You’ve heard me talk about being consistent.
I cannot talk about it enough.
Being consistent over being perfect or as Bruce Lee says “consistency over intensity”.
I’ve even written about holding yourself to a high standard, not an impossible one (perfection).
All of these fall under the banner of being consistent not perfect.
The 85% rule, which I did not make up, is all about that.
It’s even got to do with the effort that you certain aspects of your life.
I just recently listened to a podcast Tim Ferris did with Huge Jackman – yep Wolverine is actually a huge fan of Tim Ferris and side note, does morning meditation, takes cold showers and loves the rowing machine with push ups for interval training.
Anyways,
Hugh Jackman talks about the 85% rule.
It came from a guy studying Carl Lewis, the sprinter.
He couldn’t understand why a guy who was routinely coming last or second-last after 40 meters, which traditionally in sprinting was meant to be where you won (you won in the first 40 from the start)- how someone like that would always win by 10 meters at the end.
Then someone gave him a collection of all of Carl Lewis’ front on head shots videos from his races.
What he realised Carl Lewis did at the 50m mark, 60m mark, was that he did nothing.
His breathing was exactly the same.
His form is exactly the same as had been between meters 25 and 50.
Whereas everyone else starts to push to the end and he could see their face would scrunch up, their jaw would tighten, their fists would start to clench.
Whereas Carl Lewis stayed exactly the same and then he would just breeze past them.
So that’s where he invented the 85 percent rule.
Giving 100% (can) tunnels your vision, it adds pressure, limits what you can do and and how long you can do it for.
The 85% rule is something you could apply to sitting down and writing.
You could apply it to almost anything where being overtense is not your friend, and it’s not going to help you.
What’s the last thing you did at 100% intensity that you could have applied the 85% rule too?