I have touched upon limiting beliefs in prior posts (most notably in Top 10 Best Yoda Quotes for Life Coaches) and how they get in the way of us being our best selves and achieving the results we want.
In this post, I wanted to share what I consider my coolest, most creative limiting belief.
Now, this is not a contest for who has the most original limiting belief, but I would totes win since this is my post!
Unfortunately, this limiting belief has held me back at various times in my life and that’ll become apparent in the post below.
Let’s see if you agree with my claim of originality.
Do Tell!
My limiting belief is:
I only have x number of attribute points in life to allocate towards skills and tasks.
…That’s it…?
Let me explain.
He's Unconscious!
When I was a kid, there was a sweet series of video games on the Super Nintendo and Nintendo 64 gaming systems called NBA Jam. They were basketball games where you could pit two players from two NBA teams against each other.
These games were insanely simple and fun. If you made several baskets in a row, it offered such phrases now canonized into sports culture such as “He’s lighting it up,” “He’s on fire!” and “He’s unconscious!” The basketball would even self-immolate (see the GIF above)!
He Got (Video) Game
Alas, my love of this game did not inspire to greatness in the form of a successful basketball career. The closest I ever came was in 7th grade when I made the C squad (A was best, C was…least best), and the bench at that.
I did have an amazing block in one game, but was unjustly called for a foul (it was all ball—I trapped the ball in the other player’s shooting hand as he went up and he couldn’t get the shot off).
While I didn’t make it on the court, I did make it on the couch—I was pretty amazing at NBA Jam!
So what does the NBA Jam series have to do with my limiting belief?
I Attribute It to the Attributes!
Well, in the third installment called NBA Hang Time, you could create your own player complete with their own nickname, weird head, and specific uniform color.
Additionally, and more germane to this post, you could adjust their attributes (listed in the bottom right corner of the screenshot).
When you first started, you did not have many attribute points to allocate. But as you progressed through the game, you earned more and could thus give your player super skills.
I viewed life through this lens that I, similar to these video game concoctions, had a set number of attribute points that I could assign across different domains of my life.
Pretty cool limiting belief, huh? Told you so.
Woah, We're Half Way There
Unfortunately, my simple brain stopped at step one after it appropriated the idea of a set amount of attribute points from NBA Hang Time. It didn’t follow the rest of the game in which success garnered you more attribute points to apportion as you saw fit. Sigh.
Phase Thirty-Nine: Robot Chickens!
How did this limiting belief manifest?
I only have x number of attribute points in life to allocate towards skills and tasks.
It showed up in several different ways, but I’ll describe one here: I looked at my life in phases dictated by the activities in which I excelled at the time. In each phase, I could only be good at one thing.
Before high school, I was very artistic and loved to draw and make things out of wire and clay.
That was the artistic phase and the majority of my free attribute points were deposited in the artistic column. (Side note: many of my attribute points were already assigned to academics, as that was default mode, non-negotiable, and didn’t count as something to be good at because I had to be).
Next came the athletic phase in high school when my artistic efforts waned in lieu of my pursuit of tennis.
Entering college, I shifted yet again to my musical phase (yes, an artistic endeavor, but different from before, so bear with me). Yay drumming.
Me and a buddy covering Radiohead’s “High and Dry” in med school.
(Clicking the image above or here will take you to a YouTube video).
What phase am I in now? The medicine phase? The parenting phase? Perhaps, the adulting phase? I’m not sure because I’m working on not thinking this way, or at least modifying the belief to a more useful one.
[In case you were really wondering the super vague title of this section is a quote from Clerks: The Animated Series]
You Can't Have It All
I believed there had to be phases because I could not commit to or excel at all of these different facets of my life at the same time. (limiting belief)
That might have been true to some extent, but I pretty much stopped the other activities outside of their phase because I wouldn’t be able to do them, right?
I only have x number of attribute points in life to allocate towards skills and tasks.
My limiting belief itself is not unique. However, it’s a unique take on one or an amalgam of several limiting beliefs such as:
- I don’t have the bandwidth/energy to…
- I don’t have the time to…
- It’s not in my cards to…
- I have no special strengths (except coming up with special limiting beliefs!)
- I am helpless
- I can’t make things happen
- Who am I to have everything I ever wanted?
Like many limiting beliefs, on the surface it seems fairly innocuous, useful even. Of course it does. My brain is offering it up to me as an explanation, a way out. It’s letting me off easy.
But in doing so my brain is coming from a place of resignation and scarcity, and not acceptance.
But You Can Have What You Want
In a future post, I’ll delve into how to tackle limiting beliefs. Here I’ll just state that simply uncovering and identifying limiting beliefs is the most important step in dismantling them.
They can be subtle and seem positive in nature even if preventing us from achieving our full potential.
In breaking this limiting belief down, I am able to pursue my goals and step way outside of my comfort zone.
I’m not gonna lie—it is uncomfortable. But it’s also liberating.
Well, not quite like William Wallace liberating, but close.
I shared with you my most original and subversive limiting belief, and I’m curious, what’s yours? Let me know below in the comments section.
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