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Your flaws don’t matter: Why our limits start and end with us
It’s easy to get caught up in the idea of not being enough — that, we don’t have what it takes to go where we want in life; that, somehow, we alone are not enough to fulfill the passions that lie within us.
I see it all the time. It’s the girl who feels too fat to pursue a modeling career or the basketball player who feels he’s too short to try out for the team. It’s the hilarious bartender who never mustered up the courage to try his bits onstage and the rapper who’s blaming the drag of his career on his inability to get studio time.
While granted, changes and adjustments are to be had in any case where there’s pursuit for greatness, there are still too many of us who have fallen victim to our flaws and prisoners to our circumstances.
Whether you’re a creative, entrepreneur, or anyone contemplating pursuing anything greater than themselves, when things get tough and when roadblocks are faced it’s natural to turn to what we don’t have, what we don’t know and what’s not accessible as excuses for failure.
It’s easier to see what we lack rather than what we have, and, more often than not, we let the former hinder us from what was always destined to be ours. But in order to accomplish anything in life, we must stop using our shortcomings as a scapegoat for what we haven’t accomplished.
The truth is that our “flaws” don’t’ matter; our imperfections don’t disqualify us from what we want in life. If anything, it makes what we want in life specifically unique to us because we’re doing it our own way.
There is so much power in who we are as individuals; it’s for this reason that it’s imperative that we don’t give up on a dream just because someone else did it their way.
A flaw in one mans eyes in an innovative approach to another — it’s all about determining your own limits and deciding how to make it happen in your own way.
We set our own limitations. Our only responsibility is to go after it.
Flaws are forever; do you
You’re going to waiting a mighty long time if “perfect” is your timetable on doing what you’ve always wanted to do.
Perfection is a myth, and no matter how much self-improvement you undergo there will still be more self-perfecting to do. Our focus shouldn’t be on just doing — just like Nike. Action, period. Just consistently doing you. Everything else handles itself.
There aren’t rules anymore. The barrier of entry for the industry — any industry — has been decimated by technology. The best product wins and the people choose. Anyone with a smartphone can learn, build and create. It’s just a matter of doing.
When we focus on what others have, how they did it and why they’ve made it and we haven’t, we rob ourselves of the creativity of carving out our own lane.
We are who we are for a reason.
Greatness comes from brokenness
You’ll be amazed at the greatness that can come from your perceived brokenness.
Steph Curry is paper-thin in comparison to most basketball players — he has been his whole life. So, to adapt to the NBA’s larger than life athletes, he developed a sniper-accurate jump shot with a lightning-quick release and now he has two league MVPs.
You can even look at Toccara Jones, a plus-sized model who’s broken industry tropes by landing mainstreams ads at a time where big women weren’t as embraced.
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What if Steph saw his small frame as a limitation or Toccara her full body as a sign to pursue a different profession? Because they refuse to accept the flaws that everyone else saw, they not only saw their dreams come to fruition, they became trailblazers, redefining their respective fields altogether.
Since Steph entered the league everyone is shooting three-pointers and if you watch the newest seasons of America’s Next Top Model, the full-sized and ultra-thin model are split.
Limits come from you
We determine our own limits. Having one arm isn’t an excuse any more than lacking a formal education is.
When we decide that there is something that we want to do, we’re the only ones that can stop us and the moment we realize that is the moment we start owning our life.
Of course, that doesn’t mean it will be any easier and it probably means that our journey will be harder than most, but we cannot be the ones who limit ourselves.
Doubt, hate, and disbelief will inevitability come from all sides, so it’s imperative that we are supremely confident in ourselves and what we can do at all times.
Once we adopt the mindstate that we can only stop ourselves, no matter what society may suggest, we’ll start to accomplish feats that confirm that notion. It’s just a matter of not getting in our own way.
Practice living life completely ignorant of your perceived limitations and flaws. What you’ll find when you do is that you’re capable of doing things far beyond what you could have ever imagined.