Derek Thompson

Running a marathon for four times longer or sticking with that project four times longer.

That's life-changing.

That's not what happened.

What happened was that the rats didn't swim for 60 minutes.

They swam for 60 hours, 60 hours of nonstop swimming.

Now, what changed?

Their bodies hadn't changed, same rat bodies.

The environment hadn't changed.

It was the same exact cylinder experiment.

What changed?

We can't ask the rats, of course, but the only other factor is something changed in their minds.

Some switch was flipped and now suddenly where they were only capable of 15 minutes of persistence became 60 hours.

And this is what happens to us all the time.

So to your question of when I lose motivation, when I want to give up, the big lesson for me was that we limit ourselves

Far too soon.

I mean, we have certain limitations.

Of course, eventually the rats did, were exhausted at 60 hours.

But they were quitting at 15 minutes.

Why?

Because their brain wanted to protect them in a way, ironically.