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# The revelation took place in Portugal after walking 5,000 km
- URL: https://www.wtft.life/the-revelation-took-place-in-portugal-after-walking-5-000-km/
- Published: 2026-08-13T09:58:50.000Z
- Updated: 2026-08-21T17:56:42.000Z
- Author: Franck @ WTFT
- Tags: Limits, Perspectives, Across Europe on Foot

![Franck receiving a pastel de nata from a TikTok follower during his crossing of Portugal](https://storage.ghost.io/c/7d/01/7d0190e6-0d1d-48b4-ad5a-f339e47871ca/content/images/2026/08/IMG_3500.JPG)

Two minutes later, the same climb felt easier.

It was a hot day.  
I was climbing beside a road under a heavy backpack.  
My legs felt heavy. My energy was gone.

Then a car stopped.

A TikTok follower had recognised me and offered me one of the pastéis de nata he was taking to his family.

The interaction lasted two minutes.

When I started walking again, the climb felt easier.

But what had changed?  
Not the hill.  
Not my backpack.  
Not my legs.

Only my state of mind.

---

## The Perspective Shift

> ***If an external distraction could push back a limit that had felt real, perhaps I could learn to create that distraction myself.***

That moment changed how I understood my limits.

For more than 60 years, I had treated the feeling that I had reached my limit as information: I have nothing left. I need to stop.

That pastel de nata showed me that the feeling was often not reporting a fixed physical limit but a limiting mental state instead.

And a mental state could be changed.

Since then, when I feel I have reached my limit, I try to trick my mind.  
I imagine a reward.  
Create a mental game.  
Focus on a smaller objective.  
I try to create a 'virtual' pastel de nata.

It requires practice, and it does not make every limit disappear.

But it has shown me that I can consciously change my mental state, access energy I thought was gone and continue beyond the point where I would previously have stopped.

**It changed what I believed I could influence in my life.**

My limits are no longer simply boundaries to discover and accept.  
Some can be challenged.  
Some can be pushed back.

Walk your talk,  
Franck

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