Unwillingness to take risks
Once someone asked a farmer if he had planted wheat for the season. The farmer replied, “No. I was afraid it wouldn’t rain.” The man asked , “Did you plant corn?” The farmer said, “No. I was afraid of insects eating the corn.” Then the man asked, “What did you plant?” The farmer said, “Nothing. I played it safe.”
Success requires taking calculative risks. Many opportunities are lost because of indecision.
Indecision derived from self- limiting beliefs and fear of failure or fear of the unknown.
The reality is that everything in life is risky.
John C Maxwell wisely says: “When it comes to taking risks, I believe there are two kinds of people: those who don’t dare try new things, and those who don’t dare miss them.”
Jim Stovall advises, “Don’t wait for all the lights to be green before you leave the house.” If you wait for perfect timing, you’ll wait forever. And the more you wait, the more tired you’ll get.”
“While one person hesitates because he feels inferior, the other is busy making mistakes and becoming superior.” – Henry C Link.
Some of us may have heard of the story of the elephant’s comfort zone. The baby elephant is trained at birth to be confined to a very small space. It’s trainer will tie its leg with a rope to a wooden post. This confines the baby elephant to an area determined by the length of the rope (the elephant’s comfort zone). The rope is too strong for the baby elephants to break free , it learns that it has to stay in the area defined by the length of the rope.
When the elephant grows up into a 5 ton colossus that could easily break same rope, it doesn’t even try because it learned as a baby that it couldn’t break the rope. In a nutshell, the largest elephant can be confined by the tiniest rope.
Recently, a client who is in her mid fifties tells me that she finds it difficult to get a job because of her age, her low education level and her lack of computer skills.
Although, I observed that she has many virtues (for example, she is articulate, well groomed and has a wonderful personality), just like the elephant story, my client choose to be confined by her limiting beliefs.
(Photo and quote credits : robinsharma.com)
The good news is she has the power to change being trapped in her comfort zone that is made up of the limiting beliefs.
I shared with her simple strategies on how she can effectively eliminate limiting beliefs :
Here are the 4 steps process:
1) Believe that you are not trapped into your present circumstance
It is important to understand that you are never stuck. You just need to STOP re-creating the same experience over and over by thinking the same thoughts, beliefs , speaking the same words and doing the same things. You can change your behavior
Our limiting thoughts create images in our mind that govern our behavior, which reinforces that limiting thought.
2) Affirm what you want
Create a positive , powerful and new internal images of having, doing, and being what you want.
As long as you keep repeating about your present circumstances, your mind will focus on it.
3) Visualise what you want
Visualization activates your subconscious mind as it focuses your brain by programming its reticular activating systems (RAS) to notice available resources that were always there but were previously unnoticed.
4) Be Action-Oriented
We have often heard, winners take action. They simply do what needs to be done. They developed a plan and start to get the momentum into doing.
You don’t have to start perfectly, if you make mistakes along the way, just make the necessary corrections and keep moving, building momentum until you finally achieve the result you set.
If you hold yourself back for fear and self limitation belief now, you probably hold yourself back for the same reasons 5, 10, 20, 30 years later. The key to eliminate self doubts is to identify those patterns and break through them.
Some of us may spend our lives wiring for the perfect time to do something. There’s hardly a “perfect” time to do anything. What is important is to get started, it’s ok to make mistake, get feedback, correct and keep moving forward. Every experience will yield more useful information that you can apply the next time.
If you don’t do anything for fear of doing it wrong, you will never get any feedback and never get to learn and improve. Some of the most important things can only be learned in the process of doing them.
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