Who Says You Can"t?! You Do!
How many times have you talked yourself out of greatness? I do it all the time.
And I watch, mystified, as so many others scream, "I can't!" when anyone else could see that they can.
I'm not just talking about pie-in-the-sky dreams and life purposes, either.
It happens with little things.
The world is full of incredible people whose own two eyes are somehow totally blind to the possibilities within them.
Not too long ago, a student of mine mistakenly believed she could never do a particular kind of pushup without physically collapsing and thereby rearranging her face against the floor.
She had tried it.
Once was enough.
"I can't.
" Another dedicated blue belt painfully widened his eyes at the thought of holding a horse stance for 3 whole minutes to be able to advance in rank.
"I can't.
" That's what they initially believed about themselves anyway.
So I gave them an "opportunity" to challenge those beliefs (of course, by this I mean "gave them ample support while refusing to let them just give up").
The first immediately did 20 of those pushups that very night! The second emailed me a couple weeks ago ecstatic at having spent 10 full minutes in a horse stance! What changed? What caused such a dramatic shift in ability? Not much.
Yes, I had helped.
But only a little.
The need to have someone in life who can see past our own blindness is an important topic, but one for another time.
What they had done for themselves is what matters here.
They had summoned the courage to boldly question their own assumptions, and that one simple act crumbled those self-imposed barriers forever.
Maybe that's why the Shaolin monks began their training with hours of sitting in torturously low stances and with the tremendous physical demands of the Yijinjing (I Chin Ching).
Because those taxing circumstances force you to come face to face with your fears, your incompetence, your weakness, and your doubts.
And when you press forward anyway, despite all of that, you discover in the process that you control your life, not them.
Imagine what consistent doses of such physical self-mastery did for those monks.
Not because they learned techniques or did exercises, but because, in the process, they unearthed their true power.
So who says you can't? You do.
And until you stop saying it, you never can.
And if you don't believe you can, you never will.
And I watch, mystified, as so many others scream, "I can't!" when anyone else could see that they can.
I'm not just talking about pie-in-the-sky dreams and life purposes, either.
It happens with little things.
The world is full of incredible people whose own two eyes are somehow totally blind to the possibilities within them.
Not too long ago, a student of mine mistakenly believed she could never do a particular kind of pushup without physically collapsing and thereby rearranging her face against the floor.
She had tried it.
Once was enough.
"I can't.
" Another dedicated blue belt painfully widened his eyes at the thought of holding a horse stance for 3 whole minutes to be able to advance in rank.
"I can't.
" That's what they initially believed about themselves anyway.
So I gave them an "opportunity" to challenge those beliefs (of course, by this I mean "gave them ample support while refusing to let them just give up").
The first immediately did 20 of those pushups that very night! The second emailed me a couple weeks ago ecstatic at having spent 10 full minutes in a horse stance! What changed? What caused such a dramatic shift in ability? Not much.
Yes, I had helped.
But only a little.
The need to have someone in life who can see past our own blindness is an important topic, but one for another time.
What they had done for themselves is what matters here.
They had summoned the courage to boldly question their own assumptions, and that one simple act crumbled those self-imposed barriers forever.
Maybe that's why the Shaolin monks began their training with hours of sitting in torturously low stances and with the tremendous physical demands of the Yijinjing (I Chin Ching).
Because those taxing circumstances force you to come face to face with your fears, your incompetence, your weakness, and your doubts.
And when you press forward anyway, despite all of that, you discover in the process that you control your life, not them.
Imagine what consistent doses of such physical self-mastery did for those monks.
Not because they learned techniques or did exercises, but because, in the process, they unearthed their true power.
So who says you can't? You do.
And until you stop saying it, you never can.
And if you don't believe you can, you never will.
Source...