Who told you that was a limit?

Yesterday I played indoor football and ran around 5km there and back. I did it while fasting - it’s the month of Ramadan, which means no food or drink from dawn till sunset. Yes, not even water.

At one point, someone said: “You’re playing football while you’re fasting?”

I smiled. “Yeah. What’s the big deal?”

It wasn’t bravado, I certainly don't see it as exceptional and, to me, it just… wasn’t a big deal.

But the idea stayed with me because it revealed something deeper about limits. We often treat assumed limits as fixed laws. Not because we’ve tested them and not because they’re physiologically impossible. But because somewhere along the line, someone suggested them.

“You can’t exercise while fasting.”
“You’re not that type of person.”
“That’s just how you are.”
“That’s not realistic.”

And over time, repetition turns suggestion into stone. In coaching conversations lately, this theme keeps surfacing.

People aren’t struggling with capability - they’re struggling with inherited ceilings.

Ceilings handed to them by:

• culture

• upbringing

• corporate norms

• dominant societal norms

• performance narratives

• past failures

• or their own internal voice

The interesting thing about fasting is this:
The body adapts, energy shifts, pacing adjusts, and most significantly, awareness sharpens.

Performance may not be exactly the same but you don’t collapse either. The thing is, the “limit” wasn’t a concrete a wall. It was simply an unfamiliar condition. Here's the kicker: unfamiliar isn’t the same as impossible.

This connects back to something I wrote recently about data and patterns.

If you judge yourself by one uncomfortable moment, you might conclude:
“I can’t do this.” But if you zoom out, you might see: “I’m adapting.” There’s a difference.

And this is where rituals quietly train us. Ramadan isn’t about proving toughness. It’s about recalibrating the relationship between discomfort and identity.

Hunger doesn’t define you. Fatigue doesn’t define you. Difficulty doesn’t define you.

They’re conditions, not conclusions.

Final thought
So here’s the real question:

• Who told you that was a limit? And, more importantly

• Have you ever tested it?

Your Next Step may not be to smash through every wall.

But it might be to question whether the wall is load-bearing… or just painted on.