Setting Limitations on Yourself
Our guest post this week is from Hansley Osborn, my daughter, a college student majoring in Communications and Business at Texas A&M University Corpus Christi.
One of the biggest obstacles we face in achieving our goals is surprising- it's ourselves. We limit ourselves and put up invisible roadblocks that inhibit us from success almost daily. How do we do this? We make a lot of 'I have to' statements for ourselves. “I have to start my diet on a Monday.” Or “I guess I'll have to start over on my resolutions next year because I’m already not keeping up." Or “I have to work out for a whole hour every day." These ‘I have to’ statements we constantly repeat to ourselves are simply unrealistic and not accurate at all. The world will not end if you start your new eating regime on a Wednesday! And 10 minutes of exercise is way better than no exercise at all. The only limit or rule we should place on ourselves is simple. Say to yourself “I will do my absolute best.” There is so much grace in this statement. Trying to find balance in our lives is hard enough. Be merciful with yourself, know that every day your only rule for yourself is to give it your all. It is simply unrealistic to stack rule upon rule and task upon task for yourself and expect yourself to follow through every time, or even worse- skip it altogether. Let’s say you put in 60 hours in the office today, but you also tell yourself you ‘have to’ work on your start-up business at least 10 hours a week in order to stay on top of your goals for the business. That’s a 70-hour workweek! Completely unsustainable! By trying to maintain your ‘have to’ statement you have created more stress and more obligations on your already hefty week. Therefore putting yourself dangerously close to burning out and internal chaos in general. So, what can we do? You still want to work toward and achieving your goals and to do so you must be disciplined of course. But, what if we simply changed our mindset. Let's change our headspace to one of cultivating a sustainable and realistic space of being/ working. Instead of saying “ I have to work ten hours a week on my startup”, say, “ I will do my best to work 10 hours a week on my startup.” Some weeks you may put only five hours in, some weeks you may put 15 hours in. 'I'll do my best' is NOT a cop-out or an excuse. ' I'll do my best' is a STANDARD. It's the new bar we set for ourselves. Although subjective, 'I'll do my best' is just that- your absolute best. Your best focus, your best ideas, your best attitude. Just doing your best! At the end of the day, you can have a sense of satisfaction because you know you gave it your all that week and didn't fall victim to the stresses and punishes of "I have to" statements. By just changing our wording and how we speak to ourselves we can drastically impact our headspace and how we view our goals. Not as obligations, but as opportunities for you to show up and show out! So, today, just do your very best. As The Rock, Dwayne Jonson says " Wake up determined, go to bed satisfied."
