Performance

The body has certain limits when it comes to making effort. The limits I perceive, from my embodied experience do not coincide with what my body can take. When exercising for example, on a regular day my performance would be much less intense than if i would've been in a competition, and yet even less if i would have to run for my life. Humans, like me, like you do not mobilize all efforts to push beyond the comfort treshold. Within the comfort zone there's a full spectrum of modalities of action, from low to high. Even when we have the impression we've pushed hard and given our best we can still push even further. And probably much more. But what happens actually? Why this tendency to save energy, to not push through effort? I believe it has to do with consciousness of the body. The way one self perceives and understands it's embodied experience. For example, if you can imagine you are hulk, let's say and you believe you are, even more so if others encourage you to be hulk and interact with you as if you were, then your physical performance In a strength test (while you embody the hulk myth) would be much better than if you were as you are regularly. The same thing happens with your smartness and confidence when you put on a suit and drive a Mercedes, to a business meeting.

The self-perception is important because it determines performance in any situation.