Do you have an Upper Limit Problem?

by Amy Slattery

What are Upper Limits?  

I've just finished listening to The Big Leap by Gay Hendricks...I loved it!  So much so that I began to drive my business partner Jodie crazy with my claims of "wow its my Upper Limit" "it's your Upper Limit" "its his/her Upper Limit!

Gay's book talks about how every single one of us carries with us entrenched, unconscious ideas of just how happy and successful we can be.  These ideas can lead to self-sabotage in all aspects of our lives.

I likened it to the stories of the lottery instant millionaires, the ones who came from nothing or were struggling to suddenly finding themselves flushed with cash...more than they could have ever dreamed of.  That is the problem they never thought they were 'entitled' to have so much money and that is then when you hear the stories of some lotto winners losing it all, or even ending up worse off and in total debt!  They reached their Upper Limit!

Do you ever hear yourself saying things like "I always find the same girl/guy", "I don't know where my money goes", "oh my business isn't worth that much", I never have enough time or money".  Maybe these are instances of reaching your Upper Limit?

So why do we do this to ourselves?

We all have this little gauge (sometimes voice) in our heads that determines how much love, happiness and success we allow ourselves to enjoy and this is normally established when we are young.  Once this is set it can hold us back from enjoying all the love and success that is ours!

Now how does this all work and what can we do about it?  Like anything I believe it all starts with awareness, so Gay details that the Upper Limit Problem is set around 4 hidden barriers:

1.    Feeling Fundamentally Flawed

This can be a really big barrier - you have a belief that you are flawed in some way, so the fear is that if you start to use your talents, you could fail, so you tend to just play it safe with small 'risks' so at least if you so try something and fail it is only a small set back.

2.    Disloyalty & Abandonment

Here you have a feeling that if you succeed "it would cause you to end up all alone, be disloyal to your roots and leave behind the people from your past"

Gay gives a couple of questions you can ask yourself to find out if this is one of the barriers you have:

"Did I break my families spoken or unspoken rule to get where I am?"

"Did I fail to meet the expectations my parents had of me?"

I the above questions brought about a yes then you might feel more and more guilty the more successful and happy you become, the guilt then makes you stop and holds you back.

3.    Believing that More Success Makes you a Bigger Burden

You might be thinking that doesn't even make sense!  How can success be a burden?  Gay gives a personal example of this one that sums this barrier up so well "This barrier held one of the biggest challenges for me. When I was born, I was greeted with two mixed messages: You’re a burden, and you’re a celebration. I was a burden to my mother, but a cause for celebration to my grandparents. My father had died a few weeks after my conception, leaving my mother with $300, my older brother to raise, and me in the womb. Starting out my life as a combination of burden and celebration caused me to repeat this combination often in adult life. I would have a positive breakthrough, then immediately start feeling I was a burden on the world. But the guilt I felt for being a burden was for crimes I hadn’t committed. If we remove the guilt of the crimes our parents and siblings convicted us of before we walked into kindergarten, we are liberated from the Upper-Limit Problem"

4.    The Crime of Outshining

This barrier comes with the worry and guilt that if I succeed I would outshine someone else and that would make him or her feel bad.  A good example is seen with children, parents can unconsciously pass on a thought that if once child is more gifted they should turn down their success so that they don't outshine the other family members.  This can then carry on to adulthood, you might see it more in adults where they are still very successful but really play down their success and don't talk about it.

So spend sometimes looking a situations and thought, is it an Upper Limit Problem?  Spend some more time on looking at where that really comes from, so be aware, find the root cause, understand it and don't let is top you from reaching your full potential for love, success and happiness!

Live life by design... not by default!