I’m reading Gay Hendrick’s The Big Leap and the early chapters already break down and discuss the idea of how we limit ourselves.  For those who tend to make progress and then self-sabotage, or for those who have some success and then see it dwindle away, this book dives into those behaviors in order to move forward into a healthier state where we no longer question our worth.  The entire premise of a big leap is to be able to move forward out of the zones we are familiar with and into a zone of continual true abundance, love, flow, and contentment.  Hendricks discusses how we limit ourselves from feeling this state of abundance consistently because of our beliefs surrounding our worth and what we are allowed to do and feel.  This is the first book I’ve read where the breakdown on self-worth is broken down this efficiently and tied to our progress.

We’ve discussed limiting beliefs often here but probably not articulated as clearly as in Hendrick’s book.  I still like the analogy of limiting beliefs being akin to putting ourselves in boxes to be more palatable to others or because we don’t feel we are capable or worthy on some level to move forward into something long-term.  Hendricks explains that when we know no different, when we feel we are at our limit, when we get a taste of something else, we will do something to bring us back to where we are familiar because we don’t believe we are capable of sustaining, or worthy of feeling what we do.  When we don’t know what happens next or we are afraid of our ability to maintain, we will self-sabotage to go back to what we know regardless of wanting to move forward. This is considered an upper limit.

Worry is a huge indicator that we are creating limits on moving forward.  Spending time working in the what-if and searching for the different ways we can fail directs us toward that end: failure.  When we sit with our feelings and unpack the anxiety of the worry we feel, we start limiting that emotion rather than our possibilities.  When we take control of that worry, different opportunities become clear, or even if the wors case scenario happens, we still take the lesson and move forward.  There is only so much we can control and if we have done our part to mitigate those factors, then we must chalk up the rest as a lesson rather than destroy where we are to get back to what we know.  What we want is on the other side of what we know, and that in itself is a big leap.  More to come on this topic!