Self-Fulfilling Prophecies
You Are What You Think
I’ve been involved in martial arts off and on in my life. One thing I’ve learned is an opponent can be controlled by moving their head. The entire body goes where the head goes. A much larger opponent can be controlled by merely forcing their head to move in a particular direction. A good martial artist can control another person using only their fingers to move the opponent’s head.
This idea also seems true in other aspects of life. We tend to move toward our thoughts. For many of us, our thoughts tend toward limitations rather than growth.
When we face challenges we might drift toward self-limiting thoughts:
- I’m too old/young to offer anything of value
- I don’t have enough experience
- I’m not smart enough
- I always mess up
- Others are better than me so why even try
When we think these things, we believe them, and our lives move in the direction of our beliefs!
I experienced this first-hand during a workout one morning. Running short on time and feeling more fatigued than usual, I decided to go easy on my last exercise and lift a less weight than usual. In haste, I actually loaded significantly more weight onto the bar. I began to lift the weight and thought, “What in the world is wrong? I lifted more than this last week.” As soon as I put down the weight, I realized what I had done. Wow! I lifted more than I ever had.
Interestingly, the exercise was new to me and I had only estimated the weight I could lift rather than truly challenging myself.
Of course, we shouldn’t throw caution to the wind on everything we do, but we must realize that many of our limitations are self-imposed.
What will control our thoughts?
- Circumstances
- The opinions of others
- Our past
Or will you take control?…the first choice we have is a choice of power and authority over ourselves.
