I am currently reading John Steinbeck’s classic novel East of Eden, which I highly recommend as it is packed full of timeless life wisdom about what means to be human.

One of those nuggets of wisdom which caught my eye was a line:

“A dragon killer, he was, a rescuer of damsels, and his small sins seemed so great to him that he felt unfit and unseemly.”

John Steinbeck, East of Eden

The quote is about the brother of two long lost siblings reunited. The sister can see the possibility of greatness in him, i.e. the dragon killer metaphor, yet he cannot see it. He felt unworthy. He felt like a failure. His small sins seemed too great to him that he felt unfit and unseemly. This limiting belief was preventing him from finding any successes in life.

Don’t we all do this to ourselves in one form or another? 

I know I do. When my self-talk heads in this direction, and it becomes a limiting belief. Which ultimately becomes a self-fulfilling prophecy as it can stop me from trying anything outside my comfort zone. All the negative thoughts about why something might not work can prevent me from starting.

Why do we do this to ourselves? We clip our own wings. We put an invisible cage over ourselves because we think we are unworthy of greatness for some silly reason.

It turns out this condition is part of being human. We have a negativity bias hard wired into us for our protection, and our culture criticises failure. But we need to recognise the situations where this is no longer serving us.

We get trapped in our little negative spiral and what we don’t realise is that often others don’t see what we are thinking. We see failure and unworthiness. Our family, friends and peers see potential and value. 

Others want the best for us. They think we deserve success. So why shouldn’t we?

Today’s reflection is to help others rise above those insecurities by spreading some positivity.

Reflection

• Who is someone you know where you can see a limiting belief holding them back?
• Communicate the potential you see in them. Let them know about the greatness they are capable of.