"If you always put limits on everything you do, physical or anything else, it will spread into your work and into your life. There are no limits. There are only plateaus, and you must not stay there, you must go beyond them." – Bruce Lee
I think we all have so much more in us than what we currently believe. If you just take training as an example, mentally you think you are done long before you actually are physically. I can't recall the amount of times I have thought I may only have one rep left in me but end up pumping out an extra 3-5 reps, sometimes more.
When it comes to learning a new skill, language, or anything else, you can learn pretty quickly if you focus on it. I remember reading
Science and Practice of Strength Training and I could barely understand it. After reading more and more I began to understand the principles in that book and by the third time I read it I reckon I would have understood probably 70% of it. If I would have stayed where I was at and didn't try to learn more I would never have reached the point where I am now.
There are so many areas of our life where we could improve if we just stopped putting those limitations around where we think we could progress to. Someone starts a business and says "I'll be successful if I make $100,000", but why just $100,000, why not $1,000,000? It doesn't have to be money driven either. If you want to help people and you think "I can probably reach 20 people", why don't we think of ways to serve 100 people, or more. Or it may not be about numbers, it may be "how do I continue to better service to my clients?" This last one is really my goal. I'm not out for quantity, I want quality. I want people who have a burning desire to achieve their goals and have laser like focus in attaining them. These are the people that give me energy and motivate me. I love being around people like that.
“I have never wished to cater to the crowd; for what I know, they do not approve, and what they approve, I do not know.” – Epicurus
Sure you need to start small and work your way up to it but I think many of us don't think bigger or what is truly possible. We set the bar too low. Maybe it is because we are scared to fail, to look stupid, I don't know. But I think if we sit back and assess our lives we will find so many areas where we can improve. Pick one and start implementing this week.
As Jim Rohn has said: “Don’t join an easy crowd; you won’t grow. Go where the expectations and the demands to perform are high.”
