An Amazing Mind

I went out to town with two friends this summer. We were approaching strangers (mostly women) to get over our fear of doing it. At one point, one of my friends was like “I’m going to approach those two women pretending to be deaf-mute.” and went off and did it. I was thinking “Geez, I’d never have the balls to do THAT kind of thing!”

He came back after about two minutes, laughing about the whole experience. Later on, when we were sitting at a pub talking about the day behind us, the talk turned to that incident.
“Remember how I approached those two women pretending to be deaf-mute?”
“Yeah.”
“I’ve recently been working on my limiting beliefs a lot. Whenever I spot a limiting belief, as in ‘I can’t do that’, I immediately go and do it. So when we were out, I thought ‘Hey, how about approaching someone pretending to be deaf-mute?… No, I can’t do that, that’s crazy… Ok, here I go!’”

Those simple words had a huge impact on me. Ever since that day, I try to have the same attitude as my friend. It works like a charm.

1. Action

Tim Ferris, famous for his book “Four-Hour work week”, once told the following story. He was giving a talk to college students about his success and how he achieved it. A lot of his success comes from simply going for what he wants. At the end of the talk, he gave the students a simple-sounding challenge: Contact three seemingly impossible-to-reach people (like the CEO of Google), and get answers to some personal questions from them. Whoever did best would win a round-trip ticket to anywhere in the world.

Of the 60 or so students present at the talk, do you know how many managed to get some answers from some important person?

Not a single student.

And do you know why?

Not one of them even TRIED!

They all thought “Oh, it’s going to be really hard to get answers from an important person. And somebody else is going to do better anyway. There’s no point in even trying.”

They all grossly overestimated the competition. They just gave in to their limiting beliefs.

All it would have taken to win a round-the-world trip was a bit of action. Bit of going “Oh I can’t do that… yeah, right. Let’s see about that!” So the next time Tim gave a similar talk, he gave the students the same challenge. But he also told them about what happened last time. This time, a bunch of students actually tried. And most of them got some answers!

A few days ago, I was at a bus station, waiting for a bus to my Jiu Jitsu training. I had 15 minutes to spare, so I wandered to a grocery store. I spotted some white seedless grapes and I was thought “Mmmm, I’d like some of those. Too bad I can’t really buy them, since I’m taking the bus, and have nowhere to wash them, and then I’ve got the training and…” Bam! A thought broke that rant, saying “O RLY?” (pronounced “oh, really?”) So I bought the grapes, then took them to a public toilet, where I washed them in the sink, then I put them in a plastic bag, so the water wouldn’t leak all over the place. Voila! I had my grapes, and I had a great day.

The above story is meant to illustrate two things. Firstly, I really like to talk about myself. Secondly, most limiting beliefs you have are about mundane everyday things. Like in my article about not taking yourself too seriously. There I talk about how I broke my limiting beliefs regarding going out into the rain. Hey, you’re not hurting anyone by going out to the park when it’s raining, and running around barefoot! (Unless you have a gingerbread man living on your shoulder. In which case, limiting beliefs should be the least of your worries.)

So if you say “But I can’t go out in the rain!”, do exactly that! (Of course, if you’re saying “Well, I don’t feel like going out in the rain.”, then don’t. Just pick another limiting belief.)

Here’s the three-step formula:
1. Spot limiting belief
2. Say “O RLY?” (Or, if that’s not your language style, say “Let’s see about that!”)
3. Do it!

2. Visualisation

Another big class of limiting beliefs comes from the kind of images you make in your head. My article on visualisation was originally meant to be a part of this one, but it turned out to be longer than I thought. Read it.

Sometimes, all of the above advice won’t be enough. If you have serious limiting beliefs about yourself, you might need professional therapy. No amount of self-help can substitute a real psychiatrist, if you need one. But the good news is, 99% of the time the above advice will be enough!

Now you have all the tools to conquer limiting beliefs. So next time you spot a limiting belief, just apply the three-step formula. And if you find the images you make in your head limiting you, apply the visualisation techniques. Happy no-limit living!