Sep 6, 2021
How can Milo from Croton help you to achieve Success.
Milo from Croton small town in Southern Italy, in 6th century BC was an Olympic winner six times in a row. He had also won prestigious athletic titles, including 32 wrestling competitions and achiever military triumph. He decided to carry a newborn calf on his shoulders. Day by day, for more than four years. While people were laughing at him, the small calf slowly grew into an adult ox and Milo got stronger and stronger along the way.
Now let’s look at the main lessons of his training and improvements.
Acquiring any new skill starts with very small steps
Milo didn’t start by lifting a big heavy ox. He started with a calf. That gave him the chance to master the fundamentals.
He went with a smart approach to take on a manageable challenge and slowly develop strength and self-confidence, even though people were judging him. Deep down he had a long term vision that was much bigger than the short-term pain of being laughed at.
“In five years, you can dramatically improve your health, wealth, relationships, competences, happiness or whatever your goals is. Read one page per day and then add an additional one everyday.”
While doing so, never compare yourself to other people who are already masters. If your expectations are too high when you undertake a new challenge, you will be greatly disappointed and give up sooner or later.
Beginnings (after the initial motivation wears off) are always hard, but the hard road becomes easy with time. Thus, manage your expectations and keep the long-term view in mind.
Long-term thinking means that you plan the great results to come in years, not months or weeks. Overnight success comes after years of hard work.
When I was learning to ride a motorbike it was a confusing process in the beginning you have to take care of multiple things [brakes, acceleration, clutch]. It was confusing and I was never able the get the motorbike moving ahead. I took a small steps, I learned to release the clutch at right time and accelerate at the right time. I separated these and practiced each of them individually for couple of days, until Finally I was ready to take off I combined the practices.
Milo knew that consistency is key
Hard work beats talent every time. But hard work is hard, since it demands almost bulletproof consistency and focus.
You have to persistently follow a carefully orchestrated process that leads you to your big vision. Consistency and never giving up, while staying flexible, are the key to everything. Milo knew that and thus wherever he went, he never left the growing calf behind.
Here is what consistency means in very practical terms:
- It’s better to exercise five times per week for an hour than one time for five hours.
- It’s better to learn skill for an hour everyday than 5 hours in a day.
“I fear not the man who has practiced 10,000 kicks once, but I fear the man who has practiced one kick 10,000 times” — Bruce Lee
Consistency is especially important when you face the first setbacks. In the beginning, enthusiasm drives you, but then the enthusiasm wears off and you find yourself in the dip. You realize that achieving your goals will be much harder than you assumed.
What the Milo of Croton story teaches us is that the more adversity you face, the more determined you must become. That’s how you grow and progress in life.
Why do 80% of people quit. Because they don’t believe in consistency. They don’t have that patience to wait until it starts to compound. Understanding the core principle of consistency, I have started writing in Twitter, Medium, Instagram everyday, even though I don’t get hundreds of engagement everyday but I will keep writing.
Make sure you combine consistency with progressive overload and interleaved practice
Consistency is only part of the equation. Lift, Carry, Put down, Rest, Pick up. Practice Lay Down. Rest Day after day. Week after week. Year after year.
The right kind of consistency helps you focus, lay strong foundations and master the basics. The second part of the equation is progressive overload in combination with interleaved practice.
Practicing something with the same amount of effort and in pretty much the same way sooner or later becomes easy. Your comfort zone stretches and when that happens it’s time put more effort on your shoulders.
The calf needs to get bigger and bigger. With that kind of an approach, things never get easier, but you always get better.
The best effect of progressive overload and interleaved practice is that they lead to the domino effect and when the time comes to reap the efforts, the rewards can be really great. Improve yourself just a little bit every day, and the accumulated efforts will lead to success.
“If you only do what you can do, you’ll never be more than you are now.” — Master Shifu [Kungfu Panda]
As Good as the Story might sound, progress is never linear
There is one thing that the Milo’s story doesn’t tell. Progress is rarely linear. Usually it happens with “one step back, two steps forward” or even in “a few steps back, one quantum leap forward” way.
Ups and downs. You practice, you work hard, but the progress is really slow. Or maybe you get sick, or a little bit fed up with everything and you simply must take a break. Those kinds of situations can make you extremely frustrated.
But if you keep persisting (maybe by adding one more pause or two), one day you wake up, go to your practice, and suddenly see a big improvement. The reward always follows the effort, if you practice right, it just takes time for things to settle in and for you to reap the reward.
That’s why following a plan with linear progress rarely works. You have to keep your plan lean and agile. You have to adapt to the feedback you get from your body and your environment.
You have to innovate your way out of setbacks, look for ways that work best for you, and stay flexible without any fixed ideas. With that kind of a mindset, you can always find new ways to improve when you reach a plateau or face a setback.
The Universe is a change, and make sure you never do the same thing again and again. You’ve to update your strategy.
In the end, make sure you never give up
If consistency, progression and interleaved practice are the key to success, that means the most important thing is to never give up.
You should never be afraid of slow progress, the only thing you should be afraid of is to stop trying. There’s a simple secret how to make sure you never give up.
The secret is to start with why. You need a strong emotional reason why you want to achieve something. You must empower your doing with a mission, which is greater than any setback on the road. When you find your why, you don’t have a problem with motivation anymore.
Nobody gets motivated by savings or an exercise plan. People get motivated by life visions, missions and meanings.
Emotions are the fuel that drives people forward. You absolutely need a good plan, but even more importantly, you need to feel something deep in your bones. You need to feel that you were born to do something.
Thanks for reading. I hope it was worth your time. Leave a “CLAP” if you liked the content and “Follow” for regular personal growth Stories.
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