“You gain strength, courage and confidence by every experience in which you really stop to look fear in the face…do the thing you think you cannot do.” ~ Eleanor Roosevelt
While there is a world of difference between your actual limitations and limitations you’ve accepted for yourself that don’t really exist, the two are identical until you’ve overcome the latter. It may be easy for another to discern which is which, particularly if they have transcended that limitation in their own experience, but so long as you have not broken through to the other side of the limitation it will be as real as any brick wall that stands in your path.
Most of the false limitations we hold are mental or emotional blocks, self-imposed glass ceilings that are hinged to our experience by fear. The fear takes on many forms – fear of failure, fear of success, fear of humiliation and so on – but it is made of the same stuff regardless of its flavor.
It’s easy to psych yourself out of a personal victory, to over-think something that requires not thinking, but action. Your mind is a marvelous thing, but if you’re not careful, it’s easy to get in the habit of over-analyzing to the point that any deliberating becomes debilitating. Yes, we need to think, but when it comes to areas of chronic weakness or limitation, sometimes it’s best to act first and think later. More often than not the thinking you will do after the fact will likely focus on how incredibly easy it was.
Gregory Hake 
We live in a world of action, and act we must. There is an art to action no doubt, many impediments may stand in the way, timing is crucial, discretion is vital, wisdom the aged spirit of right action – so act we must in the end to the blessing of all that stands before us!
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I Love how the Truth puts things in perspective, so simply, every time!
Thanks Gregg, you have armed me with a brick that’s got a glass ceilings name all over it!!!
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Uh-oh. Stay away from my greenhouse and my car! Have a great day, Joshua.
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Thanks Greg, your words go the heart of the matter. I hear the words loud and clear look fear in the face and do what is required!
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Bullseye! Thanks Dr. Steve.
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This reminds me of a point that I read in Zig Ziglars book. He explained that when fleas are put into jars they will jump and hit the lid. After so many times of hitting the lid they will not jump as high, even though they are fully capable. We are capable of so much, it is incredible how powerful the mind is. We just have to remember that our “lid” is self imposed and we can easily jump beyond these limitations.
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I haven’t heard that analogy. Great point! The mind is a powerful thing, but it is terribly easy to impair its function through bad habits and myopic vision.
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These are great points – they’ve already helped me map out my day with a plan to avoid the common pits I tend to fall into. Awesome morning meditation!!
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Good to hear and glad to help, Chris!
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So true!!!!
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very helpful, thanks!
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Once you challenge yourself the precedent is set. If I stop to think before I meet a challege it’s to remember how favorably it worked for me in the past. If it seems a particularly daunting task I’ll review my past successes and remind myself what I’ve already proved capable of. I’m lucky to have a spouse that is also a constant encouragement of what I can do. Those you choose as confidents will also aid or annihilate you in this process.
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It is important to choose your friends wisely!
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OMG…. I am really right in the middle of this one. Big project, lots of analyzing and no movement due to my own fears. I have seen myself work through things as you have said, just start the process and act wherever you can find a starting point and the thinking that is crippling you will flow naturally as you put one step in from of the other. For whatever reason this one has been a challenge for me, so today it is time for me to move in a direction, any direction on this project so the glass ceiling that has been self imposed is shattered!
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Hang in there…don’t think/worry about it too much. Set the time and space aside to deal with it and go for it!
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If we didn’t have any self-imposed limitations, so much would be freed up in ourselves. This is something worth spending some time considering. I’d rather find creative ways to work round a real limitation than waste time finding ways around one that I’ve fabricated for myself.
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I agree. Most limitations people assume to be real/permanent are neither. Thanks for your comment.
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Thank you for this, we do defeat ourselves first of all, don’t we. We are defeated within our own minds, so we feel that we don’t even need to try. ” It can not be done” we say to ourselves. And we become lost in our self-pity and doubts. When all along, we already have what we need to accomplish what is being asked of us. And can not see it for all of our looking. When if we could only look with our hearts, and not our minds, it would all look so possible. We create the walls that become our prisons, and only we can take them down.
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Well said, Carmen. Thank you!
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It feels nice to see someone overcome a limitation that you knew they had but they didn’t see, but it is amazing to look back and see yourself do it in hindsight as well. I really appreciate all the people in my life who have helped me move through barriers; without them I probably wouldn’t have made it through many of them.
I have had the experience of psyching myself out of a personal victory, though. It feels bad when you put something off and then realize that you missed the boat. The trick to moving through things like this is that when the realization comes for the need to change something, the change needs to be made immediately, and the details can be worked out later. When you do it that way there is less chance that your mind will talk the rest of you out of what you k now you should be doing.
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If you haven’t overcome at least two or three limitations in a given week I would venture to say that you haven’t taken full advantage of the time!
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