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Category: Self-Limiting Beliefs

You Don’t “Run Out” Of Ideas

Published on November 9, 2021

Generating ideas is not like emptying a reservoir.

You don’t tap into your idea source and then drain ideas until they’re all gone.

It works more like, well, a generator.

It requires mechanical energy in, but as a result, you get electrical energy out.

You expend energy getting into the right state, meeting up with the right people, organizing the tasks of your day, staring at enough blank screens, cataloguing through the other ideas of the world until—it happens.

Your mechanical energy is converted.

And you are no longer draining a reservoir, but rather are generating a type of electrical output that lights up your mind and charges your whole body.

The reality is, if you feel like you’re “out of ideas,” it isn’t because you’ve emptied what you had—what’s really happened is your generator needs to be looked at and fixed.

This might involve a change in how you optimize your state, changing who you spend your time with, organizing your tasks in more inspiring ways, being more patient with your process, forcing yourself to get more bored, or spending more time cataloguing other idea sources.

And if your generator isn’t broken, then, you simply need to put more mechanical energy in.

Anti-Perfectionism

Published on September 10, 2021

Perfectionism doesn’t beget perfection.

If anything, perfectionism begets hesitation and disappointment—over and over again.

For every time you look close—another flaw, wrinkle, fault presses itself forward and prevents you from acting or feeling in the desired way.

And as long as perfection is the standard, disappointment will continue to be the byproduct.

Why? Because perfection is the antithesis of being human—we are anti-perfect creatures.

We’re filled with flaws, wrinkles, and faults that are constantly pressing themselves forward into the forefront of our minds.

They demand our attention and are constantly reminding us of the paradox of our situation: imperfect creatures fighting to become perfect.

And so we hesitate. We feel disappointment. We fill with anguish.

Until, of course, we don’t.

Until we align with our nature rather than fight it. Until we fill our minds with acceptance rather than inadequacy. Until we stop seeking perfection and start embracing what’s imperfect.

Until we finally choose to become anti-perfectionists.

The Circumstances Of The Greats

Published on August 7, 2021

Let us not forget that today we are:

  • Feeling the same sun
  • Breathing the same air
  • Seeing the same sky

And are:

  • Confronting the same types of pains
  • Confined to the same 24 hours
  • And facing the same mortality

…As the greats that came before.

There is no reason why we too, cannot be great.

Self-Limiting Beliefs Are Self Installed

Published on March 9, 2021

“Argue for your limitations, and sure enough, they’re yours.”

Richard Bach, via MoveMe Quotes

Ridiculous to think we would ever do that, eh?

And yet, so many of us do exactly that  every day.

We adopt limiting self-beliefs, cozy up to comfortable boundaries, enclose ourselves within sturdy walls, and install glass ceilings right over our own heads.

We literally are the architects of the very ‘box’ that we keep telling ourselves we want to think and break outside of. Why do we do this?

I remember telling my dad when I was a teen that I started a new workout routine: Westside for Skinny Bastards—a program designed to help ‘Hardgainers’ build muscle.

Without much thought, I added that I wasn’t going to try to become a body-builder or anything, that I would just use it as supplemental training for Martial Arts. And, without hesitation he replied, “Why not?”

I had to do a double-take to see if he was joking—he was serious. “Why not try to become a body builder?” He asked again.

My answer felt obvious: “I don’t have the body to be a body builder,” “I don’t have enough time to devote to lifting,” “I would never be able to beat some of the huge guys already in the scene.” I was, in effect, arguing my limitations.

When I look back at that moment now, I can see how one argument at a time, I was building myself into my own little ‘limitation box.’ How, one excuse at a time I was closing doors to rooms I hadn’t even peered into. How, one criticism at a time, I was shrinking my world to fit how I felt.

And I wonder how many other things I’ve walled myself up from?

Things that, for one reason or another, I decided I “couldn’t” do. Things that, as a result of something someone said to me or criticized me about, I never even ended up trying. Things that, because of how I saw myself in the mirror or, maybe better said, how I was taught to see myself in the mirror (by media and society)—I closed myself off to.

And I wonder the same for you?