Often the things that parents mean for their kids to listen to, get ignored, but the things they did not intend to teach, somehow get plastered into their psyche. When I was a teenager, one day I was listening to my dad explaining to his friend about the rise of real estate prices, as he was making a case for just how ‘out-of-reach’ owning a home was becoming.
His conclusion was, “I just don’t see the possibility of us ever buying a home”.
That idea immediately sunk into my mind and I then adopted a new belief. How odd it was that I always questioned my parents words, then suddenly, without question, embraced this thought as if it were an oracle straight from heaven. And once this idea was branded into my brain, I suddenly had a bias that dismissed all ideas that opposed my new-found belief as I adopted other beliefs that supported it, thus creating a snow-ball effect- all from one thought.
One example of a supporting thought I collected was from a CCR song, “It ain’t me, it ain’t me, I ain’t no fortunate one…. It ain’t me… I ain’t no senators son.”
Consider the gravity of this limited thought; the suppressive force of such a belief that pushes one to utter mediocrity; How there is no hope for anyone who is not born into a well-to-do family; The droll resignation of higher aspirations accompanied with a spirit of adamant defeat.
Overcoming Limited Thinking
By now you get the picture that I was not prep-ed to be an entrepreneur, but my parents did, however, instill in me quite a strong work-ethic, which I wielded to grow my own business. Even so, I was still plagued with limited thinking as I only had a workhorse-mentality as opposed to that of a strategic entrepreneur.
The day I realized I was making more money than both my parents combined was a startling point for me that apprehended my momentum for a time. Fortunately, I pushed through that to grow further, but still had quite a long way to go in overcoming limited thinking.
It wasn’t until just a few years ago that I realized I had to start doing things differently, which I knew could only happen by thinking differently. I was on my way to an early death and just knew I had to break-out of my familiar mold. Slowly, I began to resign my perfectionistic tendencies and massive multitasking ways to make more room for the power of leverage.
This is no easy task for anyone who has to retrain their mind at a later age, because our brain establishes bio-pathways that locks-in our thinking to go a certain way. To change our thinking is much like blazing a new trail in uncharted territories, which can be arduous and even frightening at times.
It is true that we are a product of our environment, but for some of us, there comes a time when we selectively choose our environment, thus choosing the product of who we are
Also see:
From Limited Thinking To Progressive Thinking – Part 2
22 Comments