While at the post office recently, I ran into a lovely housewife I know. Mindful of the success I’ve had as a business mom, she asked if I’d mind giving her some career advice. Having been out of the workforce for the past 7 years, she was interested in contributing a few extra dollars a month to the household while perhaps getting some mental stimulation herself. She had some job ideas, working part-time at a retail store at the mall or collecting groceries, but she wasn’t too keen on leaving her children overnight to earn minimum wage. She also didn’t want to sell candles or cosmetics as a representative of one of the multilevel marketing companies.
“How did you do it? You have two kids and another on the way and you’ve built a great business.” she asked me. I responded to him the same way I answer the many people who ask, “Simple, I identified what I loved to do, took a leap of faith, and worked hard to put my passion to work in the real world.”
“Oh, I could never do that,” he said. He proceeded to list the many reasons why it would be impossible for her to tackle any kind of exciting venture that could recharge her and earn her some money. With her endless list of obstacles, she had literally paralyzed herself and drastically limited her options. Our brief conversation left me a little depressed when it should have left me excited about her exciting future. She knew there was nothing she could say to her to help her overcome the obstacles she had thrown in front of her.
Obstacles are the excuses people have for why they “never can do it.” The fascinating thing about roadblocks is that they are usually very small, solvable problems that effective people can solve before lunch. “Yes, but I’ll need liability insurance…”, “Yes, but I’ll have to get a business license…”, “Yes, but I’ll have to call people on the phone…”, “Yes, but I’ll have to find space to work…”, “Yes, but I need to sleep and I can’t get up before the kids to do my work…”
Often people’s obstacle lists are long, seem endless, and are a residue of limiting beliefs created during childhood. A limiting belief is a mental acceptance that a negative thought about oneself is true. “I’m very shy, so I could never speak in public.” “My brother is the smart one and I’m the athlete, so I never got to finish that degree program.” “My father told me that I’d probably only be good at being a wife, so while my idea of becoming an arts and crafts instructor is a good one, I’d better not try to start a business.” Limiting beliefs are powerful and feel very real to the person, but to the bystander they can sound like nonsense.
Limiting beliefs are not the same as honest self-evaluations, as in the following examples: “Becoming a professional tennis player is out of the question because I am 40 years old and have never picked up a racket”; “I’m very good at running the day-to-day operations of a company, but my abrasive personality wouldn’t fit well in the sales department”; and, “I worked really hard in physics in college, even hired a private tutor, and I just don’t have the mental aptitude to become a physicist.”
Parents, teachers, coaches, tutors, and coaches have a responsibility to avoid instilling limiting beliefs in children. Everyone can name at least one adult who said something so hurtful to us that we have since moved away from “offensive behavior.” Without having a crystal ball to see the future, there is no way of knowing what a child is capable of achieving. Most negative assessments of a child’s abilities are premature at best and ridiculous, unfounded, insensitive, and hurtful at worst. What good is it to a child if an adult looks at their arts and crafts project and says, “Well, you should probably stop right there because you’re making a mess…too bad, but I don’t see creativity in your future.” Or, “Manners lessons are a waste for you; you better get used to paying high dry cleaning bills because your shirts will always be dirty.”
It is powerful in having a lasting and positive effect on a child. As adults, we never know when a child will be moved by our words, so we must be aware at all times of what we say and how we say it. The last thing any warm, well-intentioned adult would want is to help introduce a limiting belief that sticks with an impressionable child for life and prevents them from achieving their dreams and aspirations. Our words and actions can be the difference between someone going out into the world and making things happen, and someone sitting on the inside too paralyzed to make a move.