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“We all put caps on ourselves.”

A thought by John C. Maxwell (2017-03-07) from his book, No Limits: Blow the CAP Off Your Capacity (p. 32). Center Street. Kindle Edition. (Click on the title to go to Amazon.com to buy the book.)

Is there something in you that you say you can’t do?  Maybe the first time you got up to bat in little league baseball you struck out.  It was your first time to bat in front of people but because you were so embarrassed you decided to never pick up a bat again.  Or maybe it was a spelling test or singing in front of people.  It didn’t go well so you put a cap on yourself.   

John says, “But we don’t have to leave them in place. We don’t have to be limited by them forever. I think back to some of the caps I put on myself:

“When I started in my career, I was a people pleaser. I wanted to be everybody’s favorite, and I didn’t like rocking the boat. That’s not a good mind-set if you want to be a leader. I had to learn how to remove that cap. I had to be willing to do what was right or what was best for the organization, even if it made people unhappy or I received criticism. It took me a few years to work through this, but I did it. Every time I wanted to do the easy thing that would please others, I tried to think of the vision I had for the organization and the people, and it helped me to make better decisions.”

Another one was, “Too many people simply accept whatever environment they’re born into. They think it’s normal, and they start to believe they don’t have any other choices in life. When that happens, they’ve created a self-imposed cap on their life. For example, I grew up in a small town in a very conservative environment, where leadership wasn’t valued or taught. The expectation was that if you worked hard and were a good person, that was enough. It wasn’t for me. I wanted to make a difference, and when I began to learn about leadership, I realized that I needed to move from that environment if I wanted to keep growing, learning, and expanding my potential. When I was in my early thirties, that was what I did. I removed that cap from my life. If I hadn’t, it would have remained on me, and that would have been my own choice once I’d realized I could do something about it.”

So, what is a cap you have put on yourself?  What is it?
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