Limitless - Jim Kwik Page 0,27
of that method with you in this book. At its core is one fundamental concept: unlimiting. The key to making yourself limitless is unlearning false assumptions. So often, we don’t accomplish something because we’ve convinced ourselves that we can’t do it. Let’s go back to Roger Bannister for a moment. Every day before May 6, 1954, people were absolutely certain that a sub-four-minute mile was beyond the range of human capabilities. Forty-six days after Bannister did it, someone else beat his time, and more than 1,400 racers have followed them. Running a mile in less than four minutes is still an extraordinary feat—but it is not an impossible feat. Once that “barrier” was broken, many achieved it.
So, how do you face down limiting beliefs?
WHAT LIMITING BELIEFS DO TO US
Limiting beliefs are often revealed in our self-talk, that inner conversation that focuses on what you’re convinced you can’t do rather than what you already excel at and what you’re going to continue to achieve today and into the future. How often do you stop yourself from attempting to do something or from pursuing a dream because that voice convinces you that it is beyond your reach? If this sounds like you, you are very far from alone, but you’re also not doing yourself any favors.
“We come into this world not knowing if life is hard or easy, if money is scarce or abundant, if we’re important or unimportant. We look at two people who know everything: our parents,”1 said belief change expert Shelly Lefkoe in our podcast interview. Parents are our first teachers, and although they probably meant us no harm, we still come away from our childhoods with the limiting beliefs they unconsciously instilled in us.
Limiting beliefs can stop you in your tracks even when you’re doing something at which you normally excel. Have you ever had the experience of being in a pressure situation where you need to do something that typically comes easily to you—writing a memo or doing a quick calculation, for example—but the intensity causes you to doubt yourself so much that you fail at this task? That’s a limiting belief setting you back. If you could just get out of your head, you’d have no trouble getting the job done, but your inner voice confounds you.
Now, take that situation and extend it to an entire segment of your life. Your career aspirations, perhaps, or your ability to make friends. If your limiting beliefs are in control, you could find yourself mired in underachievement, either wondering why you never really get ahead or convinced that you don’t deserve it.
Alexis, who cofounded Kwik Learning with me, struggled with learning as a child much like I did, but for very different reasons. She was born in South Korea to entrepreneurial parents who struggled in business. They didn’t have a lot of money, but always worked hard to make ends meet. While she had a roof over her head, her family of four lived in a one-room basement in Korea. Their second business had just failed when they received a letter from the United States saying their visa application had been approved—they had filed seven years earlier. On the verge of desperation, her family thought this was a new chance, so they borrowed the equivalent of $2,000 and left for America.
Alexis didn’t know a word of English when she arrived. It was total culture shock—she didn’t know what was being said around her, and the cultural norms were entirely different. Her parents didn’t speak English either, so they were all struggling to understand their new world.
Alexis enrolled in school near her new home. She was a shy and introverted student, and, because she didn’t know the language, she often sat alone at the lunch table or ate in a bathroom stall just to avoid feeling like an outcast.
It took Alexis six years to be able to truly understand English, and both the kids and the teachers in her school didn’t understand why she struggled for so long. After a couple of years, classmates started to criticize her for being a slow learner. “What’s wrong with you?” “Are you stupid? “You’re weird,” were phrases she heard frequently as a child.
Her difficulties in school even extended to physical education, the one area where she ostensibly didn’t need to use many words. She remembers sitting on the bleachers repeatedly copying out the words, “I will bring my gym clothes to class.” But she had no idea what she was writing, and no