Celebrating our Limitations

After a recent coaching session, my client wrote up a process we had used for dealing with a common judgement we make of ourselves - of being inadequate or not being good enough. It's a technique I use quite often and hope you find it useful too.

The process starts with simply recognising that we are judging ourselves in this way and noticing the impact that this has on us - feeling incompetent, losing confidence and so on. If we reflect on what's going on, we will probably notice that the judgements come out of some unreasonably high expectations we have of ourselves.

As we understand this, we can start to accept that of course we have limitations - we're not all powerful and able to do everything. Realising that being limited is not something we should take personally - it is in the nature of being human to have limits - can further help this process of acceptance.

And then something rather strange can happen. As we accept and embrace our limitations an almost magical transformation occurs. We move from resenting our limitations to celebrating them - because we recognise that it is actually these limitations that make us the unique and special human beings we are.

If we were unlimited in our capacity and potential and had no limitations then we would be god-like - and essentially all the same. It is our limitations that make us unique. Once we realise this we celebrate our limitations - we delight in them and the uniqueness they bring.