Blind To Our Potential
What stories are you telling yourself?
I’ve lived much of my life waiting for inspiration to strike, waiting for my dreams to come to me, afraid to pursue them on my own. It took a great deal of struggle and thought to get out of that state of mind and I still battle with it every day. But I know I’m not alone in this endeavor, and after reading this passage from the book Sapiens, I can’t help feeling like this struggle is ingrained in us as humans:
“We assume that a large brain, the use of tools, superior learning abilities and complex social structures are huge advantages. It seems self-evident that these have made humankind the most powerful animal on earth. But humans enjoyed all of these advantages for a full 2 million years during which they remained weak and marginal creatures.” — (Sapiens — A Brief History of Humankind by Yuval Noah Harari p.11)
2 million years!
That’s how long we stayed on the periphery before finally striving to do more with what we had. This is fascinating to me.
Knowing what we are now, what we’ve accomplished (for better or worse), it wasn’t all that long ago when we were still in hiding, afraid of our own shadow. Big bad humans weren’t just relegated to hide from their fears and eat insects, we seemed to do it to ourselves. We had the potential to conquer those fears and do amazing things. All the pieces were there, and yet, for whatever reason…we stayed put.
Though we’ve come a long way in many respects, those tendencies are still with us all. Still a part of us.
As individuals, we’re afraid to strive towards our full potential. Our dreams often feel too preposterous, but we have everything we need right here, within us!
The ability to flip the switch and unleash ourselves from the box we’ve been encased in is right at our mental finger tips. And the most effective way of doing this is by paying attention to the words we utter in our heads, and the ones that are coming out of our mouths.
From the stories of our cultures, to the people around us and the voices in our heads, we have to pay attention to what we allow ourselves to absorb and believe. If we tell ourselves we’re supposed to hide from our fears and live off of insects in the shadows, then that’s exactly what we’ll do.
But if we change the story, the way we contextualize the world and ourselves within it…we’ll be amazed at what we can accomplish.
This is perhaps humanity’s greatest tool, our ability to generate a new narrative.
“The most important words in the world, are the ones we say to ourselves.” — Chase Jarvis
I know I’ve struggled with this over the years and it’s taken a lot of work to begin removing the shackles, but it can be done. We’re all capable of so much more and there are people all around you who have figured it out.
Thanks for listening,
-Leif
What’s your experience with this? Do you struggle with self-doubt? If so, what are the ways you’re trying to combat it?
