The revelation took place in Portugal after walking 5,000 km

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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