The Self-Reliant Entrepreneur

October 15Limiting Stories

When a resolute young person steps up to the great bully, the World, and takes it boldly by the beard, they are often surprised to find it come off in their hand, and that it was only tied on to scare away timid adventurers.

Oliver Wendell Holmes, Sr.—Elsie Venner (1861)

When is the last time you told yourself a story that just wasn't true? And the imagined outcome of that fable controlled not only your emotions, but your actions or inactions as well?

The stories we tell ourselves about money, or success, or failure, or even our own happiness dictate and foreshadow our eventual consequences. They color how we see the world and the abundant opportunity all around us. They force us to see people and things not as they are, but as we tell ourselves they are.

But then one day something clicks and forces us to approach a limiting story and experience it in a totally new manner, to take it “boldly by the beard,” and we are surprised, relieved, and maybe a little frustrated that it exercised such control over us.

But limiting assumptions are kind of like dandelions: if you don't get to the root, you'll never get control.

Think of a story you tell yourself that's holding you back. Ask yourself why you have that story. Go unearth the evidence all around you that helps you undermine your current thinking.

Write it down—you've grown so much since you first developed your old story. Just because you believe it, that doesn't make it true. Go take it boldly ...