Seeing Through the Lies of Limitation and How to Overcome It

Every day, you come across some of the most amazing things people can do. The trick jumpers, the martial artists and the math prodigies that you see online make you go:

”Man, I couldn’t do that even if I tried”

To your reaction, I ask you this – HAVE YOU EVEN TRIED ANYTHING YET?

By adding the “not or ‘nt” to the word, you have imposed a limitation on yourself. As a result, you aren’t even willing to try.

Have you imagined what would have happened if Thomas Alva Edison Said the same thing? The guy couldn’t light the bulb......10,000 times. If he had stopped and thought to himself “I can’t” at one of his failures, you wouldn’t be reading this blog on any gadget, and considering how lazy I am when it comes to using pen and paper, you wouldn't be reading it anyway.

To bring it closer to home, what if Dara Singh said the same thing when he fought King Kong? I bet someone else would have been on our minds as Hanumanji.

Let's take to even more extreme, and talk about a man named Nick Vujicic. Nick was born with the tetra-Amelia syndrome – born without arms and legs.  Now, if you try to imagine how his life was, you would feel pity for him. But he rose to the occasion and became one of the best motivational speakers on the entire planet.

In being what he is, he has proved that limitations are lies that you either tell yourself or the world tells you

“It’s a lie to think you aren’t good enough. It’s a lie to think you are not worth anything.”- Nick Vujicic.

Through this blog, let us take a look into why limitations are a lie.

Seeing through the lies of limitations

Limitations are the greatest lies. Why they are the greatest lies – because it has stunted the evolution of most people in the world.

These are the 99 percenters, the ones that complain; the ones that while want to move forward, are limited by the one percenter.

As a result, they tell lies to themselves like: -

“Oh yeah, he is a genius. That’s why he has got it all”

“The guy must’ve born with the silver spoon in his/her mouth”

“Man, he is crushing us, and using us to make his mark”

Well, of course, he is. That’s why he has placed you between the field of limitations, where every grain is a sermon of what you can’t do and every bit of manure is made out of your crushed dreams.

However, he – the one percenter – didn’t do it all. You yourself watered the field to let the grains of limitation grow around you. However, it’s a field of lies, and you can burn it if you can see through these lies:

1. Limitations are just imaginations: When you see a task that appears too big to you, you disconnect it with humanity. You start to believe that the guy must have some kind of really special, superhuman talent to accomplish it. As a result, you don’t even see the one doing the task as a human. It’s just your imagination. The guy doing the things you see so difficult has done it through practice, something that can be achieved even by you if you are tenacious enough.
2. Limitations are born out of fear: Fear incapacitates you. When you are afraid of something, you don’t want to do it. Be in this fear long enough and soon, this “don’t want” turns into a “can’t” attitude -- creating a mental block in your head, making you believe that you are limited. Continue to keep this fear alive and you’ll be limited forever.
3. Limitations are born out of lack of patience: “If you can’t do it right now, you can never do it” – it’s what I was told when I was 17 years old. I got insecure and tried to do it over and over again. But, I couldn’t. After so many failures, I put my hands up and surrendered. It was only a month ago that I finally was able to do the headstand – the “it”. It taught me that my limitation came because I was told I couldn’t do it right then and there. 
4.  Limitations are born out of not leaving the zone: You know what “zone” I am talking about, right? It's a fairyland place that's just too comfortable for you to leave. You believe that if you leave it, you’ll never be able to return to it. It’s much like the fear of going into the office -- believing that if you leave, you won’t have a home.

All of these tell you one thing, Limitations are self-imposed. It’s much like a self-imposed exile, where you have compelled yourself to resign within your ZONE. Time to get out of it!

Seeing through and burning the lies of limitation is good and all, but what is the practical approach to it? How can one overcome the limitations if a limiting mindset is entrenched in our brain so deep and for so long?

Overcoming the limitations

There is a saying from Kung Fu Panda: control is an illusion. However, that’s only half of the wisdom. Yes, Control IS an illusion, but it’s an illusion you can control. You can turn it off, and take control of your life. When you do that, the shroud of limitation is lifted and you can finally move forward:

1. Have an overarching spiritual goal in your life. 

It’s a big thing to have a goal, and it’s certainly not easy. That’s why, don’t stick to material goals, and stick with the ones that are more spiritual in nature.

I shall not bow down facing bad things.

I will always make eye contact.

I will try to wake up every day with new energy.

When you look deeply, these spiritual goals are short-term material goals that you NEED TO WISH FOR. Wake up each and conduct yourself as per these goals. Soon, you’ll forget anything remote about limitations.

 

2. Time to say bye-bye to the comfort zone:

Comfort zones are well....comfortable. They are like cushions of mental and physical degradation and decadence that’s so warm to just relax in. Hmmmmmm!!

But, this cushion will soon put itself over you and choke your self-respect.

So, unless you want it to happen, get out of your comfort zone right now. How? Do the very thing you are being lazy about; after you finished reading this article.

 

3. Don’t be afraid of making mistakes:

There is nothing to learn if you are not willing to make and accept your mistakes. Mistakes are failures, and like Yoda said, they are the “greatest teachers”. Don’t be afraid to make them, for they will tell you how to improve upon them. 

But make sure that you can motivate yourself to rectify your mistakes.

4. Work Smart:

Hard work is a good thing. It relaxes you and gives you confidence – making you believe that you can overcome your limitations. However, to turn this belief into a reality, you need to work smart. Smart work requires thinking about your what's holding you back, and asking yourself “why”. Pretty soon, you'll realize that the only answers you have are excuses. Stop making them and you stop letting your limitations stop you. 

Conclusion

Limitations are the lies that you tell yourself every day. If you can’t see them as lies, it affects everything and everyone around. However, as soon as you realize one simple truth: nothing is impossible, you will have many ways to overcome them.

"If you always put limit on everything you do, physical or anything else. It will spread across into your work and life. There are no limits. There are only plateaus, and you must not stay there, you must go beyond them" –Bruce Lee.

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Why and How to Motivate Yourself

Do you like being told what to do?

I don’t. In fact, I find it a tad bit patronizing. Being someone who cherishes himself to be a know-it-all, I find being told what to do annoying. As a result, I frown at it, grind my teeth and try my best to ignore it. It’s especially true when I am being told things that I have already heard so many times.

You can do it.

You can be so much more.

Clean your room.

Even though I don’t like hearing these words, sometimes I have to listen. Why? It’s because for better or for worse, these words act as an external source of motivation for me.

However, the world is become increasingly self-centric. And it’s not wrong in any way. Independence is the new currency of today’s economy and becoming self-serving and self-managing is the way to succeed in this world. Therefore, it’s time to look for an internal source of motivation.

This is where self-motivation comes in.

Why you should look for internal motivation?

Self-motivation has been the common denominator in the lives of several success stories. While you can look at the old entrepreneurs to attest to this fact, it’s the new entrepreneurs that inspire us to self-motivate.

Jack Ma, the former CEO of Alibaba, a multi-national conglomerate holding company that is redefining our today, had the most humble beginnings. Raised by two musician storytellers, his childhood was spent in a lower middle class household and his adult life was dealing with constant rejections – 30 of them.

30 failed job attempts! It’s safe to say that Jack Ma didn’t have much when it comes to an external source of motivation. However, he still carried forward. But, he failed again – twice this time at establishing his own ventures.

It wasn’t until 1995 that his visit to USA turned into his ultimate crucible – his eureka moment. Introduction to internet changed him. The first words he searched for was “beer”. He saw several results, many of them with Chinese symbols on them. But, when he entered “China”, there were no results. It was then that his motivation gave him the goal that changed the world forever.

Alibaba started as a result of this motivation. Today, its worth is $36.2 billion. As for Jack Ma, he stands as a beacon of hope and motivation for aspiring entrepreneurs all over the world with being ranked as one of the greatest leaders of the world by Fortune magazine.

Just imagine what would'vee happened if Jack Ma solely relied upon external sources of motivation. He almost had none of it. But, the screams of de-motivating circumstances in his life were loud enough to shush the sources of external motivation.

He pushed himself forward. He carried on with style and grace and now, he has run so far that the world is ready to follow him.

Keep Fighting, keep changing yourself and don’t complain- Jack Ma

Jack Ma isn’t the only one. Today, all entrepreneurs rode the stallion of internal motivation to push themselves forward and become successful. All of them are:

1. Pushed forward with a diamond-like resolve.
2. Believed in what they are doing
3. Persisted in the face of rejections
4. Looked at rejections and failures as an opportunistic spring-board to jump higher and achieve more.

Despite being the greatest in this field, they are still humans. It’s time that you and I take a lesson or two from them for self-motivation.

Introspect and motivate yourself

Introspection is a way of looking into yourself and form an honest opinion about your being.

Am I doing it right?

Am I doing it wrong?

Am I achieving all that I could?

Am I living my life to the fullest potential?

I bet that even when you introspect, most of the answers you have are filled with excuses. Don’t worry. Even, I lie to myself. But when it’s your future at stake, pushing through these lies and getting to the truth becomes the core of pushing yourself forward and achieving what you want to achieve.

This is the very first step towards self-motivation -- learning to be honest with yourself. Once you've learned that, you can follow the tips that I have researched and now trying to apply in my own life.

1. Get started: If you have a task, just start doing it. Motivation will make you perform the task in a more flavourful and favourable manner, but you don’t need it to start your task. Just start doing what you are doing, by 2 or 3 minutes, motivation will catch up to you.
2. Play an energetic music: Music creates excitement in your brain. Sometimes, it can make you cry, sometimes it can make your life and sometimes, it burns a fire within you to push forward. There are several epic soundtracks available online, which you when listen to will make you rise like a phoenix.

       Checkout this Two steps from hell playlist to start

3. Don’t ignore external motivation: Yes, you heard it correctly. One of the best ways to motivate you is to look for external sources of motivation. be in the presence of positive. All you need is to get inspired by them and let their positive energy burn a fire of motivation in you.
4. Learn to forgive yourself: Perfection is an enigma. No one is perfect and it expecting it creates a load of problems. But pursuing it is the way to success. You are not perfect, and pursuing it will make you stumble. When that happens, the motivation can go downhill. Grant yourself some levity, and forgive yourself.
5. Look at failures as opportunities: Failures, rejections and problems are problems whose solutions are yet to be found. In other words, they are opportunities that once realized, can be a propeller to the rocket to your dreams.
6. Look at yourself in the mirror and realize how far you’ve come: While looking and attending only to the past is wrong, comparing the past and present can be productive. What were you yesterday and what you are today are different versions of you. If new you feel worse, breath deeper and hope for a better today. If it feels good, be happy and push forward.
7. Remind yourself the reason you are working: Having a clear cut goal in life removes many mental blocks you feel when trying to move forward. Find something to focus on and you'll be motivated easily. With each step you take and each fall you make, remind yourself of your end goal. Hunger for it, and let propel you.
8. Focus on just one thing: It’s cool and stylish to be a multi-tasking ninja. But it’s also quite difficult. If you are down in the motivation department, focus on one thing only. Make it your endgame. It’ll become your clear cut goal and you’ll soon be loaded with self-motivation.
9. Clear your surroundings to have a clear mind: If your mind is filled with clutter, making room for motivation can be difficult. As what you think is mostly inspired by what you see, make sure that your surroundings are clean. It will remove much of the clutter from your brain. It gives you the ability to think clearly. And when you can think clearly, you have a better chance to absorb motivation from your work.

Conclusion

The world is getting increasingly self-serving. To survive here, you need motivation, and except some motivational speakers, the only way to get it is looking within yourself. Let your body become an absorbing instrument and use the surroundings and what lies within to motivate yourself.

Self motivation is a result of maturity. And maturity comes after you've learned the way to accept your failures. Learn to accept your first very first failure and success will be within your reach. 

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How to Accept Failure for the First Time

It was 6:30. It was time for me to leave the office. It should’ve been an ecstatic feeling – leaving the office. But that wasn’t the case. Something was wrong. As I exited the office doors with my colleague, there was something slowing me down.

“We should make our way through CCD to the bus stop” – I recommended to my brisk-walking colleague.

“Sure” – and we walked on the path decided.

The reason for my sudden attention towards Café Coffee Day (CCD) wasn’t something I craved. I am not a big fan of this place. The reason for my focus was the recent harrowing news: “CEO of Café Coffee Day Committed Suicide”.

Newspapers and articles had a lot of theories. The most common among them was pressure and feeling of abject failure. It was then that I started browsing LinkedIn. One of my connections there wrote an interesting post about the failure to accept first-time failure.

In the post, she stated how facing failure for the first time can be difficult for someone who hasn’t been developed for hardships. It made me think of when I was in 6^th grade, of not passing in first term mathematics. Of how it made me feel.

I’m this blog, we are going to look back at the time I faced my first instance of failure. Along the way, we will discover the importance of accepting failure. And finally, we will know what’s to be done to take that leap, and accept it for the first time.

Let’s talk about how does it feel to fail for the first time

6^th grade was a long time ago. But I remember it like it was yesterday. You always remember your first time. Tears didn’t even wait for a second before pouring out.

What will I tell mumma?

I am a good student. She can’t fail me!

Sir Maarenge!

Each thought was coupled with a heavy crying and a heavy breath. It felt like I couldn’t breathe. The world was spinning. I cried so much that the teacher took pity on me – and passed me. It wasn’t any better. I mean, what would a 90 percenter do with 40 marks? It still felt like a failure then.

So, let me list what it felt like?

1. Denial: I refused to acknowledge that I failed. I must’ve gone to the teacher 6 times to get the paper re-checked. Of course, I was rebuffed but now I realize that I was in denial.
2. Dread: I was afraid of how my parents would react. I was afraid of how my teachers would say about me. And, I was afraid of not being able to go anywhere from there.
3. Self-pity: I didn’t know what the word meant back in those days, but I know now. It was self-pity. Feeling continuously sorry for my self was a nice comfortable place. I felt like I am this faceless, hopeless, little kid that couldn’t just make it.

All I wanted at that moment was to go back in time, redo my exam and change my marks. It got so bad that in moment, I started to day dream about it.

And then, it arrived. A defence mechanism that could conquer all the three points. It was so powerful, that if I had stuck with it, I would’ve destroyed my whole life.

‘Excuses!’

Excuses are great diversions from the truth. They, literally hold our face and turn it away from our shortcomings. They are the lies that we ourselves can believe in to feel better. For a 6^th grader, it’s an easy path. Why won’t it be? We don’t have any responsibility when we are 12 years old.

However, it made accepting that first failure a bit easier. Don’t think the same will work for a grown-up. Excuses are believable lies and they end up holding more than just our lives in their hands. Therefore, we need to look at a better way to accept the first-time failure.

Accepting first failure is the first step of emotional growth

Now, it would seem odd to you as I started the blog talking about an adult and now, I am using the 12-year-old me as a platform to tell you how it feels. Don’t worry about it! It turns out, not excepting failure is a sign that we haven’t grown up yet.

If you doubt it, just remember Chatur (Silencer) Ramalingam from 3 idiots.

Accepting failure for the first time is a path of actual emotional growth. It’s a part of life that every successful soul has to understand.

Sustaining success is impossible without facing and accepting your first failure

Secret of accepting failure for the first time

Traditionally, someone like me would explain the 7 stages of depression to you. But, I won’t. Failure is not depression. It’s not a bad thing. Once you truly understand what failure is, you’ll accept it:

1. The first failure is a blessing in disguise: Your very first failure is a gift to you. It’s a step presented to you to move forward. Granted, sometimes, failures are going to make you re-evaluate your choices, but that’s what they are here for. To help us look back on choices.
2. First failure is a disruption in your life: Disruption means disturbance. However, in this era, it has been seen as something that can shake the system. A disruption is a wake-up call for you. It’s an alarm that pushes you with a strange renewed strength that you are not aware of.
3. First failure is a sign of your growth: Recently, a quote was sent to me, it said “If you are walking too fast without any issues, something is wrong”. As soon as you face such issues, you’re going to look for solutions to tackle them. It’ll open your mind and make you more mature.
4. First failure presents you with opportunities: Sometimes, we focus so much on the failure that we don’t look around it. My content was recently rejected by someone, but at the same time, I was told why I was rejected. I finally found the exact point where I have to focus on. If such a thing can happen to me, it can definitely happen to you.

Don’t focus on failure, focus on why you failed and it’ll become a greatest gift that you ever received.

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