There are no limits…

by Crystal on June 28, 2009

This entry is part 2 of 3 in the series Life Lessons

If you’ve ever watched the Matrix, you’ll be familiar with the idea that our limits are imposed by our minds.  They have power because we believe in them.

Recently I was pointed to a video clip on you-tube that demonstrates this in the most incredibly inspiring way.

I love that they point out that his Mum’s done such a great job in never imposing limits on him in the name of “protecting” him – and the results speak for themselves.

Our fears, even if we hold them in the name of love and caring, are one of the key sources of our limitations.

  • If your parents were constantly afraid of you falling, is it possible that the way they treated you might have something to do with your fear of heights?
  • If they loved you so much that they kept you home and closely vetted your friends, can you see a relation to your shyness and fears about social occasions?
  • If they never let you near ovens or heaters in case you burnt yourself, do you find yourself worrying about the chance of a fire even today?
  • Could the tendency to enforce “children should be seen and not heard” – especially when company was around – have something to do with why public speaking is as scary to most people as death?

Limit-free thinking is fearless thinking.  For ourselves, the more risks and challenges we push ourselves to meet, the more we grow and experience, and the richer our lives become.  For others, especially the ones we love, allowing them to make their own mistakes is the hardest (and rarest) form of Love. That’s why I think this mum deserves a medal.  (Although from the smile on her face when she says there’s nothing he can’t do, she already has the best reward you could get…)

What limits have you picked up from the people who love or loved you, that are holding you back?  Can you think of one fearless thing you could do to push through them and free yourself from that particular limit?  Take that step towards living limit-free!

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The Evolution of Individuality

by Crystal on September 27, 2009

This entry is part 2 of 3 in the series Life Lessons

iStock_000006559274XSmall This week on the train I read a printout of an ebook from the ‘Super Mind Evolution’ System.  It was on Mental Influence, but the ideas I got out of it were mind-blowing, even before getting to any of that.

I’ve been focusing on the idea of Self Mastery this month, and I was especially interested to read the author’s ideas on power.  He claimed it was linked directly to intensity of directed focus, or will, and I have to admit it made a lot of sense.  There’s a reason the word “will-power” links the two concepts.

In talking about how a powerful person differed from the average man (it was written in the days before political correctness), I found it fascinating that he spoke of the development of focused intense concentration – individual will – as one of the pre-requisites of power.  Even more so, in a precursor to ‘The Secret’, he spoke of how developing this focus gave strength to the thought-frequencies that an individual sent out, such that they were less likely to be cancelled out by the general mess of random thoughts and opposing desires that come from everyone around you.

It got me thinking how our world is changing.

Most people don’t realise that the concept of the individual is relatively new.  For most of history, people identified themselves as members of some larger group, rather than as a single, unitary person.  You were a member of your tribe first, then in pre-industrial society, your class or occupation (landed gentry, peasant farmer, tradesman etc).  If you were in one of the luckier classes, you were also a member of your family group (with the land holdings or business associated with it), and expected to follow in your parents footsteps and step up to your part in the dynasty.  For the most part, people did.  Not many bucked the trend, because it’s never been easy to go against the flow of expectations.

Through most of that history, the majority have been content to be followers of the few who stood forth as leaders.  Those leaders were either raised to it (it was part of their heritage/expectations) or fought to attain it against the majority voice.  That voice always gave the message that it was better for you to fit in and drop your sights back to what everybody else lived with.  Not just peer pressure, but social and societal pressure.

But that majority voice is getting weaker.  Now we’ve developed a technology, the internet, that encourages individual voices.  Not only is it giving rise to more of them than ever before, (see any article on the rise of blogging) but at the same time providing the medium for them to connect and build a stronger influence on the world, as well as spread their own message to as many as possible.  With such a reach, some of these ‘follower-types’ are taking these messages on board and becoming leaders in themselves.

The majority voice that tells us to settle for doing what everybody else does, is getting fainter.  The cry to take up life and shape it to your own will is getting stronger.  The focused individual – the leaders of the past – is not such a rarity anymore, and the people who in old days would have ‘settled’ and listened to that majority voice, are becoming empowered individuals with their own voices.  It’s an exciting thought.

Where will this evolution take us?

Maybe this is what the world-change of 2012 is about: the tipping point where humanity takes conscious control of shaping our lives, and our world.  We’ve already learnt that our thoughts shape our reality.  I’m convinced that the recent increase in natural disasters can’t be unrelated to decades of Hollywood disaster movies growing in reach and popularity.  It was only 2 nights before 9-11 that I watched a TV movie that had a plot so similar to what happened, that at first I thought they’d hit the wrong button at the station and were re-screening the movie.  Even the uncanny way that fictional gadgets in TV series like Star-Trek are rapidly becoming reality (there’s an article here that shows some of the things that are being, or have recently been ‘invented’ for real) supports the power of thoughts – especially shared ones – to shape our world.

If you knew your choice of TV programs and movies would create the world you lived in, would you still watch the same things?

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Getting it Started vs Getting it Perfect

by Crystal on June 16, 2009

This entry is part 1 of 3 in the series Life Lessons

iStock_000000476010XSmall Life has a funny way of reinforcing the lessons we’re meant to learn sometimes.  I got some great lessons while I was on holidays on the Gold Coast, and my mind wasn’t occupied elsewhere. (There’s another lesson it itself)

One of the most powerful messages I got was on the second last day, just before we shifted hotels for the last night.

We’d decided to wander down to the main Mall in Surfers Paradise for breakfast.  The night before, when we’d been wandering around, we’d checked out what was on offer and there was one cafe that had a special on, a choice of several full breakfasts for $10.  One of them was vegetarian, so it seemed perfect.

After a leisurely morning, we strolled up and got there a little after 7:30.  A few other places were open, so we checked their menus, but nothing particularly different stood out.  Then we got to the cafe, and they didn’t even have their menu board out.  There was someone in there busy setting up, and he saw us, so as we wandered over to the next cafe and checked their menu board, we saw him come over to set his out too.

He also set a few chairs across the entry, obviously to close it off until he was ready.

The special looked good, and the opening time listed was 7.30, but by this time it was quarter to 8, and he was still fussing around with table napkins and menus on each table (even though nobody could get in to them). We had a choice.  The cafe next door was still setting up, but were happy for us to come in and sit down, and even order, while they did it.  The first place obviously didn’t want anyone in until they were fully set up, so we were left standing outside waiting.  The question was, did we want to wait who knows how long for him to get it perfectly set up, or did we want to eat next door, who would serve us now.

We went next door.

It was a lovely breakfast, the staff was wonderful (she even moved out of the way so we could see what she was writing on the specials board), and by the time we finished there were 3 other tables filled and enjoying their breakfasts too.

The first cafe was by now perfectly set up, but even thought the chairs had finally been moved out of the way, it was empty.

I realised that here was a perfect metaphor for one of my biggest hurdles to running an online business – and from what I read it seems to be fairly common too.  Perfectionism.

Online or offline, in business, you can’t get customers in through closed doors.

If your doors are closed because you’re waiting to put finishing touches on something, ask yourself how many customers might be perfectly happy to sit in and wait while you finish setting up, or even place an early order if you let them, and how many are seeing your closed doors and walking away to the competition.

Worth a thought, isn’t it?

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