Who are you cheating?

I was at the gym this morning and I watched a lass pumping iron. Only… there wasn’t much pumping going on.

Her movements were only half completed, her weights weren’t challenging, and she moved too quickly, her enthusiasm and focus clearly wasn’t there in the gym. She was cheating herself out of the workout she could have had.

It would have been harder for her to move more slowly, to fully extend, to pause in the right spots, to really feel the workout she was doing: Harder in the short term, but at what value long term?

With a couple of weeks of going that little bit harder in her workout her body would have found those same movements easier. They’d be capable of doing more, going harder, lasting longer.

When you’re physically training yourself, it’s not just about the number of repetitions you can do. It’s about the value of each repetition.

In your workplace, are you just going through the motions and completing each task or are you pushing yourself to do that little extra to really get value into each task you do?

In the same way that your bicep or hamstring is capable of more within a few weeks if you push and stretch them, I really truly believe that your brain is too!

What are you capable of?

Kirsty Dunphey is the youngest ever Australian Telstra Young Business Woman of the Year, author of two books (her latest release is Retired at 27, If I Can do it Anyone Can) and a passionate entrepreneur who started her first business at age 15 and opened her own real estate agency at 21. Now Kirsty does lots of fun things which you can read about here. Her favourite current projects are Elephant Property, a boutique property management agency, Baby Teresa, a baby clothing line that donates an outfit to a baby in need for each one they sell and ReallySold, which helps real estate agents stop writing boring, uninteresting ads.