On the other side of limitation

If something seems to be a limitation, put yourself temporarily on the other side of it. Get yourself there as completely as possible, whether it is just in your mind or to some degree in reality. Then, imagine looking back and seeing how you got there.

Once you’ve already accomplished something, it’s far easier to see how to do it again, even if significant obstacles stand in your way. That’s why, when a company is seeking to hire an employee to do a difficult and challenging job, the job candidate’s previous experience plays such a major role in the hiring decision.

Even though the task at hand might present new and unexpected challenges, the experience of accomplishing similar goals in the past gives you the ability to see the situation from the perspective of already having achieved the goal. If you don’t have that experience to call upon, then the next best thing is to visualize it. When you visualize yourself already being where you want to go, you’re much more likely to open your mind to all the different options for getting there.

If you’re at the base of a mountain attempting to climb it, all you can see is one small path, and that path is blocked by a large boulder. Rather than giving up, visualize yourself at the top of the mountain, looking down. From that perspective, you can see many pathways leading up to the top. And even though you’re only visualizing it, even though you can’t really see all the specific pathways, by mentally changing your perspective you become far more open to the possibility. So instead of heading straight up, and smacking into that boulder, you head sideways for a while. Sure enough, in time, you come across another path, one that is not blocked.