Each of us as we grow up, form an idea of ourselves. By the time we are adults, it is pretty fixed. Psychologists call it a self-concept.
- “I am a person who…”
- It causes limitations on our thinking and behavior that can be a problem when we are faced with a situation that we need to adapt.
- Without knowing it, our self-concept limits our options because it puts walls around who we are and what we can and can’t do.
Change always asks us to expand our ideas about ourselves, to cap powers we never knew we had, and cultivate new qualities, habits and ways of being.
- Your can’t do that with a rigid self-concept
Baby fish were put in a little tank inside of a larger fish tank. They grew up and swam around the small fish tank and eventually the scientist took out the walls of the smaller tank away. What do you think happened? The fish continued to swim in the same configuration despite being in the larger tank.
- Like those fish, we put limits on our thinking all because we are used to swimming around in a certain way that has worked for us so far.
Re-source: Reconceptualize
What assumptions are you making about yourself because of limiting comments from others?
- Don’t face change carrying other people’s assumption of you
Take a moment to think about the damning remarks that you have been told that you accept as true.
- “You have no willpower, you will never make anything of yourself, etc.”
Now find three examples from your life to disprove them
Then whenever you catch yourself thinking that poisonous thought, say, “that’s their story about me, not my story about myself.”
craving and resource from “Adaptability” – How to survive change you didn’t ask for – by M.J. Ryan
