We’re acculturated and accustomed to holding a little bit back.
It’s a logical learned response to the expectation of being asked to “give 110 percent” after our first effort.
This expectation is designed into the engine room telegraph: full steam ahead is how you get from San Francisco to Pearl Harbor as fast as possible, but flank speed is the true boiler-bursting sprint speed used to dodge a torpedo.
Nothing and no one can go at flank speed all the time, or even for very long. (Not without risking a real blowup, anyway.)
But we can be mindful and intentional about when to push the throttle to the stops and see what we can really do at full exertion.
Colin Steele 