“To get what we’ve never had, we must do what we’ve never done!”
In traveling circuses, when an elephant is a baby, its handler clamps a shackle to its leg, attaches the chain to a stake and pounds that stake into the ground. The 200 pound baby elephant tries with all its might to pull that stake out of the ground but fails. Because of this initial failure, the baby elephant resigns itself to walking in a circle around that stake. That baby elephant grows up to be a massive 4000 pounds with tremendous strength. In fact, it becomes strong enough to rip its stake out of the ground and roam wherever it wants to go, but it never does. Instead, it walks around that same stake and chain with a shackle around its ankle because it has clamped a limitation in its mind that it cannot pull that stake out of the ground. The elephant is its own worst enemy and the cause of its own containment. How many times do we do that in our own lives? How many things have we decided we can’t do because we faced adversity in our first try? Clamping self imposed limitations makes us less than we can be. Breaking our own mental chains allows us to do the impossible.
“Remember the Elephant Story.” I have heard these words countless times from my dad during times of self doubt or after a temporary failure. Excellence comes from breaking through the chains that hold us back. We spend far too much time in worry and doubt when we should be reaffirming ourselves. We find excuses instead of answers because it is easier than fighting through adversity. We have to teach ourselves to break our self imposed shackles and go where we want to go. Don’t be like the elephant and clamp limitations in your mind. You are better than that.
We need to demand excellence in our goals and actions, eliminate excuses and set standards for ourselves that lead to excellence. These standards will lift us up and create positive action and not allow us to succumb to our doubts. These standards will lead us to excellence through solid fundamental beliefs and actions. They allow us to rise up and achieve lasting success.
To break our shackles and eliminate the power that negative thinking has to drag us down and allow us to be mediocre, we must demand excellence in our lives. We can’t allow doubt and negative energy to take over our thoughts and bring us down. Too many times, we get caught up in the negative and the possible pitfalls that lie in front of us. This is wasted energy. While we have to be aware of possible challenges in our route to success, we need to get caught up in getting better. When we focus on our positive action, the pitfalls and negativity will dissipate. They become challenges that we are prepared to handle because we recognize what needs to be done and overcome. When we stay positive, we find a way to overcome challenges and break the shackles that keep us from going where we want.
At the end of the day, we find a reason or a way. When we let our doubts and self imposed limitations take over our thoughts, we find reasons or excuses to bail on our goals. We allow our challenges to hold us back. We stay in our comfort zone like the elephant at the circus. We walk around following the same path that the shackle we put on lets us go. We wear out that path in comfort. We are happy that we have some room to walk. However, we look out at the world and wonder what’s out there to be experienced. We know that there is something better, but we have to break our chains of comfort to go get it, so we find an excuse. The links on the chain are stronger than us. Those links are doubts that keep us from being our best and getting what we truly want. When our doubts are stronger than our beliefs, we cannot break the chain of limitations. We keep ourselves from being the best that we can be and reaching our potential with our chain of negative thinking.
When we have PMA, we find a way by overcoming the doubts that create our limitations and breaking the chains that hold us back. We realize, unlike the elephant, that we are good and born to succeed. This allows us to chart a course that leads to our goals and opens up a world of endless possibilities. We enjoy conquering the obstacles and challenges in our road to success because we know they have a purpose. They make us better and stronger for the future that we are seeking. When we find a way, we free ourselves. We are liberated and the sky is the limit for the future.
Break away from the chains that limit you by demanding excellence and setting high standards of action.
DEMAND EXCELLENCE!
ELIMINATE EXCUSES!
FIND A WAY!
Win with PMA 