The determination to achieve anything one sets their mind to can be marvellous. Self-belief and confidence in your end goals can provide you with enough strength to see your goals come to fruition. What is being discussed here isn’t magic spells or super-powers, but rather, it is the ever-enduring strength of human will-power that has driven us forward for many centuries.

Don’t believe in the power of human-willpower? Here are stories of individuals that have gone extra-ordinary lengths to achieve feats that serve as a testament to how far will-power can drive someone forward, even if the odds are stacked against them:

• Joe Simpson, Touched by the Void.

To climb a mountain is a risky endeavor. A multitude of things could go wrong during the climb. For  British climber Joe Simpson, climbing the Siula Grande nearly claimed his life, after falling into the side of the mountain when him and his friend Simon Yates were dangling helplessly along an edge, and Yates needed to cut the line tethered to Simpson to save his own life.

Simpson was in constant pain from his injuries, deprived of any food and water, and was starting to experience terrifyingly vivid hallucinations. Even so, Joe Simpson forged onwards, crawling and dragging himself down the crevasse of the mountains in hopes of finding a way out. It was an exhausting 8 kilometer journey lasting three whole days, until finally, his painstakingly long journey came to an end when he reached camp.

To this day, it is a remarkable feat of survival and a prime example of the extraordinary limits of human endurance, and what one can achieve when ignoring them.

If climbing a mountain was a difficult feat in itself, how about breaking one? Dashrath Manjhi, affectionately known as the Mountain Man, was a poor laborer born in a village called Gahlour in Bihar India, near Gaya.

After the heartbreaking death of his wife, who failed to receive treatment for an injury because the closest doctor to his village was 70 kilometers, Manjhi decided that he didn’t want anyone else to feel the excruciating pain he felt from the loss of his wife, and started his 22 year journey of digging the road.

Manjhi alone had managed to carve 110 meter long, 7.6 meter deep, and 9.1 meter wide road through the mountain in Gahlour hills. Working day in and day out between 1960 to 1982, his determination had allowed him to reduce the distance between Wazirganj blocks in Gaya village and Atri. It went from a large 70 kilometer impasse to an easily traveled link spanning a few kilometers.

Manjhi’s story serves as a reminder of not just the amazingness of human will-power, but the strength love and compassion can bring to an individual who truly cares for the wellbeing of the people around them.

Continuing on with the story of a man wanting to better the conditions for people around him, we have Wang Enlin. Wang is a poor Chinese farmer who had noticed the land for growing crops had begun to degrade. This degradation stemmed from a factory situated near his village in Yushutan, owned by the state-backed Qihua corporation, who have recklessly dumped toxic waste to the point where the soil cannot be used for a long time.

Wang had appealed several times to the officials, to which he was promptly dismissed as he lacked evidence to support his claimed.

Desperate and determined, Wang would need a lawyer to see his case through, but he couldn’t afford one. As such, Wang decided to try things himself, by beginning the mountainous task of studying law alone. A task that would span between 2001 to 2016…nearly 16 years.

It wouldn’t be an easy task for Mr Wang, who had only received 3 years of education in school before quitting. But that did not stop the elderly farmer from pursuing his goal of saving his village. He would visit libraries, read and absorb several pieces of law-based literature, and write as much information as he needed by hand. He even bartered with the librarians he read the books from, by offering corn in exchange for being granted the time to study in the library.

Eventually in 2007, a significant Chinese law firm had reached out to Wang and his neighbors to offer legal advice without needing payment. The law firm even helped file a petition for a proper court hearing. Though the court processed the petition in 2015, Wang’s relentless gathering of evidence and his pursuit for justice helped him successfully win the first round of the court case. The Angangxi District Court of Qiqihar had ordered the Qihua group to compensate Mr Wang and his neighbors in the Yushutan village 820,000 yuan (around a $105,000).

Though the case may not have been entirely won, Mr Wang’s spirit remains steadfast in his decision to have justice for his village. “We will certainly win. Even if we lose, we will continue to battle,” he commented to a Chinese reporter.

For many athletes, participating in the Olympics is an achievement they spend their whole lives working for.  To win a medal is a huge honor for them. To win gold, it is the pinnacle of their career. Vanderlei Cordeiro de Lima was in the cusps of winning the 2004 gold medal for the 35 kilometer marathon. This would have been the crowning achievement to his journey as an athlete for Brazil. Truly, a goal that he would have cherished for the remainder of his life.

But, just a few paces short of the finishing line, de Lima was attacked and grappled by a spectator. To be interrupted like is devastating for any runner, as it interrupts the rhythm they develop over the course of a marathon. De Lima had every opportunity to attack the spectator back, to push back and return the violence that robbed him off 10 seconds for his gold medal he worked so hard for. But he only forged onward, ignoring the spectator as if he were nothing but a pebble in his marathon.

Despite the interruption, De Lima managed to earn a bronze medal for his marathon. Many had called and appealed for De Lima to receive gold, but the Olympic committee rejected. Brazilian beach volleyball Emmanuel Rego even offered to give his gold medal to De Lima, who rejected it and humbly stated: “I can’t accept Emanuel’s medal. I’m happy with mine, it’s bronze but means gold”.

De Lima eventually went on to receive a different medal, the Pierre de Coubertin medal, an award given to people displaying exemplary sportsmanship during the Olympics. He even had the honors of lighting the Olympic torch during the 2016 Rio Olympics. Not only does it take a lot of training and will-power to compete for a marathon, but it also takes lot of will-power to remain so humble even when robbed of a pride that would have your name etched into history books. De Lima’s story stands tall as an example for extraordinary sportsmanship.

In conclusion, these stories may make it seem like the people featured in them are super-human, but really, they’re just like you and me. They’re all people, all entirely human. They push themselves for their goals, they push themselves to help the people they care about, and they push themselves to be better humans. We too can achieve our own goals if we set our heart and mind into it. When there is a will, we have the power to rock the entire world, if it ends up creating a way for our goals.

All it takes is a push.