Isn’t amazing how quickly a person’s image can change in the eyes of the public? Over the holidays, I had a layover at DFW airport. In the hallways, there will still several ads from the consulting firm Accenture featuring Tiger Woods. Accenture backed out of their sponsorship agreement with Tiger on December 14, but as of December 29, they hadn’t taken down the ads yet. In light of the recent scandal, I could only laugh at how much the meaning of the taglines had changed. One ad showed Tiger looking for a lost golf ball amongst the rocks with a tagline that read, “It’s what you do next that counts.” Another showed Tiger in knee-high brush that said, “The road to high performance isn’t always paved.” Boy, isn’t that the truth.
The year 2009 was paved with scandals from several high profile celebrities, as detailed in this brilliant article by L.A. Times columnist Bill Plaschke, aptly titled “Sleaze has been the undisputed champion of the sports world for 2009.” But isn’t it curious just how many celebrities seem bent on self-destruction? I mean, aren’t celebrities the ones achieving their goals? Aren’t they the ones with all the money and fame they could want? Then why are they so miserable?
The answer, I feel, is that scandal-ridden celebrities are exhibiting a very universal human condition: The Upper Limit Problem. I first read about the Upper Limit Problem in Gay Hendricks’ book, The Big Leap. Below are a few excerpts from The Big Leap that I thought you would find interesting:
How the Upper Limit Problem Works
“Each of us has an inner thermostat setting that determines how much love, success, and creativity we allow ourselves to enjoy. When we exceed our inner thermostat setting, we will often do something to sabotage ourselves, causing us to drop back into the old, familiar zone where we feel secure.
Most people think they will finally feel good when they have more money, better relationships, and more creativity. But all of us can find and nurture the capacity for positive feelings now, rather than waiting until some longed-for event occurs.
If you focus for a moment, you can always find some place in you that feels good right now. Give that positive feeling your full attention. Let yourself enjoy it as long as you possibly can. As you get more skilled with this practice, you’ll discover that your positive feelings, your abundance, your love and creativity all begin to expand. Then, the outer aspects of your life change to match the expanding good feeling inside you.
Millions of people are stuck on the verge of reaching their goals can’t seem to scale the wall, and are struggling under a glass ceiling that is completely within their control, waiting to be removed. These people are not flawed or unlucky – they have an Upper Limit Problem and it can be transcended in the wink of an eye, in a leap of consciousness. An Upper Limit Problem is dissolved, not solved, by shining the light of awareness on it”.
In The Big Leap, Hendricks goes on to describe the various ways we upper limit ourselves: worrying, criticizing, blaming, deflecting, squabbling, getting sick, getting hurt, lying, breaking agreements and withholding truths. If you catch yourself doing any of these things, just be aware that it may be a form of self-sabotage; a way for you to limit your ability to be happy for longer and longer periods of time.
Key Takeaway:
“The Upper Limit Problem is the tendency to follow big leaps forward in your success with big mess-ups. The mess-ups rubber-band you back to where you were before, or sometimes some place worse. But if you see what you are doing in time, you can shift right out of the free fall and point yourself back toward the sky.”
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