Do you suffer from 87 MPH complex?

Eighty-seven miles per hour. That’s my limit. Not one mile per hour faster. At least that is my history. And if you let your past dictate your limits like I too often do, then you can relate. Why eighty-seven miles per hour? Why such a specifically random number? Because it’s not random at all. It’s the last speed I can go before things really take off.

Any child of the eighties knows that it takes a full eighty-eight miles per hour for the flux capacitor to engage and take you to anywhere, or more likely any-when in history that you want to explore.

This is when you can truly go Back to the Future.

But I never go.

I say I do. I fill the tank. I put my foot on the gas. I rev the engine. And I take off, racing down the road with the anticipation of what’s to come. The speedometer grows number by number. I watch with excitement as digit after digit rolls over from one to the next in an ever-accelerating ramp up to engagement.

But then I let off the gas.

Why Not Go For It?

I don’t do it intentionally. At least I never thought I did. But looking back at my patterns over the course of my business growth I have learned that my inner accelerator seems to stall right when I need that last bit of gas to push over the finish line. That last bit of gas I need to go to get to the where or the when that I want to visit.

I’ve found there is plenty of blame to go around. My own experience wasn’t good enough to see things through, at least according to the voice in my head. The imposter syndrome kicked in right when I needed the confidence the most. Other responsibilities took over my attention, life happened. I did not have enough time, even though I had plenty of time to go out with friends or kill time scrolling endlessly on social media.

It wasn’t just me either. I could feel perfectly justified telling myself that someone else didn’t give me the break I needed for that final push. I could make excuse after excuse for why things never kicked in.

Excuses, Justifications, & Procrastination

All of these excuses and justifications stemmed from one great ruler, the 87mph Complex. It’s that subconscious block that kicks in right before you are about to hit it big. It’s the urge to give up five steps before the finish line. It’s that feeling that the water is hot enough at 211 degrees, just before it boils, so you stop. You don’t leave the heat on, and you don’t let it boil, you don’t produce steam, and that steam engine never fires up.

Each of us may see this expressed in different ways, but the root-cause is the same. Maybe it’s fear, maybe it’s lack of confidence, lack of self-worth, maybe it’s lack of vision, maybe it’s all of these or none of these depending on the day. But whatever it is, it is working against you.

So how do you stop it?

Be aware.

Knowledge is power my friend. Just by being aware, you take away a large part of the power this has held over you in the past. Knowing that in those final moments when you need to push the hardest for the last few steps across the finish line, knowing that you will feel an urge to pull back, you can now see the urge coming. You can plan ahead. You can strategize about what you will do when you start to encounter this temptation. To feel the feelings.

What To Do

Here is an example of what I do now. When I have a goal coming up, let’s say I want to sell a ton of books. Or run a mile in a certain time frame.

First, I have to identify what success looks like. Is it a certain speed, a certain distance, a specific endurance of time and distance? What is the end goal?

Now, identify where you are as it relates to you achieving that success. Can you walk at all, can you run a mile or five? How fast and how far can you currently go, comfortably?

So now we have a starting point and an end goal. This sets the framework within which we can identify the pain points along the way. Pull out a piece of paper, a napkin, write in the sand, whatever you need to do, to create a visual right now. Draw an arrow as if you are creating a timeline. At the back of your arrow make a note of where you are now. At the front, the point of the arrow, write where you want to be.

Now, slide back just a bit from the tip of the arrow and put a mark of any shape right there. I like to use a small triangle. I like this because this is the space in which I usually get lost like a sailor in the Bermuda triangle. And like the legends of the Bermuda triangle, so many of these losses or yet to be explained.

Identify The Feelings

Now under your arrow start making a list with two columns. In the first column, write any way that you can foresee yourself feeling in this critical moment. Exhausted, weak, tired, out of ideas, spent, afraid, unsupported, alone, stupid, incompetent, whatever you think may be going through your head. If you have a hard time looking ahead to see what you might be thinking or feeling look to the past. Think of a project or goal you gave up on, then recall how you felt and what your mindset was in that moment. If need be, call in help from a friend who may be able to help trigger some what you were struggling with at the time.
Have a long list? Great! If not, that’s alright, you can come back to it any time and add to it. You can even add to the list right in the moment that you are feeling a certain way when you get to this point on your arrow.

Now for column two. This is where the power comes in. This is where you take control. In the second column next to each of your feelings, write down something you can do to move past them. It’s not about having a sure-fire solution for every feeling you encounter, but rather, having a one to three options that you can rely on to get you past the moments when emotions are taking over.
For example, if you wrote down that you might be feeling unsupported, that may be a good time to reach out to your most supportive friends or a mentor for guidance or supportive words. If you felt incompetent, this might be a great time to make a list of every skill you possess, or every resource you have to pull in whatever help you might need.

Speed Toward Your Goals

The great thing about doing this early on is that it takes away the surprise element. You won’t be ambushed by your feelings when they show up to haunt you. You can simply say, “I knew something was coming, I wasn’t sure which trick my mind was going to try to play, but I am ready.”
The other benefit is that you never really know when on your arrow the triangle will actually appear. I have studied my failures enough to have pretty good idea of my own tendencies to get in my own way, but not everyone has done as much self-exploration. And even with that much work put in, I still have new elements to each new thing I take on that can shift the dynamics.
Walking through this before we get very far down the tracks allows you to step towards your goal with the confidence of being prepared. Prepared to face the demons that will jump out to block the trail along the way.

And while it is impossible to pack for a journey with every possible contingency of anything that could ever go wrong, packing the right mindset along the way is the one thing that will help you find what you need in the moment and not just pull off the side of the road and give up.
The right mindset will get you from forty miles per hour up to eighty and when you are ready it will take you from eighty-seven miles per hour over the top to eighty-eight. And when you do the world is going to be excited to see just where you go, or better yet when you go!
Where we’re going, we don’t need roads!

Ready to take your team to a place where you don’t need roads? Get the seven steps you can take to unleash your team’s superpowers by clicking the link below.

Image Credit: Wikimedia Oto Godfrey and Justin Morton