What if there's a mental shift that you can make right now that would make it even easier to break through plateaus and reach and smash your fitness goals? Join me on today's QuickWits as we explore this little shift in your approach that will give you massive results. Welcome to the Whits and Weights podcast. I'm your host, philip Pape, and this twice a week podcast is dedicated to helping you achieve physical self-mastery by getting stronger, optimizing your nutrition and upgrading your body composition. We'll uncover science-backed strategies for movement, metabolism, muscle and mindset, with a skeptical eye on the fitness industry, so you can look and feel your absolute best. Let's dive right in.

Welcome to another QuickWits, and today's episode is inspired by a quote that I heard by Kevin Palmieri, one of the co-hosts of Next Level University. He's also my podcast coach. Shout out to Kevin and he mentioned something on a recent episode where he took the traditional phrase or mantra, under promise and over deliver. You've heard that under promise, don't promise more than you think you can achieve and then over deliver. The perception is you've provided tremendous value. He said well, shouldn't we instead go for promise and over deliver, that is, make a promise that actually gives decent value to someone and then over deliver beyond that. Contrary to the former the original mantra under promise and over deliver I totally agree with where Kevin's going in setting ambitious, even slightly out of reach goals. That could be the catalyst that you need for growth.

Now, we talked about comfort zone in the past and expanding your comfort zone. Versus going too far out of your comfort zone, there is a fine balance of well, you don't want to promise the moon, but you want to promise to yourself something that is at least beyond what you've promised in the past that hasn't pushed you to grow, so that you can grow. This is still another version of expanding your comfort zone, of stretching your limits, of pushing and pushing and pushing and then embracing that challenge. The mindset of promise and over deliver encourage us to commit to those loftier goals. This could be a significant improvement in your strength, like a specific barbell lift, for example. This could be enhancing your endurance. If you're an endurance athlete, it could be transforming your body composition in some way. That's achievable, but it's going to push you to expand your comfort zone. Again, it's not setting ourselves up for failure by going so far beyond that, but it's expanding what we consider possible. When we aim higher, we create a psychological commitment to strive for more. This drives us to discover innovative strategies, for example, to dedicate more of our resources, our schedule, our time or money to unlock a level of persistence that we might not have tapped into if our goals were more conservative.

Now, if this doesn't resonate with you, if this doesn't appeal to you, I get it, because maybe you've reached for things that were far out of your comfort zone and then you failed to get there and that discouraged you. But I am generally a fan of the optimism bias, mainly because I am optimistic myself that assume things are going to go well. Go after it. If they don't, that's an opportunity to learn and grow and try again.

The beauty in this approach lies in the ability to inspire extraordinary effort Without that promise level of standard. If you only do the under promise, without the promise, you may not even feel the need to put in that extra effort. If you do feel that need, even if you fall short, you still will achieve much more than you would have with modest ambitions. That's where, in my opinion, it's a win-win scenario that can reshape your understanding of potential and progress. Somebody asked me recently on a podcast why am I so ambitious? One of my responses was well, I've noticed that the more I do, the more I try for, the more ambitious my goals, the more I fail, but also the more I succeed. That's, to me, where this all comes together. I want you to consider how adopting this mindset of promise and over deliver could revolutionize the way that you put in that effort on your fitness journey.

You set the bar high and then you leap for it. You don't just stretch up for it, you leap for it. You might surprise yourself. You might surprise yourself with how far you can grow. Even if you don't get all the way there, you're going to go farther you ever have in the past. Aim high, train hard and never, ever underestimate your potential. Thank you for tuning in to another episode of Wits and Weights. If you found value in today's episode and know someone else who's looking to level up their wits or weights, please take a moment to share this episode with them and make sure to hit the follow button in your podcast platform right now to catch the next episode. Until then, stay strong.