The Grasshopper hopped into a telephone conversation I was having yesterday when he said, “Limitation is learned early.”

It immediately made sense.

A friend and I were discussing peoples’ attitudes and beliefs about money and then the topic turned to childhood learning. I recalled something Tony Robbins said some 25 years ago: “Ask a group of kindergarteners who the best artist in the class is and all the hands will go up. Ask the same group a year or two later and notice the lack of hands being raised.”

It’s helpful when you are constrained by a belief to notice that belief in action. Part of the noticing is to recognize that the belief was born after you were, because you were not born with beliefs.

Beliefs, whether useful or not, are learned. For example, sadly, the belief that another race is inferior can easily produce a 5 year old bigot with the requisite conditioning. That’s an early limitation.

This isn’t a treatise on parenting because frankly, we are all amateurs in that arena. There is no manual to follow other than the one that was modeled for you during your own upbringing. Yes, each generation makes adjustments to the process, but the art of limitation is still taught.

The real gift comes as an adult when we notice our learned imitations in action. Sometimes it produces a laugh and other times a tear. The emotional reaction isn’t the gift; the noticing of the limitation in action is.

Beliefs, for the most part, are limitations, even a belief in the most accepted of things, like gravity. The limitation of gravity would suggest to most that heavy hunks of metal can’t fly through the air. The Wright Brothers noticed that limiting belief, and in doing so, made room for a new belief that didn’t have that gravitational pull.

Sometimes someone has to point out to us that our beliefs are limitations, and sometimes that realization arrives in an “ah-ha” moment.

The question you don’t want to get caught up in is whether your beliefs are right or wrong, but rather if they serve you or not. If they are not, you are lashed to a pole by your limitations.

Back to money: Putting silver spoon prejudice aside, people with money don’t have the same beliefs about money that people without money do. The real limitation isn’t that you don’t have money; it’s the conditioned limitation about money that keeps you in the red. It’s learned early.

What were your parents’ attitudes about money? Odds are, your attitudes are slightly watered down versions of theirs.

Whether your limitations are about money or some other thing, the route to rectification begins with recognition.

Begin to recognize your beliefs in action and you’ll pause them long enough for a new idea to take root – one that’s not so limiting.

The limitation about limitation is that we don’t take the time to recognize it in action.

Recognition, alone, will do more to move you forward than another mental trip down limitation lane.

All the best,

John

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