Untying The Elephant

I read recently that elephants used in logging work (in some terrain they're apparently the only way of moving heavy logs around) are kept tethered by a single rope around one leg when they're not working. They can move around, but the rope apparently keeps them from wandering away from the camp.

Frankly, it doesn't sound like much of an existence... but the strange thing is, they don't need to put up with it. An elephant weighs tons, and there's just no rope on earth could hold one that decided to break free.

Why don't they, then?

Because they've been conditioned to accept the rope since they were babies. When they're first tethered they're small and weak enough that straining against it does no good. They haven't got the strength to break it.

This is where the elephants' famous memories work against them. They never forget trying to break the rope and failing to do so. Because they couldn't break the rope when they were babies, they assume they just can't break it - ever.

That's why one single rope can hold a fully-grown elephant... because the elephant will never, ever, even think of breaking it.

What's even worse - most people do the same. Most people who are told as children that they aren't very good at something will believe that, and as grown-ups they never try again.

It might just be that they needed practice, or to be taught a better way of doing it than a child would know. Sometimes they might be shy, and need encouragement. Maybe it's just been that a parent was tired or irritable, stressed, or simply in a hurry, and hasn't had the patience to watch or listen properly.

Whatever the reason, words like "You're hopeless!" or "You'll never get it right!" or being laughed at by someone whose good opinion matters to you can all too easily turn into the equivalent of the rope around the elephant's ankle - a shackle that will never be recognized as the weak and powerless thing it really is, but which will hog-tie the person that it's been inflicted on... for life.

Fortunately, humans have the capacity to change their thinking. If you can learn to recognize the outdated limitations that have so far held you back from where you want to be, you can break them just as surely as an elephant could break a rope.

What would you really love to do that you're not doing now? Professionally or personally, a career, an interest or a hobby - it doesn't matter. What unfulfilled ambition have you buried in your mind because someone once sneered at you and told you that you never would achieve it?

It's important that you're absolutely honest with yourself here. Being discouraged or derided as a child is a painful and embarrassing experience, and many people cope with it by burying the whole incident, along with their ambition, in the deepest recess of their mind so that they don't ever have to feel that way again.

Well, you don't have to feel that way again. You don't need to relive the bad experience - just bring out that ambition, and take another look at it.

Why did you want it - and do you still?

If it's simply something that you've honestly outgrown, that's fine. You've taken the sting out of a bad memory, and you don't have to concern yourself with it any more.

Before you consign it to oblivion, though, ask yourself one more question about it.

In a perfect world, if you could be quite sure that going for it wouldn't get you hurt again, and that you really have the talent that would help you to achieve it, and you couldn't fail, and people would applaud your skill, not laugh at you for lack of it, would you still want to walk away from it?

Isn't there a tiny voice inside that's asking wistfully, "What if...?"

If so, remember that almost any skill can be learned by almost anyone who really wants to master it... and that your happiness comes not from what you get from life, but from the creative energy that you put into doing something that you love.

Remember, too, that people who (usually unintentionally) inflict that kind of inhibition on a child are often less than knowledgeable critics.

A parent who says you can't sing may not have the faintest clue about the kind of music that you want to sing.

The teacher who derided your computer skills because you forgot to use the spell-check on a homework assignment may not even be aware of what you can do with spreadsheets, or how you can design a story-board for potentially money-spinning games.

Siblings tease because they're siblings - that's just how they are.

Most people who mock others' dreams have never even tried to reach their own.

Don't let the rope that someone's disapproval tied around your ankle when you were a child prevent you, like the elephant, from going where you really want to go.

Visit Supreme-Success.com instead, and find out how you can achieve ambitions that you'd thought were lost to you forever.