Given enough time, there is literally no mammal on Earth that can outrun a human. Sure, most four-legged animals are faster than humans from a top speed perspective. But without competition, humans are THE best endurance runners on the planet. A human, with proper training, can out-distance any other animal. Horses, dogs, bears, kangaroos, none of them can keep up with a human mile-for-mile.
If you have read any of my other articles at this point (which you should) you will know I am a big fan of evolutionary biology. Humans evolved a number of traits which have allowed us to become the undisputed kings of endurance. For example:
We walk upright. This reduces our overall speed due to less legs contacting the ground in a run, but it drastically reduces the amount of energy it takes to move. We don’t have fur. Skin-to-air contact helps reduce heat build up in the body. We sweat water instead of oils, which aids in rapid cooling. We have big butts. Increased leg power for more effective and powerful movement.
We Were Unstoppable
All of these traits come together to turn humans into terrifying endurance machines. Why terrifying? Humans used to use a hunting tactic called “persistence hunting.” The idea is that when a group of humans spotted an animal they wanted to kill they would walk or jog toward it. Until it collapsed from exhaustion. Their superior endurance allowed humans to travel farther and recover more quickly, meaning over enough time, the animal being hunted would not be able to recover energy fast enough to keep running away.
Imagine being that animal. You’re on the plains of Africa, minding your own business, keeping an eye out for lions. Suddenly you see these tall apes walking in your general direction. They’re far off, so you keep grazing. Then they’re closer. Then they’re REALLY close. You sprint away, a quick burst of speed puts some distance between you and them. They keep coming. No matter where you go, how fast you run, there they are minutes later. They’re unstoppable. You keep running until you’re so exhausted you can’t move. They casually walk up and slaughter you.
Terrifying.
“But Zach” I hear you protest, “this isn’t a NatGeo blog, this is a blog about self development and psychology. What does any of this have to do with becoming a better person, and why did you bring up big butts?” I’m glad you asked, dear reader!
First, I brought up big butts because it was funny, and as a large gluteal enthusiast I wanted to show my appreciation. Second, evolutionary biology has everything to do with self improvement and psychology. I’ve written a few articles either on or relating to the topic of evolutionary psychology. Evolution is the process that shaped who we are as organisms. Understanding how we evolved and what we evolved to be good at is essential to understanding how to maximize our potential in the modern world.
Applied Evolution
I believe that if we understand what we evolved to do we can take concepts from that evolution and apply it to our own lives. Consider persistence hunting from the human perspective. The humans hunting the animal had a goal in mind: Get food for the group. How did they go about this goal? They didn’t sprint. They knew they couldn’t outrun the animal in speed, so they just outlasted it. Slow, patient persistence was the way humans survived.
Think of big cats like jaguars, lions, cheetahs, and tigers. All of these animals hunt more or less the same way, sneak up as close as possible and then pounce. They’re ambush hunters that use surprise and a quick burst of speed to get their prey. How many times in your life have you tried to rush towards a goal with a big burst of energy, only to give up a few weeks or maybe months in?
That is motivation. It’s that electric, powerful energy that pushes you forward almost recklessly. Once in a while, you get lucky. Motivation is great for small tasks, but I’m interested in big, long term changes to lifestyle that last. I want to get at how to build discipline and use it to create and maintain healthy habits.
Persistence hunting is a practice of discipline. Prey animals rely on speed to create distance between the predator so they can hide or evade death. Humans using persistence hunting had to be disciplined to be successful. They had to commit to a long period of time with no results for their tactic to eventually work. Undoubtedly there were plenty of times where the animals would evade humans for a time. The humans had to be able to keep tracking and keep moving to be successful. Over time, the hard work would produce results.
An Old Perspective in New Times
Translating this practice into modern times is fairly simple. We have been conditioned by society to seek instant gratification and bigger, better rewards. I wrote about that concept here. We want the fastest, easiest way to get things. We look for shortcuts, get-rich-quick schemes, anything to get what we want with minimal time and energy investments.
I think most people fall for these traps of convenience at some point. I certainly have. But each time I tried to take a shortcut to something I wanted it failed. Never have I seen a meaningful change in my life come without persistent effort and a significant time investment. Every time I focused on getting to my goal as fast as possible I ended up failing. However, every time I focused on being patient and continuing the process, even without significant evidence of my success looming on the horizon, I ended up succeeding in the end.
The battle between modern society and our ancient evolutionary roots is fascinating to me. Our society has advanced so quickly and solved so many problems that our evolution has failed to keep up. But evolutionary systems do not disappear simply because they are no longer being used, anyone who has had their appendix burst can tell you that.
If we understand our evolutionary roots we can start acting more in-line with our nature rather than resisting it constantly. I believe resisting our nature is the cause of a significant amount of anxiety, stress, depression, and struggle in our lives. Now I’m not advocating you tromp off into the woods with a club and hunt to survive, but by understanding what we evolved to be good at we can use that information to help us. Cats don’t use persistence hunting because it isn’t in their nature. They use what they evolved to be good at.
The Persistence Perspective
Where does that leave us? We evolved to survive through endurance. Humans are literally the best at it. Because we developed endurance-based hunting strategies, we can assume that to some degree we are wired for endurance from a psychological perspective. This is where the war between modern society and evolution comes into play.
Modern society has taught us to seek instant gratification. It wants us to ambush and sprint like cats. Evolution created our endurance as the key to success. What we learned through societal conditioning is to favor quick fixes and easy money (resources.) This is at odds with our nature, which tells us to be patient and keep moving forward. Endure.
We no longer need to hunt for food, but we still have goals we work towards. The pursuit of improvement and success in our lives. If we understand that we have been taught to think in terms of the fastest and most efficient route from A to Z and that our nature is to be patient and not rush, we can see where the clash occurs. We favor instant gratification because it is enticing. It is taught to us through the media.
I am advocating that you shift away from this mindset. Reject the lessons you were taught inadvertently through our modern society of efficiency and profit margins. Practice persistence hunting in the pursuit of your goals.
Everything worth doing in life takes time and effort. Speaking from experience, you don’t get six pack abs or a 2 plate bench press overnight. It takes months and often YEARS of consistent effort to achieve those things. For every lottery winner and 20-something app developing billionaire I’d bet you can find 10 successful people who worked for years to get where they are at, and thousands of people who tried the shortcuts and failed.
The Age of Instant Gratification
Our society glorifies quick wins. We love the stories of overnight successes. They are enticing to us for two reasons.
First, the Myth of Talent and the Cult of Genius. I discussed these concepts here, but the main idea is that we attribute success to natural or “divine” talent because it absolves us of having to consider the effort involved in achievement. If someone’s success is due to natural talent then we don’t have to acknowledge that if we put in effort we could probably succeed as well. It keeps us comfortable in our mediocrity.
Second, quick wins give us hope that we can get lucky too. Even while writing this article discussing adopting a mindset of persistence and endurance, I am experiencing a very strong cognitive dissonance that says “yeah, but plenty of people become very successful very quickly.” Your societal programming resists considering new ideas. We like the idea that if someone else got lucky we can too. It’s hard to resist the idea of finding the secret path to success that’s easier than the rest. But those stories are the loud minority. Our society highlights those stories to give everyone hope. In this scenario, hope is a drug whose high is believing overnight success is right around the corner.
Pursue Relentlessly
It’s easier to convince ourselves of quick success than to accept the possibility of failure. But just like the persistence hunters of old, failure only occurred if you turned around and went home. Sure, sometimes you’d lose the animal, but if you kept looking you were likely to find another. Sometimes hunters failed to get anything at all, but if they hadn’t gone out they would have failed for sure.
Hunt your goals relentlessly, be patient and move towards success without stopping. Exhaust them by outlasting them. Resist the urge to succumb to quick fixes and comfortability, adopt a persistence mindset of slow and steady progress.