The Art of Impossible

Intrinsic drivers are the opposite. These are psychological and emotional forces such as curiosity, passion, meaning, and purpose. The pleasure of mastery, which we feel as the sensation of a job well done, is another potent example. Autonomy, the desire to be in charge of one’s own life, is yet another.

Unfortunately, these are all conditions that arise during our pursuit of high, hard goals.

As a flow trigger, mastery is referred to as the “challenge-skills balance.”20 The idea is relatively straightforward: Flow follows focus, and we pay the most attention to the task at hand, when the challenge of that task slightly exceeds our skill set. We want to stretch, but not snap.

most experts agree, when it comes to perseverance, there’s little substitute for the physical. Work out. Engage in regular exercise. Ski, surf, or snowboard. Ride a bike. Go for walks. Lift weights. Run. Do yoga. Do Tai Chi. Whatever. Do something. It’s that simple.

Social support provides even more neurochemistry, which produces an even greater boost in intrinsic motivation. More crucially, other people provide actual help. Financial, physical, intellectual, creative, emotional—they all matter. Simply put, on the road to impossible, we’re going to need all the help we can get.

Now, I’m automatically walking the path toward mastery—which is also the only path that can lead us to the impossible.

The place to begin is with motivation, which is what starts us down the path of peak performance. Yet, motivation, as psychologists use the term, is actually a catch-all for three subsets of skills: drive, grit, and goals. Drive, the subject of the next two chapters, refers to powerful emotional motivators such as curiosity, passion, and purpose. T

We are all designed for optimal performance. This is how the system wants to work, and there are serious consequences for trying to buck the system. Both disconnection from meaningful values and disconnection from meaningful work are major causes of anxiety and depression.

we know that play is mostly designed to teach us about social rules and social interaction. When you’re playing with your little brother and Mom screams, “Don’t pick on someone smaller than you,” she’s exactly on message. The point of play is to teach us lessons like: might doesn’t make right. It’s nature’s way of instructing us in morality.