Limitations: My 3 crazy tips to defeat the doubt!

G’day my friends and welcome to another blog!

When I was brainstorming topics for this week, the common theme that kept coming up was Limitations. Oh the dreaded limitations that seem to rain on everyone’s parade!

Unless you are a Zen Master, limitations can spell trouble and make you abruptly give up on whatever it may be that you are chasing!

Being disabled, that is more often than not the case! Every person on this world has ambitions, goals and dreams, and when we stumble upon a hurdle it makes us slam on the breaks. However, I am here to tell you to come off those breaks and push through the limitation if you can. Sure limitations come in all different ways. Some limitations just can’t be pushed passed, however that doesn’t mean that is the end of the road for you!

So this week I want to chat all about the dreaded limitations and just how I managed to push passed them and how you can too!

Beating Limitations: Sometimes you don’t know unless you try

the limitations for me are my mind. The pic is from when i got my first job. I am long black skinny pans, nude pumps a multi coloured shirt, black blazer and glasses. One hand is on my hip. i am standing in front of a wooden deck and gardens
My limitation is my mind: this was one of my breakthroughs. Realising I can get a job!

Trust me this is something I have tried to figure out for the past 22 years! If you haven’t already done the maths and observed the pretty picture above, I can tell you that is my whole life!

I was never super adventurous in my childhood, but the one thing that was constant was the eagerness to give things a go! Yes the bullies sort of put a spanner in the works there, but for the most part I wanted to participate in everything and my disability was never front and centre in my mind.

I guess that is the glorious side of childhood; you are completely naive!

I did drama, musicals, swimming, choir, band, and dance. When I list them like that I guess I did a lot! The one thing that remained the same in all of these endeavours was my ‘can do’ attitude.

As I got older, the can-do sort of turned into ‘can I actually do it?’. I was a lot more calculated in my decisions… Perhaps a little too calculated.

Sure you can say that as you grow older you become wiser and more careful. However, it you are super cautious you could miss out on some awesome adventures.

The last 6 months has really showed me that unless you try, you actually don’t even know if you can do what you want to do. Again, I know it may not be possible for some of us, and I know from experience how difficult that is to comprehend. For others, all you need is just a little nudge, a pinch of courage, and a dash of gumption to actually give something a go.

Did I know I could do a 5km, ride a horse, run a blog consistently or do my law degree? Hell no! but I knew if I didn’t try how else would I know?!

It is ok to fail!

black scrabble words on a white background. It spells out 'Fail your way to success'.
Photo by Brett Jordan from Pexels

A lot of people freak out over the idea of failure or if something  just doesn’t work. Let’s be honest, I dread getting my end of semester results because I am still scared of seeing a big fat ‘F’ on the text message.

However, you learn more about yourself and how you go about things when you fail as opposed to when you succeed!

For example, I failed a subject in my first year of University and it broke me. It was before I took my health seriously, and that day I told my parents I needed to go for a walk to clear my head. They were shocked that I actually said about the walk, but that was the only way to contain my emotions in a positive way, and not grab the junk food box and hide in a corner becoming an evil Gremlin. ANYWAY!

Once I came back from my ‘walk’, I wrote out a list of what I could have done better and a plan of attack for the next school year.

I knew my attempt at getting 15 pages of notes by the lecturer down to one page was not right. I missed so much information and when you have an open book exam, it pays to have literally everything in front of you.

So I googled, YouTubed, and Pinterested study techniques. I spoke to a couple of class mates, and they showed me how they structured their notes. I have never wanted to drown my sorrows in a mass amount of sugar and carbs more than that day. I realised just how wrong I was going about things.

But what that did for me was it changed up my entire note taking process, which helped me in my latter years of Uni. Will it help this semester though?? We will see. *gnaws on finger nails until there is nothing left*

What I am trying to say is that if I didn’t fail that subject, I would never have learnt what I needed to do if I wanted to get better. It also taught me more about myself and  how I could improve in every area of my life. I needed to stop being lazy and take Uni seriously. It is still a work in progress though, but lets hope I will nail it one day!

I never regret my failures, I actually cherish them. I have grown and developed more as a person because of them. You shouldn’t let your failures stop you, they should propel you and motivate you! Failures are exactly like limitations, you always have two choices in how you deal with them.

How to actually defeat and push past limitations!

My 5km contained many limitations; but there was no better feeling than finishing that last KM!

Now this is something I am still learning. But over these last six months I feel like I have had a bit of a breakthrough.

In these last six months I have:

  • Completed a 5km fundraiser.
  • Gone on a holiday by myself
  • Ran a blog
  • Been on a podcast
  • Starting riding horses

And there are more things in the works that I don’t want to jinx by writing them so I will leave it to your imagination!

However, there was one thing that changed in me to get through all of this in six months. I started to change my attitude. I didn’t change my fussing over things, but simply changed my ‘can’t do because..’ attitude to ‘if I didn’t do this how will I feel?’.

I think one of the most common themes in our limitations is FEAR! Fear of the unknown and uncertainty. I have always been so scared of uncertainty and if I couldn’t plan everything down to the conversation, then I wouldn’t do it because I didn’t know how that would impact me.

That was a pretty sad way to live. It impacted me in ways I didn’t expect, mentally, emotionally, physically and spiritually.

So I made a promise to myself when the clock struck 12 on the 1st of January, that I was going to start being a little more carefree and do things that excited me… within reason.

Did that mean I was going to join an AFL team and put on the boots?? Hell no because that would have been totally stupid and I have already had too many concussions that did not involve a football! *Says the person rides horses.

However, I decided to make educated risk assessments of everything I decided to do. So I created a checklist that I feel you can implement to push past your limitations! I ask my self these questions:

  1. Is what you are about to do going to bring you joy?
  2. If you are going to do it, how would you make it work in your favour?
  3. If it goes wrong or you get hurt, how will you feel?
  4. Is the fear of failure worth not actually giving it a go in the first place?
  5. When you are on your death bed, how do you want to look back at this?; with regret or gratitude?
  6. Does the reward of accomplishment outweigh the risk of failure?

I ask myself these questions every time I go to do something. However, the one I always start with is probably number 5. I have reached the point where I want to look back one day and be so grateful for the experiences I had instead of regret that I didn’t do the thing I wanted to do.

Limitations are only placed in our way to see if you want something bad enough! Chances are if you stop at the first limitation you encounter, whether that be your fitness, IQ, your schedule, or thoughts about your upbringing, you will never know what you are truly capable of.

If you view those limitations as something that can drive you, motivate you and actually help you reach your goal, then you may just have a success story on your hands!

Ask yourself this: In 10 years, a production company wants to make a movie on your life. What would you want the movie to show? Someone who was petrified of a challenge and gave up at the first limitation and hurdle, or someone who worked hard and pushed through the limitation to get the Gold? I certainly know what I would want! Lets’ face it, if my movie was about me moping, complaining about ‘this isn’t working’ ‘it is too hard’ ‘I won’t do it because I don’t want to fail’ while sitting eating a bag of chips then I would expect people to walk out of the movie within minutes.

I implore every one of you to write a list of everything you want to do with your life. Yes, even the ones that you are scared to try. Then go through the checklist above and answer them. Categorise your list in terms of your most important to ‘meh’. Create a plan of attack and stick to it!

You will come across challenges. Success is never handed to you on a silver platter. The world does not work like that. You need to be willing to trouble shoot your way through it, and if you want it bad enough, you will not stop at the first limitation or the second or the third. You will continuously push past them to get what you want. You will know if it isn’t for you if you don’t want to work hard enough for it.

Limitations aren’t always a deal breaker. They just give your story that little extra hit of sugar and spice to make life interesting. They don’t turn up at the best of times, but I can assure you what becomes of them will be worth it.

If a 22 year old disabled woman can do a 5km and learn to ride a horse despite the limitations of risk of injury and failure, I am confident you can do what you set out to do. Perhaps you may just need to rediscover the inner child mindset and live a little more fearlessly. Trust me it is worth it.

Rhi xo

p.s yes you read correctly! I ride horses!!! Check out my blog about my horse riding here! https://livingabled.com.au/crushing-self-doubt-my-horse-riding-journey/

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