Self-limiting Beliefs.
We are told we can do anything, or most people whose accomplishments we idolize did not start with or possess anything we do not have.
Dutifully, our minds race to becoming President of the United States, inventor of the next iPhone, or owning a private island in the Maldives. Regretfully, we do not immediately consider becoming spouse or parent of the year.
Aside from our misplaced priorities, we have not even been elected as the local dog-catcher, know how to silence our phone reliably, and are still paying the mortgage on our first house.
Given the gap between our current state and our unlimited aspirations, what is the relevant application of avoiding self-limiting beliefs? It is setting realistic yet challenging goals without regard to how they might be accomplished.
You dream of starting an online resale store but know “nothing” about Shopify, geotargeted ads, or SEO and view acquiring such knowledge as an insurmountable obstacle. You can take comfort and gain confidence in knowing virtually all founders of e-commerce marketplaces were in the same position shortly before selecting their domain name.
The cruelest consequence of self-limiting beliefs is not convincing yourself you cannot be President but convincing yourself you cannot do something just beyond your current capability.
How High?
The size of your goal is highly dependent on your predisposition.
Some shoot for the stars so they will at least reach the moon. They require a seemingly impossible goal to motivate them to start, maintain their interest in the pursuit, and achieve the highest outcome.
Others race to see how many minutes they can arrive earlier than the estimated time of arrival displayed on the GPS device. They focus on how much they will exceed their targets. They would not pursue any objective they could not reasonably expect to reach or give up when an annual goal becomes mathematically impossible to achieve.
Which approach yields the better result? The “audacious” person pledges to work out every day, while the “over-achiever” settles for five days per week. Both pursue their aspirations fueled by different passions and likely achieve similar results.
But What About?
What is the correct approach for pursuits with innumerable levels of potential outcomes?
Is it acceptable for the artist to sell her paintings from the walls of the local coffee shop, or must she aim to feature them in New York’s high-brow art galleries?
How do you advise the writer who started victimizing his friends several years ago with emails about his travels and church journey and then expanded to the world wide web with a blog encouraging readers to contemplate various life issues?
Given his limited writing experience and lack of knowledge concerning book publishing, is it enough for him to create a book with content he is pleased with and considers worthy of a reader’s investment? Or, must he write with the ambition to reach the spot reserved for one book – #1 on the NYT best-seller list?
Can it be a little bit of both without unduly distracting or demoralizing (given its improbability)? That is, writing “my” book and envisioning, but not requiring, Oprah gushing over her favorite part while her viewers crash the Amazon website with orders.
The good news is that we do not need visions of sugarplums dancing in our heads. The guy who started an online bookstore could not have dreamed his drivers would cover our front porches with boxes containing every conceivable good twenty years later.
Perhaps the moral of the story is not to invest too much time agonizing over the size of the goal but to set ones requiring a breakthrough – meaningful growth and progress. Pursuing such a goal delivers you to the exact place you need to go. The book may only improve me and serve as your doorstop, or I may email you the air date of my Oprah appearance.
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With harmony between unlimited and reasonable, you can go to the next step…
