Ever heard we're scared of failure but we're even more petrified of success?
Ever felt guilty for being the smartest, tallest or prettiest girl in your family or circle of friends? Ever had the best time of your life only to ruin it later with negative thoughts? Ever deflected a compliment by either ignoring the compliment or saying something else without acknolwedging it?
If yes, read on because you're upper limiting yourself.
What I'm about to share with you is from the book called The Big Leap by Gay Hendricks plus my own findings. I'm going to use daily life examples so you'll be able to relate, reflect and understand where you're upper limiting in your life.
So what is upper limit?
If you imagine two parallel lines, what's between is our life surrounded by our friends, family, jobs, habits and patterns. We go through our everyday life between those two lines but the moment we hit or get outside the lines, our ecosystem or ego or subconscious freaks out. Because it's out of the norm.
So when we hit the upper limit, meaning when we achieve success, happiness or wealth, our ego tends to bring us back down within the lines, in other words our comfort zone, by giving us negative thoughts or behaviours that ruins what we've achieved - like losing all the money after winning lottery, arguing with your partner after becoming successful or thinking of negative things when you have happy thoughts.
Most of us are not yet ready to feel good or be happy 100% from within all the time. We say we want to be happy, positive, healthy and wealthy but we're still doing things that hold us back from achieving it because we don't believe it's possible.
So how does all this relate to business?
I started out as a Clinical Psychotherapist because I've always been an avid learner of psychology and mindset. On top of that I spend my free time thinking, experiencing and learning about spirituality and philosophy. So when I decided to rebrand my business to do Business Coaching, I combined mindset and spirituality because every success comes from within.
"We need to start with self before we conquer the world"
In business, there's a pattern that we see; you might be doing all the right things but you're not making any money. You might be very successful but your relationship isn't working. You've become well-known and you start self-sabotaging yourself. You've won an award but you find yourself getting depressed. There are countless of examples but can you relate?
Fear & Self-doubt
Fear comes from our ego, the part of us that wants recognition and protection from being judged in the society. However, once we made a commitment to live in our full potential, we don't need recognition or protection. Not only we're complete with our purpose and creativity, there's also no place left for our ego.
That's also when our ego sets off fear of the unknown. Ego has never been to the unknown territory. That's why it's important for us to be fully engaged to our full potential because that's the only way we'll be able to banish fear and tap into our genius.
Internal Thermostat
Remember the two lines going parallel? That's basically our internal thermostat that determines how much of love, success, wealth and health we could handle in our life. The thing is, that thermostat is usually programmed when we were young by our parents, friends, teachers and people around us.
Let me give you an example; growing up my family knew a lot of people who are rich - we're talking millions of dollars in cash rich. However, they were so unhappy because the husbands were cheating, the wives just wanted more material things and the kids were all over the place. I've always been very good at making money. I started making 6-figure salary very quickly in my career, however, I was also very good at spending it all back. I didn't know I had an internal thermostat that's pulling me back to my comfort zone where I'm safe.
Guilt
We think we'll be more happy when we have more clients, more money, better partner or better friends. But we know that it's not true. The happiest people are the ones who don't have a lot in life. So when we do have money, love or success, it goes against our internal belief - that we don't deserve it. May be your friends don't make as much money as you do and you feel guilty. May be you grew up in a broken family that you think it's wrong to be so happy in a relationship when your parents aren't.
So when we don't understand this upper limit problem, there's a high possibility for us to believe that we aren't good enough, we don't deserve the best or worse that we are flawed.
Getting Sick
This is a very common symptom of Upper Limit Problem people miss all the time; when was the last time you have something big coming up and suddenly you fall sick; may be sore throat, headache or catching a cold? The mind and body are connected. What the mind conceives the body achieves. So when we upper limit ourselves in our mind, the body manifests it to keep us safe in our comfort zone. So next time when you fall sick, think again - what greatness are you blocking yourself from your life?
If you look at the celebrities, once they start achieving fame or start making money, they upper limit themselves by messing up with their life - drink driving, drugs, embarrassing themselves, etc. One of the examples would be them feeling guilty that money comes to them easily while it's hard for the rest of us.
This book has literally transformed my life in many ways. I not only practise what Gay teaches everyday, I also share these with my coaching clients. I recently wrote a blog on a very honest reflection of what I've done in 2015 using these principles.
So over to you - I want you to think of what's not working in your life or business. What have you been blaming on instead of looking inside? Where are you blocking yourself in your life right now that you can't achieve what you desire?
Leave a comment below. I'd love to read them and support you in this journey.