Don’t Work Harder OR Smarter. Commit to this One Thing and Your Life Will Improve.
Indecision is the mind killer: How Amundsen won the race to the South Pole.
It’s the final quarter of 1911.
Two countries leave the harbour of Southern Europe in one of the most exciting races of all time.
Their destination? The Geographic South Pole.
It’s the Heroic Age — not unlike the Space Race of the 1960s. Different nations launch expeditions to explore every corner of the earth.
The final frontier is Antarctica.
One team is led by a well-known polar explorer: the Norwegian, Roald Amundsen.
And the other is led by Captain Robert Falcon, a British naval officer.
Robert isn’t an explorer, but this isn’t his first rodeo either.
9 years earlier, he’d been part of a party that had attempted to reach the South Pole but had failed. The extreme weather conditions and ill health had forced his party to return to England.
But this time is different, of course. This time he’s determined to reach the South Pole by hell or high water.
He tells everyone about the mission a year earlier and the British papers are abuzz with the news. It’s Antartica, after all.
Roald on the other hand keeps his mission under wraps, which is strange, isn’t it? He had planned to go to the North Pole on a science expedition but learned that two other explorers had made it there first. The two explorers were currently fighting over first rights.
Roald thinks to himself, “I’ve been dreaming of the North Pole my whole life,” Roald thinks to himself.
“But if I go to the North Pole, I’ll be third in the race and there’s no fame in being third. My investors will demand their investment back. And that will leave me…penniless.”
So, he makes the logical decision.
At the last minute, he changes his destination and heads to Antarctica.
But then, Roald does something even stranger: he doesn’t publicise it.
He doesn’t tell his sponsors.
Or even his crew.
Only the ship’s captain knows the final destination until they’re well on their way.
He’s worried that if he does, if he tells them, the trip will fall through and leave him bankrupt.
Meanwhile back in England, Captain Scott is recruiting some of his old team from a 1902 expedition.
“One more mission.” He tells them, “Rule Brittania!”
“Brittania rule the waves!” They return.
But this seems like a mistake, doesn’t it?
Why would you gather your old unsuccessful team for the same mission?
Robert’s team is mostly made of scientists and naval seamen. The scientists aren’t interested in a race.
To them this trip is about “scientific measurements and experimentation.”
It’s discovery. It’s not a locker room game.
It’s not the World Cup.
It’s definitely not the Olympics.
But why is this important? It means their approach to Antarctica is affected by the need for scientific discovery.
The British team choose a landing zone that’s primed for setting up and conducting scientific experiments, while the Norwegian team choose another landing spot, one that will ensure they arrive at the Geographic South Pole first.
ROALD’S PLAN
They set an unbreakable pace for themselves.
Roald is singularly focused on one thing: getting to the South Pole first. Remember, he’d just missed out on the North Pole, his childhood dream.
So, he devises a plan. “We’ll travel 6 hours and then rest for 6 hours.”
No matter what, the Norwegian party maintains this commitment.
They set an unbreakable pace for themselves. This is important.
The British crew, on the other hand, apply brute force and push themselves to exhaustion daily, before resting out of necessity.
So, what’s the outcome? The British arrive at the South Pole 38 days after Amundsen’s party.
38 days.
There was no social media at the time, so when they arrive at the South Pole, there was no indication that anyone had been there.
Except, there’s something blowing in the distance.
There’s a spot of black in a sea of white.
It’s a Norwegian tent. But how?
We know the why, but here’s how.
Amundsen considers every single detail.
He prepares for every unforeseen circumstance.
When it comes time to embark on the South Pole, the only thing that’s left to do is enjoy the journey.
THE LIFE-CHANGING LESSON WE CAN LEARN FROM AMUNDSEN
Amundsen is a seasoned explorer. Not only has he grown up skiing in the cold Norwegian Winters, but he’s also attempted trips in similar climates multiple times and failed.
He learned from the Inuit on a previous trip, not only how to survive, but thrive in sub-zero temperatures. How to rear sledge dogs. What to feed. How much food and provisions to carry. How to rest.
In a way, he’s been preparing for this expedition his whole life.
For example, Amundsen uses sledge dogs and brings experienced dog drivers as the primary means of transport.
Scott uses ponies with specially-made winter shoes. The ponies need special food. They die very quickly. Scott also spends seven times his budget on motor sledges, than on horses and sledge dogs. But then he leaves behind the only engineer who knows how to operate the motor sledge. Strange, isn’t it?
In his book, Effortless, Greg Mckeown takes this lesson from Amundsen.
What I find fascinating about Amundsen is that he knows his personal limits and the limits of his team.
He pushes for consistency, not willpower.
He understands that preparation wins even when willpower fails.
Not just preparation — but systems. Systems win even when willpower fails.
THE POWER OF MAKING A DECISION
Michael Jordan says when he’s made a decision, he doesn’t think about it again. Instead of spending time thinking will you, won’t you, make a decision and then spend energy on actually executing the decision. On average, we have 50 000 thoughts a day. 98% of those thoughts are repeat thoughts. Crazy, isn’t it?
But what actually happens when you decide?
When you decide, when you commit, a thought moves from thought into automation. Almost the same way that a habit does. We don’t relearn how to read every single time we have a book in our hands, do we? That would be strange. Almost most of what we do is automated. It’s how we evolved. Their efficient, our brains.
Benjamin Hardy also talks about this phenomenon, he says committing 100% to something is better than committing 98%. If you’re not committed 100% to something, you might as well not be committed at all.
In Atomic Habits, James Clear expands on this idea in more detail. In fact, it’s the seed of his message. He talks about the simple act of showing up, showing up is making the decision. Clear says that often building up the “showing-up muscle” is half of the trouble,
“A habit must be established before it can be improved. If you can’t learn the basic skill of showing up, then you have little hope of mastering the finer details. Master the art of showing up.”
Amundsen mastered the art of showing up — every day 6 hours and no further.
“But we can do 10 hours.” His team complained,” If we do 6 hours, we’ll get there faster.”
“No, 6 hours. No more. No less.”
Greg Mckeown agrees. “Don’t do more today,” Mckeown writes, “than you can completely recover from by tomorrow.” By this he means don’t overdo it; make the process enjoyable so that you have positive associations with the process. If you exhaust yourself going to gym, it’s unlikely that you’ll go again tomorrow. But if you work within your limits, it’s more likely that you’ll go again the next day.
HOW TO SHOW UP: PUTTING THIS LESSON INTO PRACTICE
In practice, showing up looks like scheduling a meeting with yourself every day at the same time. Do you want to learn how to code? Schedule it in like you would a work meeting.
“Every day at 7 pm, I’m going to code for 15 minutes.”
And then do it. Show up.
Create a routine out of your goals. Schedule them in your calendar. Set an alarm. Get an accountability buddy and then show up.
QUESTIONS TO ASK YOURSELF
How much can you consistently commit to?
When you’re thinking about your next project, Greg Mckeown says to think about this — What can be sustained over the next year?
How much time should and can I spend on this? 15 minutes a day? 1 hour a day?
How much can you consistently commit to? Is it only 5 minutes? That’s a great start.
How much can you effortlessly sustain?
Because that’s how Amundsen did it.
Not driving themselves to the point of exhaustion, but setting a consistent pace they could commit to.
Even when they didn’t feel like it, their daily commitment is how they won the race to the South Pole.
THE BACK STORY: WHAT HAPPENED AFTER THE RACE
I wanted to add some backstory to the Great Race to the South Pole because it’s fascinating.
On their way back, Scott and his party are out of supplies, they’re disheartened, fatigued and malnourished. A series of unfortunate events, ill-preparation and extreme weather result in Scott and his team dying at the South Pole — only 15 km away from certain help.
The rest of the story is both intriguing and tragic.
Scott, who’d written daily journal entries of the entire expedition, becomes famous in death. Scott’s whole journey had been well-documented by a professional photographer and a documentary filmmaker, resulting in stunning footage of the South Pole. Photographs of towering mountains of ice, and untouched snow, stretching for miles.
What happens next is fascinating:
Scott’s wife hires a media team, writers and strategist, to elevate Scott’s diary into that of a Hollywood epic: the focus shifts from their gross failure to the extraordinary bravery of the men who gave up their lives for scientific discovery.
The photographs, the emotive diary, the press, the British government’s support — the evidence of their journey, sets the world alight. The footage is turned into a documentary not once, but twice.
This was a PR mission.
But what happens to Amundsen? Amundsen is accused of anti-sportsmanship behaviour. The Norwegian government does not celebrate him the way the British government does Scott. He feels a sense of guilt in his triumph and lives in Scott’s shadow for the rest of his life.
It’s only in recent years that Amundsen is given his rightful place as the first to reach the South Pole.
If you made it this far, thanks for reading. Let me know what you found most interesting about the story.
