The Life you truly want is the life that CAN BE YOURS
The saddest two words in the entire English language are "If only..." Don't focus on what was or that which could have been. Look forward, progress and move towards that which you truly desire. With all your heart and soul.
Elephants and Fleas
Jim Donovan in his book This is Your Life Not a Dress Rehearsal tells the story of why elephants don't run. Seeing adult elephants tethered by a slim rope, he asked the trainer why the great animals don't break free to which the trainer replied to the effect that as young animals they are tethered by the same rope and grow up believing that they are held and cannot escape.
In a similar vein there is a famous story told by Zig Ziglar in his book, "See You at The Top." You can place some fleas in a jar with a lid on it. The fleas will of course begin to jump, repeatedly hitting the lid in their attempt to escape.
After about 20 minutes, the fleas begin to learn that they cannot escape and stop jumping as high as they did to begin with, to avoid smacking their head on the lid.
Once they become accustomed to the fact that they cannot escape, you can remove the lid and the fleas will continue to jump at the same height, never escaping the jar. Since the fleas BELIEVE they cannot escape the confines of the jar, they stop trying. Because of their experience with smacking their heads repeatedly, every time they tried to escape, they never even bother looking up to see that the lid is no longer there.
These two anecdotes illustrate well how, like elephants and fleas, we are easily trained into believing how little we can achieve. Like elephants many of us cling to beliefs that we too are unable to achieve what we truly want simply because either we never tried or maybe we tried and failed once. These incorrect self-limiting beliefs are what hold us back.It is a self-limiting belief and self belief is the key that both locks us into self-limitations and yet is the same key that can open the door to new horizons, new ways of thinking and greater self-achievement.
For example, for many years I had the self-belief that I had a talent for writing and yet I had no confidence in that belief and it was this that held me back. Like the fleas in a jar I limited myself, although I never even tried to jump high enough to bang my head on the lid. Nevertheless, I imagined there was a ceiling just above me that I never aspired to exceeding because I believed I never could. Self-belief is both what holds us back and exactly that which can free us from our own self-limiting thoughts.
The situation is not hopeless. We can change. We can change our beliefs. We can let go of those beliefs that hold us back and replace them with new, more confident and more realistic belief and confidence in our abilities and talents. We can change the way we think, in time and with a little effort.
'Let go of the past and go for the future. Go confidently in the direction of your dreams. Live the life you imagined.' Henry David Thoreau
Today is the first day of a new YOU and achieving the happiness of life you so richly deserve.
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