Accept limits to become limitless

Man and mountains

Anything is possible, the world is your oyster, believe and you shall achieve, dream big. These are common motivational affirmations used to inspire success. However, these positive affirmations are not always helpful when trying to reach our potential.

Firstly, motivation is not the only and not even the most important factor for achieving success: hard work, discipline, persuasiveness, and timing amongst others play an important role in success.

Secondly, these motivational statements for the masses provide general advice for the average person. There are many people who are unable to effectively apply the advice.

In this post, we will discuss why understanding and accepting your limitations is one of the best ways to unlock your potential.

It is important to clarify some things. Limitless potential vs success. When we talk about unlocking limitless potential, it does not necessarily mean success. Limitless potential means achieving the most you can with your gifts and talents. Success is usually determined objectively by the society that you live in and the commodities they value.

Next, limitations are best understood in this context as capabilities. Accepting our limitations means accepting our capabilities. Using limitations helps to emphasise that the capabilities we accept should be at the extreme of our capabilities.

For example: a 300kg person may decide they are incapable of losing weight, however that is not automatically a limitation. To reach a limitation, they must have explored all the feasible options to achieve their goal, only then can we consider them as reaching a personal limitation. If this person can and has not tried different diets, joined a gym, asked for medical advice, etc., we cannot consider them to have reached the limits of their capabilities. Therefore, their self-imposed limit is not credible. Once we can accurately identify our limits, we can begin planning and creating the best strategies for ourselves within these boundaries.

Below are some tips on how to begin to learn to understand and accept your limitations.

Pragmatism as a positive

Discovering and accepting limitation can seem like a bit of a downer. Hope and optimism must take a back seat while pragmatism and planning come to the fore. However, it is important to understand that this pragmatic approach does not exclude the possibility of the wondrous or unexpected occurring, it just does not encourage you to plan your life with the hope of that in mind. Pragmatism does not mean we cannot still dream big and be inspired and motivated by others. It encourages us to use these motivators to develop realistic plans for ourselves.

Limitations are not static

It is important to understand that as we change, our capabilities and thus our limitations change. We cannot measure ourselves against the capabilities we had in our 20s when we are in our 50s. However, that does not mean we should accept mediocrity. Learning and accepting the limitations we encounter as we grow can help us plan and make the necessary adjustments to ensure that we adequately challenge ourselves throughout our lives.

Improve your personal awareness

To accurately identify our limitations, we must have a realistic perception of ourselves. Understanding how emotions and mood affect our actions; Recognising our normal- performance, actions, and emotions and knowing our coping mechanisms; are all critical pieces of information we can gain from good personal awareness.

Developing personal awareness involves self-reflection, asking for feedback, forming opinions, and recognising habits. As with any skill, there is a process and journey to mastery. We should endeavour to begin the journey to mastery by learning a bit more about ourselves each day.

Be flexible with goals

We should periodically review and alter our goals to ensure we are adequately challenging ourselves. Unachieved goals are too often ignored or casually dismissed. It is important that you hold yourself accountable for failed goals, but remember to respect your limitations. Work to find the healthy median between ignoring and pining over failures. That should be a desirable target.

Accepting your limits is important but it is also tough. If you require help or have any questions about how to take a more pragmatic approach in your life, get in touch. You can book a free 15 min chat with a trainer or send us an email at info@senschen.com.