As my friend was passing the elephants, he suddenly stopped, confused by the fact that these huge creatures were being held by only a small rope tied to their front leg. No chains, no cages. It was obvious that the elephants could, at anytime, break away from the ropes they were tied to but for some reason, they did not. My friend saw a trainer nearby and asked why these beautiful, magnificent animals just stood there and made no attempt to get away.
“Well,” he said, “when they are very young and much smaller we use the same size of rope to tie them and, at that age, it’s enough to hold them. As they grow up, they are conditioned to believe they cannot break away. They believe the rope can still hold them, so they never try to break free.” My friend was amazed. These animals could at any time break free from their bonds but because they believed they couldn’t, they were stuck right where they were.
Like the elephants, how many of us go through life hanging onto a belief that we cannot do something, simply because we failed at it once before?
How many of us are being held back by old, outdated beliefs that no longer serve us? How many of us have avoided trying something new because of a limiting belief? Worse, how many of us are being held back by someone else’s limiting beliefs?
A COUPLE OF THOUGHTS ABOUT LIVING OUTSIDE YOUR COMFORT-ZONE:
#1: At some point good leaders will exhaust all options within their comfort-zone and life will become stagnate and mundane. However, great leaders will take necessary risks and explore options outside the limits of normality.
#2: The “crowd” or the “masses” often settle for comfort, however great leaders reach outside their comfort-zone and accomplish things nobody else thought possible.
#3: When leaders step out of their comfort-zone amazing things happen that would have never been possible within their area of comfort. Leaders are “comfortable” being “uncomfortable”.
4 Seasons of ASB 