get out of your own way

More often than not, it’s not what you don’t have that holds you back; it’s what you have but don’t use… because you don’t believe you have it! What do you believe to be true about yourself? What do you believe you are worthy of? What are you willing to try, to risk, to get what you want? What WON’T you do to get what you want? To be clear, I’m not talking about anything unethical, I’m talking about the emotionally scary, possibly embarrassing, maybe even “humiliating” public failure type of thing. Or the hard, hard work, long, long hours for uncertain reward type of thing. Are you willing to think and dream beyond your own experience levels?

Here is a list of my limiting beliefs: I believe I’m an introvert, I believe I’m a morning person who runs out of energy at night, I believe that I’m not a great athlete, that I don’t like to work out or lift weights, that I’ve symptoms of ADHD, that I’m mildly dyslexic (numbers on paper sing to me but I’m challenged to hear them and write them down and to spell words I often have to visualize them in my head and then write them down), my pronunciation is atrocious (my reading vocabulary far exceeds my speaking), I can’t sing, I’ve a weakness for dark chocolate, I can’t remember names or faces, and I often start projects and don’t finish them.

Those limits may or may not be true but I’ve put many of them aside when they stood in the way of goals I deeply, truly, passionately wanted. I may be an introvert but if being the leader my company needs means that I get out and meet and greet, then I do! Yes, I wake up every morning full of vim and vigor, usually before the Sun and yes, my energy can flag at night. But for years I would work a full 10 or 12 hour day and then go home and put a few hours in doing the books. In law school, I put in the time, much of it late night. Why?  Because I had to in order to achieve an overarching goal. Yes, I have a hard time sitting still so I work in a field with many opportunities to get outside and I keep meetings short (lots of side benefits there!). Yes, completing tasks is a challenge, that is why I created an organization to implement my ideas and carry through. Yes, I love dark chocolate but I love being thin more (graduated from high school at 150 lbs and little over 45 years later I’ve shot up to 151, sometimes 152, this morning 150.75 lbs! And I’ve stepped on a scale virtually every day for the past three decades. Feedback, the Breakfast of Champions!).

The point is that your tendency does not have to be your destiny and there are ALWAYS work arounds! Let’s hear it for spell checker! Ok, I’ve not found a solution for my off key voice but if it were vital to a goal, I’m sure I’d find a way to become a much better singer; my sis and dad have beautiful singing voices so there is something in me somewhere I could find and develop! 

Closing Quotes:

“When a man puts a limit on what he will do he puts a limit on what he can do.” – Unknown

“Think you can, think you can’t, you are right.” – Henry Ford

“All that a man achieves and all that he fails to achieve is the direct result of his own thoughts.” – James Allen, As a Man Thinketh 

As always, I share what I most want/need to learn. – Nathan S. Collier