You often hear sports stars talk about giving a hundred percent in every training session and every time they go out on the field for a match, representing their team. This is seen as a pre-requisite for success in today's world of sport. 

Coaches prefer players with moderate talent but who can consistently give their hundred percent over highly talented players that don't have the same commitment. 

Giving a hundred percent is something that's completely in our control. This is what we can influence. The result that materialises is affected by a lot of externalities beyond our own effort. 

Nonetheless, in other spheres of life, outside of physical sports, we rarely hear about giving it a hundred percent. 

Be it at school or the workplace, or in a new skill we're looking to acquire, the same rigourous commitment will do us a lot of good.

Perhaps it is easier to do this with physical sports because we get intuitive and immediate feedback from our bodies that tells us whether we're giving it a hundred percent. And not as easy with knowledge work because we don't as easily realise whether we're giving it a hundred percent. 

Maybe a good start is to understand what our hundred percent looks like in various spheres of our lives.