The Magic You’re Looking For is in the Full-Assed Effort You’re Avoiding

When someone fails to make decent progress towards their learning or fitness goals and cites lack of time as the issue, they're often wrong.

Want to get notified about new posts? Join the mailing list and follow on X/Twitter.

30 minutes of fully focused deliberate practice 4 days per week can have you making serious progress towards most learning or fitness goals.

But it has to be fully focused – a “full-assed” effort – and you have to be continually upping the level of challenge as your capabilities increase.

You have to work intensely enough that you come out of each session seriously winded. Meaning that either your brain feels like mush or your body feels like jell-o.

When someone fails to make decent progress towards their learning or fitness goals and cites lack of time as the issue, they’re often wrong.

It’s often not lack of time but rather lack of willingness to put forth a full-assed effort under a continually increasing level of challenge.

If you put in a half-assed effort then you get a quarter of the results at most. That’s what causes the purported lack of time.

To get the equivalent of 30 min full-assed, you have to put in at least 2h half-assed, which you quite reasonably might not have time for.

Or you put in 30 min half-assed and get the equivalent of 7.5 min full-assed, which doesn’t move the needle fast enough on your progress for you to reach your goal in a reasonable timeframe.

The magic you’re looking for is in the full-assed effort you’re avoiding.

Want to get notified about new posts? Join the mailing list and follow on X/Twitter.