About 10 years ago I read Paul Arden‘s book, It’s not how good you are, it’s how good you want to be. The main premise of the book is that you can’t be successful if you don’t have  vision for what you want to be (you can’t know if you score if you don’t know the goal).
One of my favourite parts of the book is the one I share here. It came to my mind this evening in yoga. In a plus 38°C room, an hour into the class, all of us drenched in sweat, having done too many high lunges, the instructor yet again brought us into the pose and told us, don’t be satisfied with how far you’ve come, you can always push yourself further.
And not only did this part of his book came to mind, but I also felt huge gratitude for all the people I’ve had in my life who’ve pushed me and challenged me to set my bar high, to not give up or be satisfied with anything less than what I want. People who are willing to be brutally honest with you; that when you feel like you’ve put in the maximum amount of effort, come with tough criticism that you cannot deny or escape. Of course, it ultimately comes down to us, that we set goals and we push and motivate ourselves, but we can also choose to surround ourselves with people who will push us to better, to believe that we can do more even when we think we can’t. So it’s not just about what we want and how good we want to be – others can challenge us to want to be more more because they see that we can do more.