“The Big Leap” Review 2

Guy Hendricks continues on with “The Big Leap” by saying that when we are enjoying high levels of success in finances, creativity, or relationships we often create high dramas in our lives in order to prevent us from feeling that enhanced success. This is the Upper Limit Problem.

He says that reason that we create this drama is from one (or more) of the four primary false beliefs or fears that we hold:

• Feeling fundamentally flawed - this belief tells you to play it safe and stay small. This is an old belief that can be triggered any time that you reach a new level of success. When this happens you can either return to your old set point or dissolve the underlying belief in order to move on to new levels of success.
  
• Disloyalty and abandonment - with this belief you feel like if you were successful you would be all alone and would leave behind all the people from your past. If you achieve success with this belief then you follow it with self-punishment.
  
• Believing that more success brings a bigger burden - here you feel that you are a burden from when you are really young so you feel guilty any time you are successful.
  
• The crime of outshining - this is a belief that you need to tone down your success in order to not outshine someone else.
  

He says these four beliefs are the root causes for us hitting our Upper Limit Problem. He says we can identify times when we are “upper-limiting” ourselves when we see we are doing the following behaviors:

• Worrying - worry when we cannot control something is just noise designed to keep us safe in our Zone of Excellence or Zone of Competence
  
• Criticism and blame - these are really ways to stop the flow of positive energy (even if the blame or criticism is directed at oneself)
  
• Deflecting - avoiding positive comments or acknowledgement in order to crimp the positive flow of energy keeps us from challenging ourselves to feel good.
  
• Squabbling - arguing often occurs as a race towards occupying the victim position in the relationship
  
• Getting sick or hurt - often are ways to show that you have an upper limit problem. There is a strong link between emotional and physical health
  

Letting yourself savor natural good feelings is a direct way to transcend the upper limit problem. Also awareness of when you are doing the above items and shifting them into more positive behaviors can be helpful.

Can you notice times when you are worrying, blaming, deflecting or getting sick? Are they upper limit behaviors for you?