Human Potential is Limitless ✨️

Good morning everyone 💜

Today I want to talk a little bit about human potential: what we're capable of and how we limit ourselves through hesitation, self doubt and self-sabotage.

When we go through our day-to-day lives there's always that saying, "I'll start tomorrow," or "I'm gonna wait until I feel inspired or ready... all I need is something or someone to motivate me!"

We will always come up with countless excuses NOT to do the things we know will improve our lives.

The question is... why is it so hard for us to do the little things that will improve our lives?

There are a few reasons why we act or do not act on things. First, our minds are designed to protect us from anything that might hurt us and when we hesitate it sends a stress signal to the brain that tells us there's a problem. Our brain then works overtime to protect us from this perceived threat.

"Hesitation magnifies the risk in the brain as it perceives a problem."

I know this first hand, most of us do, as stress is a common occurrence in our everyday lives. But we can all rest a little easier when we realize that hesitation is a healthy magnification of protection against unknown circumstances.

Another reason why we hesitate or fail to act in ways that can improve our lives, is because our habits are like a loop in our head that we have become accustomed to and know to be safe. Even though these habits can be damaging and self-sabotaging, they are often the most difficult to break because our brain makes us feel safe living in this habit loop. It tells us we're safe because we don't hesitate when we do a habit and the things we do are familiar to us.

The drawback of living in a habit loop is that we have trained ourselves to live in complacency. We have limited our potential because we no longer take risks in our lives.

Have you ever noticed that we become excited when we try something new?

Our brains become awake and focused because we are shifting out of our habit loop and immersing ourselves into a creative state of mind! When we try something new our prefrontal cortex is fully engaged, just as it was when we were children learning how to walk. When we take ourselves out of our habit loop, we not only challenge ourselves, but we also take ourselves out of a state of worry--which tends to happen when our minds wander.

Have you ever noticed that we start to worry or feel pain when our minds have no where else to go. Personally, when I'm focused on something new and challenging I momentarily forget about whatever situation I was worried about before. Our brains can only focus on one thing at a time, so the worry drops off the grid for awhile.

Aside from engaging in a new skill or challenge, another way to break free from a complacent habit loop is by using the count down method. When we are facing a decision or creating new habits, in order to keep from resorting back into our habit loops, we can simply count down 5,4,3,2,1 and draw our minds to an anchor thought that will draw us out of our behavioral patterns and keep us from being sucked back into autopilot mode. This will also keep us from resorting to worry and habit loops that will hold us in complacency. I will be talking about this more in the future, but I invite you to share your thoughts on the subject and share your struggles with self-sabotage and damaging behavioral patterns. Share your thoughts ✨️