Living at my limit

The first time I tried Hyrox, I threw a 4kg ball at a target twice my height.

Okay, threw is generous. I tossed the ball upward in a sad attempt to reach the target. It was the first time I had held anything heavier than a basketball, and the ball barely cleared my forehead.

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Hyrox involves a lot of running, interspersed with various forms of physical duress: burpees, weighted lunges, sled pushes, sled pulls, wall balls… Before this, the most physically intensive thing I had done was hip-hop dancing. (I would have had an extensive dance career if my parents hadn’t insisted that I take my academics seriously. It’s totally their fault and not mine)

I trained hard. Eventually, I could do 15 wall balls in a row. After some rest (thankfully, I did Hyrox doubles, which meant my race partner could take over while I attempted to put air back into my lungs), I could manage another 12. Then 10. Then eight.

I could map my physical capacity almost mathematically. I also developed an acute sense of what influenced it.

Alcohol the night before meant nausea during burpees. In the days leading up to my period, I would get a surge of energy that resulted in a successful chin-up. If I slept well, I could sprint six lengths and still have enough stamina to keep going.

Once I knew where my limits were, I knew where to push.

Being at the edge

We tend to treat a limit as the ceiling of a capability.

Beyond it lies danger. Treacherous terrain from which we may never return. And if you’re my dad, pushing your physical limits means almost certain death.

(I’m not sure why he is obsessed with telling me about people who ran a marathon, collapsed, and died. I’m fairly confident more people have run marathons and survived. But my dad is paranoid that way.)

A limit can be a warning. It is also information.

It tells me the extent of my current capability. With the right training, that boundary can move.

That sounds abstract, so take rowing.

When I started, my average split was 2:45. It took me two minutes and 45 seconds to row 500 meters.

Then I learned to improve my stroke. I learned to pull the cable “oars” toward my chest using my back muscles, drive through my legs, and wait for a split second after leaning back so the cable had time to retract.

After six months of Hyrox simulations, I pushed my split down to 2:18. Now, during a circuit, I can reach 2:08 with a considerable amount of heaving.

Had I never approached the edge of 2:45, I would never have learned how much faster I could row. I might have looked at the machine, decided rowing was difficult, and moved on. Or I might have deluded myself into thinking it was the easiest Hyrox station.

Instead, I learned that improvement happens at the margins.

A tighter core gave me more range. Stronger legs pulled me in and pushed me out. A fraction of a second changed the rhythm of my stroke.

Each tiny adjustment made me a better rower and, dare I say, a better hybrid rockstar.

Stress-testing myself

As if the universe wanted to hammer this lesson into me, the past year has been a prolonged exercise in pushing myself to the edge.

I learned that I could move homes in a week. I could pack my life into boxes, find a new flat, sign away my savings as a deposit, and migrate into a new building.

Now, faced with another move, I can look at everything strewn across my flat and know it will make its way to the next one. I have evidence.

I learned that 1:1s with my manager could make me so anxious that I stayed awake at night. Then I learned to draft overly elaborate Slack messages that preempted every interrogative question I could imagine. Now, when my new manager asks for a chat, I don’t panic. I can respond more levelheadedly.

I learned that I could walk away from a dream job and, through a deluge of desperation and a willingness to take random calls, double my income.

(I would not actively recommend emotional distress as a personal development strategy. There are easier ways to build character. Can you take it easy on me now, Miss Universe?)

The earlier experiences did not make the next ones easy. They changed what I believed was possible for me.

Confidence is like a snowball rolling down a cartoon hill. It grows almost imperceptibly with each rotation, until suddenly it is really, really big.

We build it through seemingly insignificant acts: one hard conversation, one packed box, one decision we thought we were incapable of making. Then a larger challenge arrives, and we discover that we are not beginning from zero. We have a private archive of difficult things we have already done.

Perhaps it is unsurprising that my work mirrors this pattern.

I currently operate at what people call the “bleeding edge of AI,” although I don’t know why it needs to bleed. Honestly, we could have chosen a less vulgar metaphor.

AI tools change so quickly that expertise is becoming less about memorizing what a tool can do and more about understanding exactly where it fails.

I know the limits of AI-generated thumbnails because I have spent hours trying to make the tools create a JPEG they cannot create. I know where AI video clipping breaks because I have watched it misunderstand context, miss the actual hook, or confidently select a section that no human would choose.

That knowledge becomes useful when a new model arrives, too. I don’t have to ask whether it is “better” in some abstract sense. I know where the previous model failed, so I know exactly where to apply pressure. Can it preserve a recognizable face? Can it understand why a moment is interesting rather than merely loud?

You can only stress-test a new boundary if you understood the old one.

Moving away from the limit

There is a danger in romanticizing this as a “hustle hard” mindset.

Finding my limit does not mean living there permanently. Hyrox training works because the body is also given time to recover. A muscle placed under continuous stress does not become infinitely stronger. Eventually, it tears.

The same is true of work and life.

The point of approaching my limit is to understand my capacity and decide how far I can or want to push it. Maximum effort should not become my default setting.

Once I know the edge, I can choose when it is worth approaching. I can prepare properly. I can ask whether I will have enough time to recover afterward. Or I can walk away because the battle is not one I want to fight.

has an analogy for this: when you think you have reached your limit after rowing 800 meters, you may still have enough in you to reach two kilometers. The mind reports discomfort well before the body reaches incapacity.

(I find this to be true. The first 20 minutes of a HIIT workout are always the hardest. The next 40 somehow fly by.)

Life is more complicated than a fitness race. But there is something useful about looking back at what once felt impossible and realizing it has become ordinary.

Ah. I’ve grown.

For me, the edge has looked like one wall ball becoming six, then 15. It has looked like an AI model failing the same creative test repeatedly, until one day I found a workflow that succeeded. It has looked like a flat full of boxes, followed by an empty room after the movers came.

As Moana would say, there is no telling how far I’ll go.

Unfortunately for me, I suspect it involves more wall balls.

Update log:

• 🎻 Restrung my violin! I know, I know… I haven’t played it in the last decade. Maybe one day. This is the first step to playing again.

• 🎥 Had a watch party for Dilwale Dulhania Le Jayenge. These Bollywood movies get me!

• 🏡 Hosted a pick-up-what-you-want day and two fresh grads raided my apartment for all my cooking condiments and pots and pans. It made my heart so full to see them so happy to discover a 10-pack of tuna.

• 💪 Hitting 4 days of exercise per week since I’ve been back in Hong Kong. I’m So Tired but I’m glad I kept moving.

• 📦 Packed up my life yet once again. The last time I had to put stuff in boxes and bid it a temporary farewell was in 2016 when I went for an exchange term to the UK. I know I can live out of a few suitcases, but it still feels hard.

• 👀 It’s my last few days of not having a full-time job. I start full-time on Monday. I wish these last few weeks could be more relaxed, but I’m also excited for what’s to come.

My book: Grab a copy of Bite-Sized Creativity, a 45-min read about how to live a creative life on top of your 9-to-5.

Work with me: https://go.beckyisj.com/workwithme

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