Question your limitations!

I had a woman tell me that she was told women can’t get the ab definition I was showing in my picture.

I’ve had people tell me they gave up lifting because they were told they simply shouldn’t after x age…

Do not be an Elephant tied up.

I found this story the other day and thought it so highlighted how we can all hold ourselves back or even let things others have told us hold us back….

A man was walking nearby to a group of elephants that was halted by a small rope tied to their front leg. He was amazed by the fact that the huge elephants are not even making an attempt to break the rope and set themselves free.

He saw an elephant trainer standing beside them and he expressed his puzzled state of mind. The trainer said “when they are very young and much smaller we use the same size rope to tie them and, at that age, it’s enough to hold them.

As they grow up, they are conditioned to believe they cannot break away. They believe the rope can still hold them, so they never try to break free.

Don’t create your own limitations.

So often we hold ourselves back because of one mistake, one failure, one comment that we aren’t good at something.

We let a barrier that may have even been there before, hold us back forever, never re-testing what we can accomplish.

We let a “false belief” hold us back forever.

We condition ourselves to believe we are bad at something, that we can’t make a change.

But there is ALWAYS a way to improve.

The question is, how can we overcome these self imposed limitations. How can we get ourselves to question and test that rope to break free of it finally?

I want to outline a few key ways we can always keep testing our boundaries and questioning our own limitations.

1: We’ve all heard “You’re only as strong as your weakest link” so keep working on that weak link!

The best way to overcome any limitation is to improve what we aren’t good at, especially if that limitation is something we feel holds us back from accomplishing our goal.

Face the things you don’t like, the moves or tasks that are most challenging head on.

Break them down into pieces. Start by doing the parts you enjoy more or that are easier, but start addressing those weak links instead of running from them.

Bad balance? Work at it. The moves may be uncomfortable but the more you do the more comfortable with them you’ll become. Pick exercises even to start that are closer to your comfort zone.

Over time you may realize your balance wasn’t really bad, you just never PRACTICED it!

2: Realize you can always expand your realm!

Ok so let’s just say you can’t truly overcome a certain barrier. The rope could grow stronger as the elephant did.

You can still take more and more ownership of the realm you have. You can grow that capacity and you can always test it.

Maybe over time you can’t break it, but you may get an extra inch out of it.

The key point is, you won’t know until you’ve tried.

So take ownership of the full area you can and constantly push back at those limits!

It’s the only way to improve even what you currently have for the best potential outcome.

3: Assess why you feel this barrier exists.

We should constantly be questioning our own beliefs. Testing our own limits.

What’s the fun in not improving?

And I think the more we can take changes to reflect on our feelings and beliefs, the more we do realize how many are self imposed or could be outdated!

Think about how many things you were told once early on that, now because of other life experiences, could hold no relevance.

Why not constantly take time to reassess and reflection?

4: Simply force yourself to try new things!

Honestly, every once in awhile, do something that slightly terrifies you. That pushes you outside your comfort zone.

It will make you see how capable you are and may help you even mentally challenge and question other limitations you’ve put on yourself.

Part of life is the journey, the experiences we CHOOSE to have. Realize that by just wanting to improve, we can achieve so much even if we do fall short.

But at least we got the experiences of the trial and learning! And it may lead to something else amazing we couldn’t have predicted!

SUMMARY:

It’s key we are always questioning our own beliefs about ourselves. Assessing our weak links to improve and grow.

There is always more we can do.

Sure it may never be perfect, we won’t ever fully be free of limitations, but we can constantly expand where we can roam! 😉