This book is about the desire for change and dissatisfaction with the status quo. I like where I am, but I see where I could go, and I want to be there. But how far and how high can I go? What are my limitations psychologically? Limits are physical barriers. Limitations are psychological boundaries. I assert to you that you’ll never reach your physical limits because of your psychological limitations.
Limits are physical in that biological and other health factors, age, and skills do impose certain restrictions on performance. However, these limits—for most of us—will never be fully tested because of the limitations caused by our beliefs. Limitations are psychological. Over time, we all learn to raise or lower our expectations of ourselves because of our experiences. Disappointments become solid barriers. Successes give us confidence. As we get older, we don’t simply move past these limitations we have internalized. Some of them stay with us throughout our lives. Winners are constantly seeking growth and high performance and, incrementally, keep raising the bar on these invisible barriers.
I recall when working with a world-class Olympic high jumper preparing for the Summer Games. He could clear the high-jump bar in practice and in competition at 7 feet, 3 inches. But no higher, regardless of the technique or practice. When he wasn’t paying close attention one day, we raised the bar an inch to 7 feet, 4 inches. Thinking it was still at the lower setting, he cleared it. When I told him what he had done, he looked at me in disbelief, almost agitated. “But I can’t jump that high,” he exclaimed. “You just did,” I smiled. “You just conquered your own four-minute mile barrier, just as Roger Bannister did so many years ago.” Once Bannister proved that it was possible to run a mile in under four minutes, on May 6, 1954, suddenly more and more track stars were able to do it—proving an important lesson: once you stop believing something is impossible, it becomes possible.
When I was a boy I used to enjoy going to the local county fair to see the “flea circus” that was always a hit with me and my friends. I couldn’t comprehend, at first, how those tiny fleas could be trained to hop and jump around on miniature trampolines, trapezes and not leap out of their little arenas that had no ceilings. I found out from the man that put on the show that, for a couple of weeks, he kept the fleas in a cardboard shoe box with a lid on it with pin-pricked holes so the fleas could breathe. Fleas normally can jump to a height of several feet; however, the “circus” fleas continually hit the box lid and soon learned that six inches was their maximum limit. When the lid was removed, because they had been trained to lower their expectations, through frustration, they didn’t even attempt to jump out of their circus arena, which would have been no problem.
We humans certainly are more intelligent than fleas. However, behavior patterns seem to be consistent no matter the species. First, we observe role models. We imitate their behavior. Through repetition, the imitation becomes habitual, like brushing our teeth or driving our cars. If the feedback is negative and painful, we reinforce our failed attempts and settle for mediocrity rather than face future challenges and possible setbacks. If the feedback is positive and accepted as “target correction,” we are motivated to try a different approach and keep reaching for our highest aspirations. Subconscious reflections of past mistakes, fears of future failures, and fears of the unknown tend to act as ceilings or lids on our achievements.
Here’s the good news. While visiting Sea World many times with my grandchildren in my hometown of San Diego, California, my grandkids were amazed to see dolphins jumping in formation out of the water and over a rope positioned twelve feet above the surface. We learned from the trainers that they begin by placing a rope on the bottom of the pool and rewarding the dolphins with mackerel and tuna when they pass over it. Incrementally, the rope is raised until it is completely out of the water, and the dolphins are motivated by rewards to jump out of the water to cross over the rope. Just as dolphins are encouraged through positive reinforcement, people also respond to rewards, appreciation, recognition, and praise. Unlike animals, however, we humans have the power to choose and control, to a large degree, the conditioning of our present and future lives.
When you look in the mirror, there are three reflections: The child of your past, the person you are today, and the person you will become in the future. The way you were as a child, layered with the way you were 1, 5, 10, maybe 20 years ago, equals your present behavior. You see, you condition yourself, and then you behave accordingly. The interesting thing—because past conditioning determines present performance—is that you never make a decision based upon what’s happening right now. You base your decision on what happened before, the way it was, the way it used to be, and you’re likely to experience the same thing again. So, past conditioning equals present behavior. That’s why Olympic athletes practice under a coach’s watchful eyes, and then they perform based upon their training.
Well, how do you change? Interestingly enough, it isn’t that present inputs determine future behavior. Oh, I wish it were. I wish you could go to a seminar and then just say, “I got it. I changed.” You see, you get stimulated in the present, but your subconscious computer memory—if you’re about 40 years old—is almost 350,000 hours full of past conditioning. So you go to a meeting for an hour. “Everybody got the new input? Have we all agreed to change?”
Could anyone presume that a pep talk would change somebody? Pep talks wear off. People go back to being themselves. That’s why ongoing educational programs are so important. They become training and tracking systems for everyday living. Therefore, you look at your past conditioning, and you realize you’ve been limiting yourself. And you use present inputs to layer on top of the past conditioning, and you change the future behavior and performance accordingly; therefore, it’s very important what you think about and practice over and over again. And it’s most important that you view yourself as being self-limiting by your thinking and training, instead of blaming externals.
Most people feel like thermometers. A thermometer rises or falls to meet the external environment. It’s controlled by outside circumstances. The majority of the population’s self-images are controlled by society’s external standards. Our self-image is the total picture of who we think we are, and the camera starts rolling at birth. The camera, our brain, takes pictures fast and furiously throughout life. And every frame is tucked away in a memory file of limitless capacity. This subjective sense of who we think ourselves to be governs all our actions and controls our destiny. How we feel about ourselves, how we rate our ability to hang in there to survive and win, and all that we ever do or aspire to be is based on our time-reinforced self-image. Unfortunately, once an idea or belief becomes a perception, it becomes a truth for our self-image. Each link we add to the growing chain of self-images may either strengthen or shackle our lives more tightly. Control is in our hands. We can’t outgrow the limitations we place on ourselves through faulty self-imaging, but we can set new, higher standards. We can reset our self-image like an internal thermostat from low to high self-esteem, from loser to winner, and from victim of change to victor over change.
Each of us has a number of comfort zones or settings that we’ve developed throughout our lives that dictate the amount of discomfort we’re willing to suffer before we make adjustments. Our self-image is very definitely a thermostat keeping us in a psychological comfort zone.
Over time, we all learn to raise or lower our expectations of ourselves because of our experiences. Disappointments become solid barriers. Successes give us confidence. As we mature, we don’t simply “outgrow” or move past these limitations we have internalized. Some of them stay with us throughout our lives.
Each link we add to the growing chain of self-images may either strengthen or shackle our lives more tightly. Control is in our hands. We can’t outgrow the limitations we place on ourselves through faulty self-imaging, but we can set new limitations. We can reset our self-image like an internal thermostat from low to high self-esteem and from loser to winner. Each of us has a number of comfort zones or settings that we’ve developed throughout our lives that dictate the amount of discomfort we’re willing to suffer before we make adjustments. Reflect for a moment on just how many of your behaviors are set into motion when you move out of these comfort zones. Too much can motivate as strongly as too little. On the level of conscious thought, there are any number of examples: How much time we feel comfortable in spending with those around us, how much effort we feel comfortable in expending on our daily tasks at the office or at home, how much money we feel comfortable we feel in spending on our new clothes.
On a physical or physiological level, there are an infinite number of feedback systems that kick into gear when we leave this comfort zone. Much as a thermostat runs our home heating and cooling system, the body’s hypothalamus, a tiny organ in the brain, senses body temperature. Venturing out on the hot side of the comfort zone, warm blood from inner core of the body is diverted by the hypothalamus in a wondrous manner that closes certain blood vessels and opens others near the surface of the skin where excess heat can be radiated away. Of course, the action of the hypothalamus in activating the sweat glands to return you to the comfort zone is no real surprise, but do you know why?
When perspiration evaporates from the surface of the skin, heat is removed; thus, sweating is a process that lowers body temperature. Moisten a portion of your hand and then blow on it. As the moisture evaporates, the skin is cooled. Is your hypothalamus getting the signal that you’re dropping into the colder area of the comfort zone? No problem. Blood near the surface of the body is shunted inward to the core to conserve heat, and your muscles are set into rapid, small contractions to generate yet more heat. You call it shivering.
Perhaps the most amazing thermostat in our bodies has been uncovered in recent obesity research. We appear to have developed set points for body fat, a degree of body fatness that our bodies literally grow comfortable with. In as yet unknown ways, our bodies can sense and adjust both the rate at which we burn calories at rest, the basal metabolic rate, and the amount we eat. Early in our lives this stubborn fat thermostat is set by our levels of physical activity, our general eating habits, and genetic determinations. When we attempt to lose body fat solely through dietary means, eating fewer calories, our thermostat literally reduces the number of calories burned through basal metabolism. A drop of 500 calories a day in intake will be met by a corresponding drop in calories burned at rest, and the net result? You’re eating less but burning less, and the body fat still taunts you.
Amazingly, when you gain small amounts of fat or simply turn up your caloric intake for several days, the body responds by turning up the thermostat; and the basal metabolic rate rises. You’re eating more but burning more, and your weight remains fairly stable. Fortunately, for those of us wishing to change the setting of our thermostat, it can be done. Exercise is the key. Exercising enough to burn off an additional 200 calories a day can affect the resetting of the thermostat and start the fat loss process. When combined with healthy eating habits including dietary restriction as moderate as 200 calories a day, long-term fat loss can be achieved.
But why this lengthy discussion and digression into feedback and thermostat? Because our self-image is very definitely a thermostat keeping us in a psychological comfort zone. Our set point for winning is arrived at over time based on belief in ourselves, our abilities, and our worth. With a low self-image, however, our psychological thermostat is set correspondingly low. Not believing that he or she is capable of much or worth much, the low-image individual is comfortable with failure. When challenged to venture out on the high side or take a chance to change the status quo, he or she pulls back. “I’m not capable of that. That’s beyond my meager abilities. It’s not worth the effort. Why bother?” This is the way that negative self-talk goes.
With a strong and healthy belief in ourselves and what we’re capable of, we can go out and survive the stress of day-to-day living and reaching worthy goals. When our comfort zone is set at high, we believe we can handle whatever is thrown at us. If we dare venture beyond our safety zone, we pull back. The risks are too great for who we think we are. If our efforts to win fall below the comfort zone, we feed back to our self-image some positive self-talk, “Next time, I’ll do it better. I can do that. Harder work and concentration will win me that prize.”
At my seminars, I like to check a person’s self-image when he or she first enters the meeting room. In this way, I can determine the awareness and the needs of my audience. I remember a woman came into my seminar room and sat down in the first row. As she sat down, I said, “Good morning. Are you attending the seminar alone?” She answered, “No. I’m divorced.” I said, “How long have you been single?” trying to sound nonjudgmental. She replied, “I’ve been divorced for two years now.” And I asked another question, “Are the divorce proceedings still going on?” Well, she looked puzzled and said, “Why, no, of course not. I told you; it happened two years ago.” I smiled reassuringly, “Well then, if you were divorced two years ago, you are single now.”
What that woman learned during the seminar took me 35 years of self-doubt to figure out, and that is: You never carry a mistake or childhood labels or failure forward. You don’t wear failure like a coat. The performer is always valuable, while the performances are learning experiences not to be repeated if negative and to be reinforced constantly if positive. Now, when new friends or associates ask our seminar graduate, “Are you married?” she answers unhesitatingly, “No, I’m not married.” She’s a powerful demonstration of the truth that we are what we see, what we do, and most important, what we think.
As we said earlier when we look in the mirror, there are three reflections: The child of our past, the person we are today, and the person we will become. We can never totally erase experiences from our memories. If they were negative, our thermostats may be set at low performance or even no win. But we can reset our thermostats. With the right role models and the right self-talk, we can change the perceptions that have twisted and colored our image of who we really are.