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Pushing Your Limits and Discovering Yourself with Kilian Jornet #66

Jun 12, 2019 1h 16m 51 insights
When was the last time you were completely alone?  Not alone by modern standards, but truly alone - with no mobile phone or outside influences providing information to your brain. Can you think of a time? Global icon, prolific mountain runner and guest on this week’s episode, Kilian Jornet believes that it is only when you take away the storm of information, that you can discover what your true priorities are. And for him, the mountains are the tool to do just that. Not only do they allow him to explore the beauty of nature, they allow him to discover himself. He explains that by pushing his body to its limits, all the masks that he wears in everyday life are removed and he is able to find out who he really is.   Kilian and I discuss the benefits of solitude, failure and visualisation. We delve into Kilian’s amazing feat of climbing Everest twice in one week and talk about how immersing oneself in a challenging situation can be a form of mediation. Finally, Kilian shares some brilliant tips to help us all connect with ourselves and live our best lives.  I found Kilian’s single-minded drive to live the life he wants to live truly inspiring – I hope this conversation inspires you too.    Show notes available at drchatterjee.com/66 Follow me on instagram.com/drchatterjee/ Follow me on facebook.com/DrChatterjee/ Follow me on twitter.com/drchatterjeeuk
Actionable Insights

1. Live Your Authentic Life

Take ownership of your one life and actively strive to live it authentically according to your desires, rather than giving that power to others.

2. Pursue Personal Happiness

Dedicate time to finding out what genuinely makes you happy and fulfilled, resisting external pressures to conform to what makes others happy.

3. Align Actions with Desires

Regularly reflect on your life choices to ensure you are doing what you truly want, rather than being carried away by external forces or neglecting your genuine aspirations.

4. Prioritize Health for Happiness

Understand that being healthier leads to greater happiness and a more fulfilling life, as feeling better enables you to live more.

5. Holistic Well-being for Mind

Recognize the strong connection between physical and mental health, and prioritize holistic well-being through good food and consistent movement, even small actions like taking stairs or walking instead of driving.

6. Reduce Information Overload

Actively remove the constant ‘storm of information’ from your life to discover and clarify your true priorities.

7. Solitude for Clarity

Practice solitary activities like long-distance running to escape the ‘storm of information,’ listen to your body, and clarify your real priorities, making complex problems seem simpler.

8. Prioritize Solitude & Nature

Understand that spending time alone and maintaining a strong connection to nature are essential for your personal happiness.

9. Embrace Boredom for Self-Reflection

Allow yourself to be bored and spend time alone without distractions, as this forces you to face yourself and reflect on ‘what you are made of.’

10. Resist Constant Tech Fillers

Consciously avoid automatically reaching for your phone or technology in every spare moment, instead allowing yourself to be alone with your thoughts.

11. Valorize Failure for Learning

Shift your perspective to view failure not as a negative outcome, but as the most significant opportunity for learning and growth.

12. Transform Setbacks into Learning

When faced with setbacks like injury, actively use the downtime to learn and improve in other areas (e.g., physiology, psychology), which can ultimately make you stronger and more prepared.

13. Shift to Self-Improvement

Redefine success by focusing on pushing your own physical and mental limits, using competition as a tool for personal growth rather than solely aiming to beat others or achieve a specific rank.

14. Focus on Personal Best

Strive to be the best you can be and achieve personal bests, finding satisfaction in your own performance rather than solely comparing yourself to others.

15. Daily Nature Connection

Find moments, even just a few minutes daily or on weekends, to connect with nature in a park or elsewhere, listening to its sounds to reconnect with your primal self for mental well-being.

16. Embrace Silence in Nature

Actively seek opportunities for silence, especially in nature, to de-stress and allow your mind to relax by simply listening to natural sounds like wind or birds.

17. Find Flow State for Relaxation

When stressed, engage in activities that are challenging enough to demand full focus but not overwhelming, leading to a ‘flow state’ where your mind goes blank and you are fully present.

18. Engage to Switch Off

Find activities that engross you so completely that they naturally force your mind to switch off from worries and daily tasks, rather than trying to consciously relax.

19. Practice Detailed Visualization

Before important events, visualize all aspects from big picture to small details, including potential emotions and challenges, to mentally prepare and reduce surprises.

20. Rationalize Problems for Perspective

When facing overwhelming problems, step back to gain perspective and rationalize the situation, asking ‘what’s the worst that can happen?’ to diminish its perceived difficulty.

21. Accept Life’s Flow

Embrace the natural ups and downs of life by practicing acceptance and letting go, understanding that there is a continuous flow to experiences.

22. Cultivate Adaptability

Recognize that unforeseen events will always occur and actively cultivate adaptability and relaxation with change, preparing yourself to adjust constantly.

23. Consciously Choose Your Risks

Understand that risk is inherent everywhere, not just in extreme activities, and consciously decide which risks you are willing to accept and build your lifestyle around those choices.

24. Calculated Risk-Taking

When engaging in potentially risky activities, ensure thorough preparation, understand your capacities, and calculate objective risks to maintain control and make informed decisions, rather than acting impulsively.

25. Convert Passion into Work

Strive to align your work with your passions, as this makes tasks feel effortless and enjoyable, causing time to ‘fly’ and leading to greater fulfillment.

26. Simplify Life for Performance

Maintain a simple lifestyle, minimizing unnecessary complexities, to optimize your focus and performance, especially as an athlete.

27. Eat Natural, Plant-Heavy Diet

Focus on consuming natural, home-grown vegetables and a high amount of complex carbohydrates, and consider a vegetarian diet if it aligns with your body’s needs and sustainability values.

28. Listen to Body’s Sleep Needs

Pay attention to your body’s signals for sleep, allowing for flexible sleep patterns (e.g., shorter periods normally, longer when very tired) to ensure adequate rest.

29. Engage in Sufficient Movement

Ensure you get adequate physical movement, recognizing its importance for health, but also be aware that excessive exercise might not always be optimal for overall well-being.

30. Balance Intense & Quiet Activities

Create a ‘yin and yang’ balance in your life by pairing intense physical activities with quiet, soft, and restorative pursuits like reading or drawing.

31. Compensate Stress for Balance

Maintain overall equilibrium by compensating for high stress in one area of your life (e.g., intense training) with consciously low stress in other areas.

32. Challenge Body for Self-Discovery

Engage in challenging outdoor activities, like mountain running, to push your body to its limits, remove everyday ‘masks,’ and discover your true self.

33. Push Limits to Unmask Self

Intentionally push your body to its physical limits, experiencing exhaustion and pain, to strip away everyday ‘masks’ and reveal your authentic self.

34. Seek Adventure for Self-Knowledge

Introduce a sense of adventure into your life to combat monotony and sterility, as it is crucial for truly learning who you are.

35. Use Tools for Exploration

Identify activities (like running) as tools to access desired environments (like mountains) for outdoor exploration and deeper self-discovery, pushing personal limits.

36. Exhaustion for Happiness

Participate in intense physical activity that leads to exhaustion, as this can be a way to achieve happiness and fulfillment.

37. Immerse for Meditation

Find challenging situations that demand your full focus, as immersing yourself in them can serve as a form of meditation, bringing you into the present moment.

38. High-Stakes for Present Focus

Participate in activities with significant consequences that demand absolute focus, as this forces you into the present moment, clearing your mind of past and future thoughts, akin to meditation.

39. Suppress Emotions for Rationality

In high-risk or critical situations, consciously set aside strong emotions like fear or euphoria to make rational, life-preserving decisions rather than impulsive ones.

40. Feel Small for Freedom

Engage in experiences, such as being in vast natural landscapes, that make you feel insignificant, as this perspective can bring a profound sense of freedom and diminish the importance of worldly achievements.

41. Cultivate Nature Connection

Encourage going outdoors, exploring, playing, and engaging with nature from childhood to develop a deep connection and love for the natural world.

42. Immerse in Reading for Escape

Engage with a good book or other immersive activities to get lost for hours, allowing you to ‘go away’ into another world and switch off from daily concerns.

43. Balance Solitude and Social

Recognize and embrace the natural human need for both solitary experiences in nature (to feel part of the animal world) and social connection, balancing these two aspects for well-being.

44. Introvert: Manage Social Energy

If you are an introvert and find being the focus of attention draining, learn to find a balance between accepting public presence and preserving your energy.

45. Disconnect During Expeditions

When undertaking challenging activities or expeditions, intentionally disconnect from technology like phones and social media to fully immerse in the experience and purpose of getting away.

46. Tech-Free Experience & Modeling

Participate in activities, especially with children, without phones or fitness trackers to fully enjoy the present moment and avoid conditioning young ones to over-rely on technology for validation or enjoyment.

47. Practice Tech Moderation

Approach technology use with moderation and conscious intent, similar to alcohol, understanding that the impact depends on how and how much you use it.

48. Simplify Health Approach

Recognize that getting healthy has become too complicated and actively seek to simplify your approach to health to feel better.

49. Seek Diverse Inspiration

Listen to conversations with interesting people both within and outside the health space to gain simple tips and inspiration that can be immediately put into practice to transform how you feel.

50. Supplement for Nutritional Needs

If unable to get all nutrition from food, consider taking a nutrient-dense whole food supplement daily as an ‘insurance policy’ to support energy levels and mood.

51. Find Joy in Small Things

As you age, accept that intense emotions may lessen, but cultivate an appreciation for ‘small things’ to find deeper and more enduring fulfillment.