17 lies that are holding you back
March 24, 2003 | 12:00am
All of us have the power to have the life we want. But this power gets diminished by the weak-minded or uniformed lies we tell ourselves. Lies that are born out of fear. Fear of the unknown. Fear of the daring plunge into the unknown beauty. Fear of uncertainty. Fear of being courageous, evolving, and creative. Fear of risking being a total fool. Fear of taking a stand for greatness.
These fears inspire the lies. They remove us from daring action and huge commitments. From inventing a future in the face of total uncertainty. Steve Chandler, public speaker and corporate trainer, in his thought-provoking book, 17 Lies That Are Holding You Back & The Truth That Will Set You Free, shares a superb set of principles vital for people to function at their peak, overcome personal and professional hurdles, and achieve their dreams. Here are the 17 lies. The challenge is to turn them into truth. Learn from Commonness’ distillation of Sandler’s positivity.
1. It’s "who" I know. Everyone says that, but it is a lie. The truth is that it’s what we do. And the promise of what we do doesn’t always have to be spoken, such as when a basketball scout says that a young player he saw in a provincial meet "shows promise," or when a song and dance group releases a "promising" first album accompanied by a music video. It’s right there in the work. In the world of success, who we know is nothing. What we do with "who" we know is everything. The doing is the thing that brings success.
2. There’s something wrong with me. The great professor of linguistics S. I. Hayakama said that there were basically two kinds of people: The kind of person who failed at something and said, "I failed at that" and the kind of person who failed at something and said, "I’m a failure." The first person is telling the truth, and the second person is not. "I’m a failure." To outsiders, that claim doesn’t always appear to be so. It can look like a sad form of self-acceptance. However, it is a lie, and the lie is intentional. The payoff to this lie: If we already are a failure, how can we be criticized for not doing something great?
3. I’m too old for that. One of the easiest ways for us to avoid doing something is to say that we are too old to do it. It’s a claim that keeps us out of action, although it’s almost never really true that we are too old to do it. But wasn’t it not too long ago we were telling ourselves that we are too young to do things, that we didn’t really know how to yet. We plant in our head that we didn’t have enough experience or confidence.
These days we often hear ourselves say, "I’m too old for that." It becomes our way out of things. But it’s almost never the truth. It’s almost always just a feeling covered by an invented "fact." Should we honor and respect that feeling? Is feeling old a useful feeling anyway?
4. I can’t because I’m afraid. The self-concept of cowardice brings about the lie that being afraid to act is being unable to act. The truth is that we can always find courage. All of us have it like a heartbeat, like breath. It is right there inside our fears. It’s like a jewel inside a closed fist waiting to be uncovered. It is not something we don’t have. It escapes us only because we have programmed in our biocomputer that we are cowards. How many times have we dictated in our mind statements like, "I don’t have what it takes. I don’t have it in me to stand up to this," or "I’ll never make it"?
5. I’d love to do that, but I don’t have the time. It is not true that we really want to do that, and it is not true that we don’t have the time. If we really want to do something, we would make the time. It is never time that we lack, it is always the purpose. So it would be honest to say, "I think I should say I want to, but I don’t have the commitment." It’s all a matter of desire. If our desires are strong, they can be converted into clear commitments, which in turn can cause the creation of time. When the drive and passion to accomplish a job or project are overflowing, we have all the time in the world.
6. There’s nothing I can do. On the contrary, yes we can do something. Worse situations, in fact, bring out the best in us. We become more creative or are able to come up with even more brilliant solutions during periods of crisis. Before a crisis hits, be it financial, familial, or professional, we would just tell ourselves, "there’s nothing I can do." By saying that, we simply stop stretching our imagination, stop firing our energy, and thinking any further about the problem or situation.
In today’s life and work environment, we have to do everything we have to do to get things done. We either serve in life, or we don’t serve at all. There is no gray area. If our commitment is to serve, then there’s always something we can do.
7. I worry because I care. Dr. Deepak Chopra in Journey to the Boundless says, "To worry is to pray for what you don’t want." When we catch ourselves worrying, take an action. Anything. This is great way to train ourselves not to worry, especially if we hate being in action. The truth is that "I worry because I am in the habit of worrying." We worry in order to do nothing. Doing nothing about a problem soon becomes the problem. As Wayne Gretzky said, "You miss 100 percent of the shots you don’t take."
8. I’m sadder now but wiser. Lemon Tree, the old folk song got this lie started in my head during my adolescent years. In the song, the singer’s lover leaves him, thus –- One day she left without a word, she took away the sun. And in the dark she left behind, I knew what she had done. She left me for another; it’s a common tale but true. A sadder man but wiser now, I sing these words to you."
The lesson of the Lemon Tree is a lie. The real truth is that the wiser we are, the happier we get. Wisdom gives that happiness to us. If we are becoming sadder, it’s not because we are becoming wiser, it is because we are quitting. We are giving up.
Sadness comes from dimming the lights, not turning them up. Happiness, on the other hand, comes from being progressively wiser; from brightly lighting our consciousness with new knowledge and power.
9. The longer I have a habit, the harder it is to break. Tom Peters says, "People change in a nanosecond." We can go from smoker to non-smoker in an instant. We go from drunk to non-drinker in a heartbeat. We give up our pills the moment we throw the last handful of them into the toilet, watch them disintegrate in cloudy, wet powder trails just as former habits disintegrate too. Whether we’ve had a habit for two years or 20 years, the process is exactly the same. How long we’ve been doing something means nothing. The action we take to create a new self-perception means everything.
10. People really upset me. We could, if we wanted to, choose not to be upset. It’s easier to feel than to think. Thinking about people, our commitments to them, and our love for them takes courage and imagination. And if we are afraid to develop these two traits, the easiest way is to lie.
11. Winning the lottery would solve everything. People who become millionaires in the lottery are often treated with jealousy and a kind of contempt. The universe has a great deal of fun unmasking the lies that we tell, like the lie about money solving everything. Most people who win money quit their jobs and try to spend their way to happiness and fulfillment, only to find themselves growing less and less happy. A wealthy person who has earned his or her money is treated with respect. Bill Gates and Warren Buffet, both self-made multibillionaires, were greeted with a standing ovation when they spoke at the University of Washington to share their business and life experiences.
12. They’re too beautiful for this world. This is the Vincent Van Gogh, Billie Holiday, Kurt Cobain, Marilyn Monroe, Janis Joplin, and Dylan Thomas lie. They are people who are just too beautiful for this world, and they feel the world has let them down. The lie says that these people are too sensitive, and the cruel world has repeatedly done them wrong. That’s why they took their own lives.
13. You hurt my self-esteem. No one could raise our own self-esteem but ourselves. This should lead us to obtain a certain freedom to act on our own behalf. Some of us take longer than others, but there is no limit to the kindling or re-kindling of self-esteem. There is no age limit to it. I’ve seen people in their sixties began their lives fresh and new with a whole new sense of self-confidence and self-respect.
14. It’s a shame we didn’t capture that on video. Death gains power over us when we begin to worship our own past, or when we do everything for nostalgia and have no fantastically fresh new future. We transfer all power to the past. It is important to notice that the past can waste our lives when we use the bygone years this way. It makes the present feel empty of its promise.
Thus, it should not really be a shame when we didn’t record the past on video. It is more shameful when we do not seize the present, or when we neglect to invent a current life worthy of seeing through the video lens of our minds.
15. That’s just the way I am. This asks us to nod our heads and accept that we have permanent characteristics that dictate what we do. It is telling us to agree that who we are is beyond our control. We have no power. We are helpless and hardwired. But we should face the truth: We must constantly re-invent ourselves all the time and the method of re-invention is always an internal intention to change. To play hard, to work hard, and to really go for it.
16. What doesn’t kill me makes me stronger. We hear a lot about the banality of evil, but it is nothing compared to the deadly effect of the worst vices – alcoholism, drug addiction or too much attachment to wealth and material things. Once we get wrapped up and trapped by these dangers, we decline and become grotesquely boring. Addiction to anything is just addiction – boring, brutal and banal.
17. I am helpless. Stuart Wilde declares, "If you intend to consolidate and quicken your energy – as I’m sure you do – you will find accepting the truth and living in it to be the two of the strongest concepts one can embrace." The lie is that we are helpless. The truth is that we are powerful.
Living powerfully is a choice. And with the choice comes the defeat of fear, and the triumph of our more truthful selves.
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