Turns out I was just “upper limiting” and didn’t know it
I can’t count how many times I’ve self sabotaged my career and thanks to Gay’s best selling book, The Big Leap, I now understand why.
He shares a story of feeling really great about everything in his life and then suddenly thoughts of his daughter who was away at school, derailed his happy train. Turns out she was totally fine but in his mind, in that moment, she was sad, lonely, and needed him to check on her. After calling the school and being assured she was fine, he questioned what had happened to change his mood so jarringly.
He immediately recognized that whenever he started to feel really good about things in his life, his work, his relationship, his good fortune, he only felt it for a fleeting period of time and then he would think of something negative or worrisome to bring him “back down” to a level he was more comfortable with. After all, no one feels good all the time, right? And Gay was no different.
Once he delved into things more, he realized that we all have a set point of feeling good and we need to actively work to raise that set point, or upper limit, in order to allow ourselves to feel good longer and disrupt that pattern of self limiting behaviour and self sabotage.
My Upper Limiting Pattern
As I began to look at this pattern in my own life, it most clearly showed in my career path. Again and again and again.
I became a supervisor of the monitoring station I worked at in my mid 20’s and only lasted a few months.
I became the first ever FPO (fire prevention officer) for Georgian Bay FD (after going to college and graduating with honours in fire protection engineering) and gave it up because my marriage at the time was suffering and I thought I had to choose.
I was also the first female Captain at GBFD when I had a negative experience at the fire college that caused me to doubt myself (hey imposter syndrome) and suddenly decide I wasn’t good enough and stepped down.
I was the first female inspector hired by Mississauga Fire but my marriage was still struggling and I hated being away from my two young daughters so much so I resigned after 6 months.
I became a full time instructor for the fire college (one of only 7 for the entire province and the only female) and I resigned after 18 months because I didn’t think it was for me.
Started my own business and after 3 years hit the $1000/hour mark for a speaking fee and suddenly stopped doing anything with my business after that.
I knew I there was a pattern of self sabotage but I didn’t know how to change it.
My Limiting Beliefs
I always thought that I lacked the ability to be successful. Every time I’d gotten to a certain level of success, I somehow believed that it was some colossal mistake and I didn’t belong there.
I thought I was weak. Unreliable. Incapable. And couldn’t handle a career.
This went on for over 20 years. I’m now two months away from the big 5–0 and although I may not have completely settled into my zone of genius like Gay Henricks clearly has and talks about in his book, when it comes to a career, I have learned a thing or two about getting out of my own way.
I can’t help but wonder if I’d found The Big Leap years ago how differently those stories may have played out.
Rusting
Gay discovered halfway through his life that he was rusting. Rusting! What a way to describe mid life and another a-ha moment for me. He goes on to talk about a dull, sluggish feeling deep within him and how he’d gotten to a point in his life almost sleepwalking through all the things that kept him successful-writing books, giving speeches, coaching executives and teaching seminars.
On the outside, his life looked incredibly rich and successful, until it all imploded on him after a 19 city/21 day tour when this sluggish feeling enveloped him. After seeing doctors and having tests and doing all the things, he realized he’d fallen prey to his living in his own (comfortable and safe) zone of excellence — doing the things he was great at while becoming comfortably numb.
He then set out to say no to any requests that didn’t fall within his zone of genius using a method which he calls the Enlightened No.
Zone of Genius
Gay explains being in your zone of genius as a place where there’s no need for your ego, you don’t care about getting approval, getting control, getting even, or any other get-oriented goals.
He describes it as an exhilaration, a constant state of purposeful joy that nothing else compares to and doesn’t feel like work. Time seems to expand and you have plenty of time to do what you most want to do.
As I sit here and type away on my beloved gold coloured Mac alone with the dogs in our trailer in a provincial park in Northwestern Ontario, I am exquisitely aware of how time seems to be standing still for me as I’m writing.
In my mind’s eye, I begin to see a shifting and reorganizing occurring of all the things I spend my time doing — they seem to be arranging themselves of their own volition into those that are within my zone of excellence, and those unique talents that are in my zone of genius.
When I first read this book a little over two weeks ago, I was dying to figure out what my zone of genius was. I followed the journal prompts Gay suggested and mulled it over for days in my head. I wanted to know what it was for me but thinking my way through it wasn’t going to work. I knew I needed to leave it and my heart would eventually reveal it to me.
I started to read it again this morning because I felt drawn to it, to absorb it on another level, whatever that meant. I’ve learned to trust and act on those intuitive nudges from within and the more I do it, the clearer my path seems to become.
Just as my zone of genius is revealing itself to me through the act of writing this blog, all my actions seem to be leading me somewhere that I can’t yet see, but trust wholeheartedly in.
The Next Time
Now that I have a reference manual and tools for navigating this upper limiting thing, which will continue to happen as I continue my journey up Maslow’s Hierarchy, I’m actually excited for it to happen again.
If you’re on any kind of self improvement/personal development/growth mindset/spiritual journey, welcome, I’m happy you found this blog. You now have a hack for when this happens again, and instead of falling back down a flight of stairs and licking your wounds for a few months or years, you’ll sit on the step you’re on and right yourself before continuing through your own upper limit.
I don’t think there’s anything more powerful than knowing you have the tools to get past that invisible ceiling that keeps knocking you back down.
The fact is you’ve always had the tools but no one showed you how to use them.
Now that you know we all have an Upper Limit and a Zone of Genius, does it change your perspective about what you’re capable of?
