a year, but eventually, you will burn out, and you be forced to take the time off that you should have been taking all along.

But if you focus on 85%, if you focus on consistency, if you act like the marathon runner, waiting for his opportunity, knowing he will win the race, then you will be taken to places you never thought you could reach.

Because you are taking life day by day. You aren’t thinking about tomorrow. You’re thinking about what needs to be done today. As Winston Churchill said, it’s a mistake to focus on more than one link on the chain of destiny at a time.

Consistency is like compound interest. The more you invest in something, especially good, valuable habits, the more your lifestyle can grow. And the only way you can be consistent is by not burning yourself out. By giving 85% and staying true to the path. True to your goals. True to your vision of how you want your life to look.

An overnight success usually takes about ten years of hard effort. And you’re only going to get there if you can learn how to run downhill when things are good, and hit the pedals hard when things are going wrong. And the only way you can ensure you have enough in the tank for both, is by striving for 85%.