Lack and Limitation

“Argue for your lim­i­ta­tions and they are yours.”

“There are no lim­i­ta­tions to the mind except those we acknowledge.”
–Napoleon Hill

Through­out my career, I’ve met peo­ple who are truly con­gru­ent and lived life to the fullest. They always seemed to get what they require or desire. They are happy with who they are, what they have, and what they do. They have high lev­els of self-​​esteem and are the kinds of peo­ple I would cer­tainly clas­sify as the truly successful.

Now, the ques­tion is: “Did they have a high self-​​esteem after they’ve reached their goals or did they reach their goals because they have a high self-​​esteem in the first place?” Think about it.

On the other hand, I’ve met many oth­ers for who this was not so. They con­stantly live in the future. They always seem to be search­ing. They always seem to be striv­ing and never arriv­ing. They are never sat­is­fied with their sit­u­a­tions or them­selves. They may reach a goal or two and feel a moment of exhil­a­ra­tion, but then they quickly feel unchal­lenged and need to go for more.

For instance, in cos­metic surgery when a patient’s self-​​image is poor, there is no cos­metic enhance­ment in the world that can be done to that per­son that will change his feel­ings about him­self. If he did have surgery, he’ll look at him­self in the mir­ror and say, “You know, doc, I still feel ugly.”

So, what causes lack and lim­i­ta­tion? The com­mon­est if not the sin­gle under­ly­ing source of all lack and lim­i­ta­tion is this thing called a low self-​​esteem. I also believe that fears and doubts are the mas­cots of a poor self-​​esteem. They close the chan­nels through which your great­ness can mate­ri­al­ize, pro­hibit your suc­cess­ful­ness to man­i­fest, and place unnec­es­sary lim­its on your potential.

On the other hand, the surest way to erad­i­cate lack and lim­i­ta­tion is to achieve inner peace. And the inevitable con­se­quence of attain­ing inner peace­ful­ness is the increase in your self-​​esteem. Through a know­ing that you are worth much more than you think, you will bring about all that you desire.

Now, you might find this a bit strange because you prob­a­bly thought to this point that try­ing to fill those lacks and to work within (or try­ing to remove) those lim­i­ta­tions are the keys to suc­cess, such as reach­ing goals, get­ting as much done as pos­si­ble, seek­ing out­side stim­u­lus, etc. This is not true. Doing so only deals with the symp­toms and not the source of the problem.

Instead, you should make peace of mind the great­est goal in your life for it is the absence of all fear and, of course, guilt. Peace of mind increases self-​​esteem that opens the con­nec­tion, because a low self-​​esteem is the great­est man­u­fac­turer of all these neg­a­tive lim­i­ta­tions. By choos­ing peace of mind as your high­est goal in all your endeav­ors, you are enhanc­ing your self-​​esteem let alone your success.

If you have a low self-​​esteem, you are, like Jesus for exam­ple, cru­ci­fied between two thieves. One is called “yes­ter­day” (i.e., guilt) and the other one is called “tomor­row” (i.e., fear). They are indeed thieves because they are both rob­bing not only your abil­ity to real­ize your poten­tial but also (and most impor­tant) your present moments.

Peo­ple who con­stantly live in the past or in the future (or both) are, day after day after day, wast­ing that pre­cious enjoy­ment of life. They’re the ones who usu­ally wake up at some later point and real­ize that it’s all too late.

Whether you are reli­gious, a spiritually-​​oriented per­son, or a stu­dent of truth, it doesn’t mat­ter. I know that you have within you a con­science, a deep set of val­ues by which you live your life. Sci­ence has proven that hav­ing a set of guid­ing prin­ci­ples is not only reserved for the­olo­gians or schol­ars but a nat­ural and instinc­tual com­po­nent of every Homo Sapien on this planet.

Inci­den­tally, “Homo” is a Latin word which stands for mam­mal, and “Sapien” comes from the word “sapi­ence” (i.e., con­science, wis­dom, intel­li­gence, etc.). Because you’re a “con­scious mam­mal” (or, in other words, a human being), you have within you an inner voice and the abil­ity to fol­low it.

What it all boils down to is that by adher­ing to a sys­tem of clearly defined per­sonal val­ues, in other words by work­ing on your pri­or­i­ties, you will have a clear con­science and a clear pur­pose, and you will increase your true poten­tial by remov­ing the lim­i­ta­tions fears have created.

Sim­ply put, you can cre­ate a har­mo­nious rela­tion­ship with your­self, between what you do and what you value, in order to achieve all that you truly desire with­out fear or guilt. You will make the con­nec­tion and every­thing that you need or want will flow to you as a result.

About the Author

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