Meeting your limits and pushing past them is how you grow
Reaching your goals will include many roadblocks and there will be times it feels like you’ve hit your breaking point, only to realize you’ve got a little more in the tank. With each plateau you overcome your understanding of what you can and can’t do changes. It opens you up for new goals, new progress points, more steps towards the bigger picture. Your personal potential increases with each hurdle you overcome. Success is found after reaching and pushing through your limits.
Success is determined by your ability to reach your limits and then continue pushing yourself past them.
“The brick walls are there for a reason. The brick walls are not there to keep us out. The brick walls are there to give us a chance to show how badly we want something. Because the brick walls are there to stop the people who don’t want it badly enough. They’re there to stop the other people.” ― Randy Pausch, The Last Lecture
Growth can be painful
As we push ourselves to our limits, we encounter growing pains. It can be the fact that no one seems to care about what we’re doing, it can be the physical pain of pushing our body to exhaustion, it can be rejection of an idea we’ve spent weeks working on. The most successful people realize this pain is part of the process. With each failure, comes another opportunity to show the world their ability to overcome. Successful people know their next step is to figure out how to push past each hurdle to further their goals.
To succeed, focus on the things you are doing right and learn from your failures. Look at your roadblocks as an opportunity to learn a new skill, make a new connection, expand the way you view your obstacle. If you quit every time things are hard or don’t go exactly the way you think, you will find yourself settling for the lowest hanging fruit. The lowest hanging fruits are easy to get but they will never push you to your maximum potential.
Adaptation is not the same as giving up
“The best fighter is not a Boxer, Karate or Judo man. The best fighter is someone who can adapt on any style. He kicks too good for a Boxer, throws too good for a Karate man, and punches too good for a Judo man.” ― Bruce Lee
Some people see changing course as giving up on their dreams, when the opposite is the truth. Being able to adapt is a major key to unlocking the doors blocking your path to success. If you find yourself working towards your goals and realize the path you’re on isn’t quite right, adjust and overcome. It will only harm your growth if you continue down a path towards goals that don’t make sense to you anymore. Re-evaluate, adjust course, and keep growing while striving for your goals.
Don’t lose focus
Many goals worth achieving take longer than many of us imagine. Losing focus on our goals is another form of a growth plateau. It can become exhausting trying to remain vigilant and focused on our goals while life tries to draw us in other directions. Whether we lose attention to social media, our relationships, or the pressures of balancing all our other responsibilities, our major goals need to remain a priority. If we aren’t able to dedicate the appropriate amount of time every week, larger goals will lose steam, making any barriers we run into harder to overcome. Success is a game of perseverance and patience. Stay focused and keep moving forward.
Push past what you think is possible
When Charlie wins the ultimate prize of taking over as head of Willy Wonka’s factory, they get into the glass elevator and head to the top. They not only reach the top, but they burst through the ceiling. Charlie thought he had reached his ultimate goal but his adventure had just begun.
Any time you find yourself hitting what seems to be your limit, push yourself to see if you’ve got any more to give. Remind yourself that great things are worth enduring a little pain for. Be able to adapt to overcome the hurdles life is going to throw at you, and always stay focused on the goals you truly care about. The plateau that you find yourself hitting could easily be another starting point, when you realize your limits and decide to push past them.
Call to Action
For anyone who wants to achieve their goals, it starts with your daily life. If you want 5 daily habits to improve your life, you can find out how here.
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A version of this post was previously published on GoFindYourHappy and is republished here with permission from the author.
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