What’s the hardest thing you’ve done in the last year?

When I was in high school, I played on the water polo team. A week before my senior year, we had Hell Week, a brutal training week that consisted of morning and afternoon practices that pushed us to our limits.

On the last day, our coach told us we had to swim 100 sets of 100 yards. I was in shock. For those less familiar with swimming, that’s 400 lengths of a full-size pool, which equates to 5.7 miles. We had 90 seconds to complete each 100-yard set. Given my fitness, I’d only have a few seconds to catch my breath before the next one started.

I quickly did the math and realized that I’d be swimming almost non-stop for the next 2.5 hours. My body was already aching and exhausted from a grueling week of training. I didn’t know if I could do it. Thankfully, I didn’t have long to think about it. Our team jumped right in the pool and got started.

I thought a lot of things during that brutal two and a half hour swim. I thought about telling my coach I simply couldn’t do it. I thought about quitting. I thought about our team’s goal of making the CIF (regional) playoffs.

Eventually, I finished all 100 sets. I was so exhausted I needed help climbing out of the pool. It was the hardest thing I’d done in my life to that point. I felt like a champion. Completing that swim removed the ceiling of what I thought was possible.

I’ve learned that doing hard things is a transferable skill. When you break past your perceived limits in one area, that strength transfers to other aspects of your life. You create an unconquerable mindset that prepares you for future trials.

Sometimes life hits you hard and just staying afloat is all the challenge you can handle. But if that’s not the case, I invite you to deliberately seek out discomfort. Find something that will test your limits.

Go do hard things.