Self-improvement isn’t a matter of acquiring skills we don’t have. It is the process of eliminating the thoughts that make us believe we never had them.
People usually associate self-improvement with acquiring skills and qualities they never have had. Flipping this concept provides an interesting and stimulating perspective that exposes the infinite potential that belongs to each one of us and empowers us to do so much more than we have ever done before.
You don’t need to be a rocket scientist to understand how much an athlete’s attitude impacts his or her performance. A defeatist attitude never wins a competition. A “victory-at-all-costs” attitude can put an athlete or team over the top. Our state of consciousness is the determining factor in everything we do – even to the point of prescribing what we can and can’t do.
The fact is, we all come into this “world of unlimited opportunity” with a personal inventory of unlimited potential. But from the day we make our first appearance on this planet to the day we close the door on this worldly experience, that same world – our family, our friends, the media, researchers and statisticians, the prognosticators – starts to tell us who we are what our prospects for success will be. They tell us, for example, that
- that we are born into a certain socio-economic stratum that will limit our ability to move ahead
- that we will have certain physical advantages or disadvantages based on our mother’s or father’s side of the family
- that there will be fewer jobs and opportunities for us when we graduate from college or grad school based on the direction the economy is moving
- that there are limits to how much income we will be able to generate in our line of work
- that we don’t have as many useful connections as the “next guy” and so won’t be able to move ahead as fast in business
The list goes on! There are national databases that know more about you and where you are likely to end up in life than you know about yourself!
Does any of this have any impact on you? You bet it does. Subtly, over time, you hear this drumbeat and, if you’re not actively rejecting it, you are subtly accepting it. We internalize what we hear. And before you realize it, your re-wired consciousness is dictating actions and limitations that conform to the new reality that has been created in your thought.
Is it really you? That’s for the next blog…Part 2