Reach Higher

I went to an uplifting lecture a couple of years ago on a college campus and the speaker told us to hold our hands over our heads. We raised them. Then for the next 60 seconds or so he kept urging us to make sure that we were reaching as high as possible. Then, he paused and with great energy said "Reach Higher." The whole room moved as we each shot our hands past our "maximum" height, just a little higher.
Over the last couple of months I have had several daily goals. One is to go to bed between 10:30 and 11:00 and the other was after I got home from school to work for a half hour on school work and another half hour on one of my own projects. So in other words after I got home between 4:30 and 5:30 I would be productive for at least an additional hour before going to bed.  Most days I would succeed, but sometimes it seemed hard to fit it in.
This week I decided I could do better and made my goal at least two and a half hours of productivity, plus going to bed a little earlier. It was a struggle and I didn't quite make it two days but the other three days I exceeded my new goal (by smidgens). I did less entertainment and more projects and I feel like I got a lot done this week.
I guess it is easy to sell ourselves short sometimes. Our hands are up, isn't that good enough? Or maybe they are even as high as we can reach at least until we try to reach harder...