Getting past your Upper Limit Problem

Have you ever wondered why, after working very hard, you just can’t seem to break through a certain level of success? Do you self-sabotage or are you just plain mean to yourself? Have you ever looked at someone who is successful and thought they weren’t any smarter or more talented than you, and wondered how they did it? The problem may not be your IQ, EQ, work ethic, or talent but something entirely different.

Gay Hendricks, author of The Big Leap: Conquer Your Hidden Fear and Take Life to the Next Level, offers some real insight. He calls it: The Upper Limit Problem. According to Hendricks, the Upper Limit Problem is having “a limited tolerance for feeling good … (you) do something that stops (your) positive forward trajectory … or do something else that brings (you) back down within the bounds of (your) limited trajectory.”

Perhaps your Upper Limit Problem is manifested when staying out late so you can’t focus on your work the next day, spending too much money, despite a resolution to save, wasting time watching television instead of taking a course that would help your career, or any other non-productive behavior that stops you from advancing. In the throes of feeling gloomy about your prospects, it’s easy to assure yourself that, even had you tried, you didn’t have the education, know-how, contacts, talent, or fortitude to succeed anyway, so why bother? This is where understanding your Upper Limit Problem helps.

If you can identify the behaviors that stop you from achieving what you want, you’re halfway there to getting it.