Your Career – Without Limitations
by Vicki Voisin, ACP

Certainly you’ve heard that there are no limitations. The sky’s the limit! You can have anything you want! You can do anything you want to do!

This is true but only to a certain extent.

Clearly, there are some things most of us will never do — play in the NBA, travel to Nepal, etc. But what about the limitations you impose on yourself? What about the things you think are outside your capabilities simply because you declare you can’t?

In reality, many of these are not limitations at all if you consider them from a different perspective.

Life has no limitations, except the ones you make.
~Les Brown

For example, there’s something you’re unsure of because you lack the knowledge to continue. You view this as a limitation.

Or you may have a problem and you’re not sure what the next step should be to solve it. You view this as a limitation.

What about these self-imposed limitations:

• I just don’t understand the technology so I can’t possible learn the new program.
• I don’t have time to keep track of my time, so I can’t possibly reach my billable hour goals.
• I freeze when I have to speak in front of a group so I can’t possibly run for office.
• I have no time to study so I can’t possibly take a certification exam.
• I am constantly interrupted by my co-workers so I can’t possibly get all this work done.

Did you notice the recurring “I can’t” theme?

A limitation becomes a limitation only when you perceive it as one. Perception creates reality and whatever you perceive something to be, you create the reality. What’s on your “I can’t” list?

Your limitations and success will be based, most often, on your own
expectations for yourself. What the mind dwells upon, the body acts upon.
~Dennis Waitly

You can have the results you choose or you can settle for all the perfect reasons you can’t have those results. You can declare failure before you even begin or you can choose to say “I can!” and find a way to get past your self-imposed limitation.

You are capable of far more than you give yourself credit for. When faced with a limitation or problem or obstacle — and this happens to everyone — just stop for a minute and think about the reason for the obstacle. What are you trying to do? How can you go up, under, over, around, or through the obstacle to get the result you want?

There are no limitations to the mind except those we acknowledge.
~Napoleon Hill

For example, if you’re thinking “I have no time to write an article” turn that around and, instead, ask, “How can I restructure my time to have more time to write?”

If you’re thinking “I can’t do that because I don’t know how” ask, instead, “Who can help me learn how?”

Focus on your potential instead of your limitations.
~Alan Loy McGinnis

This simple tweak in perspective will help you step past your self-imposed limitations to create the career that you want. You become the facilitator and architect of your career…and the limitations you thought you had will no longer exist.

Your challenge: What do you really want? What is holding you back? What are you going to do with your self-imposed limitations today — and in the future??