“When you’re wrestling a gorilla, you don’t quit when you get tired. You quit when the gorilla gets tired.”

The people in Fargo, N.D., have worked long hours in subfreezing temperatures, trying to fill and place enough sandbags to protect their town from a flood.

They are using strength that they never knew they had.

After all, if you had asked those people a week ago if they could ever work as long and as hard as they have, they probably would have said, “No way.”

But all of that changed in the face of a great cause.

There is a saying that if your “why” is big enough, you will find the “how.”

Now those people have a great “why.” They are trying to save their homes, their belongings, their way of life. No wonder they have such reserves of power.

You can use this secret in your training. It’s one thing to just practice. It’s another thing to practice with a goal in mind. It’s still another thing to practice with a mission in mind.

You’ve heard the expression that someone is performing as if on a mission. That means they are extra focused, extra motivated, extra everything.

So if you want to accomplish great things, find a mission.

Coach Tully’s Extra Point: Anson Dorance, coach of the University of North Carolina soccer program, has developed a wonderful sense of mission. Read about it in “The Vision of a Champion.”