On Meeting the Goal and the Power of Persistence

It’s true that some obsessions are driven by an all-consuming interest in something, like quicksand or a magnet drawing opposite charges together. But another reality is not everything we want to do works this way. Sometimes the thing we desire most—to develop a habit, to lose weight, to learn something new—at the start can feel impossible to do. It’s driven not by attraction but by will, not by process but result, and by the pride of knowing you accomplished something difficult.

With Allan Yu’s current obsession, it leans much toward the latter. As he prepares for a half marathon in New York City, he’s devised a plan for himself to train for the race as someone who’s, frankly, not all that into running. His “commitment to the plan” philosophy carries through to his running routines and his work as co-founder at Synthetic Traffic, the Baukunst investment aiming to revolutionize the product testing process using AI. He’s even found inspiration for his philosophies, more grounded in rigor and the euphoria that comes from struggle, in some surprising sources. In a recent conversation, Yu shared with us how the way he approaches his running regimine relates to this work and other goals, the artist who originally inspired his way of thinking, and more.

Choosing a path of most resistance?

When we sat down with Yu, he was preparing for an upcoming ambitious task: running a half-marathon, with only about 16 weeks to train. His method for accomplishing this involves building a diligent weekly plan of running sprints: speed run, followed by recovery, followed by a long endurance run, and so on. He then adds his stats to an Excel sheet, not just tracking his feeling of endurance over time, but seeing with tracked times how he has objectively improved.

This feat is one of many goals he has set up for himself over the years, not necessarily driven by a desire to build a lasting practice of any one thing, but instead to accomplish many hard things. Yu finds parallels in the way that he approaches his running routine as well as his work, with the idea of creating a plan and religiously sticking to it. He says, ‘"With anything I do, I spend a lot of time in the beginning planning," Yu reflects. "I create a pretty fixed schedule...and then I don't think about it anymore." He sees this is the key to his success, claiming the pre-scheduling “offloads a lot of commitment issues and the risk of being lazy.” This method has helped him accomplished many interesting goals, including making a piece of art every day for a year, and last year committed to a daily NFT drop that was auctioned off each day for a year.

The art of endurance

Yu finds inspiration for his philosophies around work and goal-setting—something he calls ‘the commitment to the plan’—in a variety of surprising sources. “[My methods are] a little bit self punishing, I don't know why I kind of enjoy that. But I follow this artists' work, Tehching Hsieh; he’s sort of the reason why I have this habit-building thing,” Yu shares. For those unfamiliar with the reference, the connection between Hsieh and the concept of self-punishment is certainly understated.

Hsieh is an artist whose work is founded on extreme endurance. He’s most well known for locking himself in a cage within his New York City studio for a whole year (1978-1979), only to follow that performance up six months later with his grueling Time Clock Piece (1980-81). In this performance, Hsieh committed to punching a time clock every hour for an entire year, ensuring him no more than one hour of sleep at any one time over 365 days. Hsieh shared in a 2019 article with The Believer Russian literature’s influence on his work, saying, “Maybe the examples I use instead are Tolstoy and Dostoevsky. Dostoevsky knows human darkness. But he uses darkness to access the pure. Tolstoy is more about light and optimism…I’m more Dostoevsky. I do the dirty work…But my dirty work is also pure…To show your art and to survive in the world, you must know a little bit about the dark side.”

In Hsieh’s perspective, Yu too sees the potential for optimism that comes from struggle. “I feel like I have a Protestant work ethic… but I don’t view my methods as dark. It doesn't come to my psyche in a negative, abusive way,” Yu says. “Part of this feels like, if I suffer through the daily grind of work or running, then it makes the reward of running it feel even more earned. It's because I've been suffering through this for six months that I can have that moment where I think, wow, that felt good!”

There is research out there to support Yu’s hunch here, with some studies showing that long term well being is bolstered by a reasonable amount of adversity in one’s life (the key here is balance—not too much, or not too little). There is also increasing evidence that a level of ‘positive stress’ in children’s lives promotes key growth development.

Strategies for endurance-style goal setting

This mode of getting things done may not work for everyone, but if the process appeals to you, Yu has a few tips that have helped him in achieving big things.

Find a focal point, something to commit to. “I've always started and stopped running, and stopped more often than I've started. But signing up for the half marathon in New York City pushes me to go, Well, I've got to do this now. I think having that end goal really helps with forcing you to commit.”

Take the hurdle of the to-do list out of the equation by creating a roadmap. “I think for me, the metapoint here is my approach to running, or how we're going to build this company, or how I approach sort of any projects or milestones, are all the same. With anything I do, I spend a lot of time in the beginning planning, and try to just get the planning done. I have a pretty fixed schedule in my head or on paper that I'm gonna stick to, and then I don't think about it anymore. So everything's offloaded to, well, I made a schedule and the only thing I need to do day-to-day is stick to that schedule, be heads down and commit to that.”

Track your progress. “Oftentimes I find when doing big projects, or pursuing something a little more ambitious, it's really difficult when you're in it and you can't see that improvement. And I like to see results, I like to see cause and effect—you know, I did A then B happened. And having that written out here is really nice so I can see, oh, I really improved from week eight to week one.

Further reading

“Mamba mentality”

“I've been thinking about Kobe Bryant a lot recently and his ‘Mamba mentality.’ It's a whole thing, a whole genre. He's known in the NBA for being the hardest working player to ever exist. I find that stuff really, really inspiring.”