The magic of the Navy SEAL 40% rule

One of the most significant and simple performance boosters you can implement and integrate into your behaviour (and life) is the Navy Seal “40% rule”.

It simply states that, if your brain tells you that you’re done, that you’ve got nothing left – you’re only 40% into what you really have to offer and have another 60% you can give.

This applies to everything – work, sport, home life – everything.

The beauty of the technique is it’s simplicity.

Learning complex behaviours takes time. Simple ones, with reasonable repetition stick much quicker and more firmly.

I’ve been using the 40% rule in my rock climbing training and it REALLY works. Both when climbing and doing boring gym strength and conditioning beasting*

If you genuinely and 100% believe in the truth of the rule, the strength that comes from knowing without a doubt that you have more when you get the first “quit signal” – is like rocket fuel.

It will give you the boost to keep going – and the more you keep practicing the approach – going for a lot longer past that “quit signal”.

When fatigue, pain, laziness, fear of failure, etc start kicking in – bringing up this rule will crush them and give you a boost to keep going.

The approach is also progressive – the more you use it, the more convinced you become that there is more available, and the longer you keep pushing past the first stopping signal.

You can use the thought everywhere – out on a run, during a negotiation of a deal, enduring pain, trying to quit something (smoking, eating wrong, etc).

As with any habit it takes at least a week to start bedding in with regular practice, but once it’s in – it will stick and will make you into a different person, capable of accomplishing things you before thought were completely impossible.

* – Strength and conditioning beasting is a simple set of exercises to keep a healthy body muscle development balance and includes push ups, leg raises, TRX fly’s, dips, squat jumps and other such exercises – performed back to back 20 reputations for each exercise in sets of 3 or more.