Gay Hendricks: Beyond Your Upper Limits

Why We Set Upper Limits

Each of us has an inner thermostat setting that determines how much love, success and creativity we allow ourselves to enjoy. That thermostat setting usually gets programmed in early childhood. And, once programmed, our Upper-Limit thermostat setting holds us back from enjoying all the love, financial abundance and creativity that’s rightfully ours.

So, how does the Upper-Limit Problem work, and how can we eliminate its negative effects on us? The foundation under the Upper-Limit Problem is a set of four hidden barriers. They all have something in common: Although they seem real, they are based on fear and false beliefs about ourselves. The fact that we unconsciously accept them as real is the barrier holding us back. We take them as real until we shine awareness on them. Then the barriers dissolve, and we are free.

Hidden Barrier No. 1: Feeling Fundamentally Flawed.
The belief that one is fundamentally flawed in some way is an immense barrier to optimal experience. And it brings with it a related fear: If you did make a commitment to fully using your unique gifts, you might fail. This belief tells you to play it safe and stay small. That way, if you fail, at least you fail small.

Take Dr. Richard Jordan, for example. He had created a successful small business that attracted the attention of a larger firm. The firm offered him $3 million for his business, plus a generous two-year employment contract. After weeks of negotiation, they were on the verge of signing the deal. Then one morning, Jordan woke up with some last-minute concerns, the main one being that the new employment contract offered him two fewer weeks of vacation than he was used to taking. He got into an angry confrontation with the negotiator over this detail, which resulted in a letter from the company stating that “due to the force of your remarks,” they were no longer interested in acquiring the business.

In a letter to me, Jordan said, “In that phone call I waved goodbye to $3 million in cash, salary, and incentives.” Fortunately, he was able to learn from the experience. His letter continued: “Over the next few years I would awaken many nights with a knot in my stomach. Then I finally found the diamond in the dust. After much work and introspection, I discovered that what I was really saying to that man was, ‘Wait a minute! Three million dollars! That’s way more than I’m worth. I cannot allow this!’”

Hidden Barrier No. 2: Disloyalty and Abandonment.
This barrier is the feeling that I cannot expand to my full success because it would cause me to end up all alone, be disloyal to my roots and leave behind people from my past.

Here are two questions that can help you discover if you have this barrier: Did I break my family’s spoken or unspoken rules to get where I am? Even though I am successful, did I fail to meet the expectations my parents had of me? If you answered yes to either of those questions, you’re likely to feel guilty as you become more successful. The guilt you feel makes you put on the brakes, holding you back from ultimate success and keeping you from enjoying the success you already have.

Hidden Barrier No. 3: Believing That More Success Makes You a Bigger Burden.
This barrier is the feeling that I cannot achieve my highest potential because I’d be an even bigger burden than I am now. This barrier held one of the biggest challenges for me. When I was born, I was greeted with two mixed messages: You’re a burden, and you’re a celebration. I was a burden to my mother, but a cause for celebration to my grandparents. My father had died a few weeks after my conception, leaving my mother with $300, my older brother to raise, and me in the womb. Starting out my life as a combination of burden and celebration caused me to repeat this combination often in adult life. I would have a positive breakthrough, then immediately start feeling I was a burden on the world. But the guilt I felt for being a burden was for crimes I hadn’t committed. If we remove the guilt of the crimes our parents and siblings convicted us of before we walked into kindergarten, we are liberated from the Upper-Limit Problem.

Hidden Barrier No. 4: The Crime of Outshining.
The unconscious mantra of the outshining barrier goes like this: I must not achieve my full success, because if I did I would outshine someone and make him or her look or feel bad. This barrier is very common among gifted
and talented children. They get a lot of their parents’ attention, but they also get a strong subliminal message: Don’t shine too much, or you’ll make others feel bad or look bad. One unconscious solution that gifted children devise is to turn down the volume on their genius so others don’t feel threatened by it. The other solution is to continue to shine brightly but turn down the volume on their enjoyment of it.

I worked with Joseph, a middle-age executive who had been a piano prodigy as a child. He went on to modest success as a professional musician but then quit music completely because, without realizing it, he kept running up against this barrier. Specifically, each time Joseph had a breakthrough to more success, he would be gripped by guilt and end up feeling worse than before. Even after he quit music, the pattern followed him into his business career.

During our first session, we were able to shine a light on the moment in his past when the barrier first got locked into place. Growing up, Joseph had been close to his only sibling, a sister, who was also a gifted musician. She died of leukemia when she was 8 years old, leaving him and his parents devastated. This loss caused him to throw himself even more passionately into his music.

For his birthday one year, his parents gave him a grand piano. He was seized with joy and gratitude. He hugged his parents and, with tears streaming down his face, sat down at the keyboard. As his fingers were about to touch the keys for the first time, his mother said, “We would never have been able to afford this if your sister hadn’t died.” Instantly, his joy became suffused with guilt and grief. A pattern was set in motion that would play out for the next 40 years.

Fortunately, Joseph was able to break free. He realized that the crime for which he’d been convicted — being alive and thus outshining his sister for all time — was a crime that existed only in his parents’ imagination. Many of you may find an issue like this in your past. If so, you will need to ask yourself if you are afraid to go to your ultimate success because you’re afraid of outshining someone from long ago.

Now that you understand the basics of the Upper-Limit Problem and where its root structure is buried, you are equipped with the context you need to identify when and how you limit yourself — and how to transcend your Upper Limits and utilize the full power of your unique gifts. In other words, you’re ready to step into your Zone of Genius.

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