Schooling can leave us with limitations
School can incubate our passions to achieve. Like these valedictorians. But it can also instill self-limiting patterns of thinking and behavior.
Robert Kiyosaki recalls his early school years: “Today I don’t use much of what I learned after the fifth grade. But that’s not to say school didn’t leave its permanent mark on me. The fact is, I left school with several behavioral traits I hadn’t walked in with.”
Writing in the book Einstein’s Business: Engaging Soul, Imagination and Excellence in the Workplace, he continues: “Engraved in my mind was the belief that making a mistake, or ’screwing up,’ got me ridiculed by my peers and often my teacher. School brainwashed me into believing that if a person wanted to be successful in life, he or she had to always be right. In other words, never be wrong.
“School taught me to avoid being wrong (making mistakes) at all costs. And if you did happen to make a mistake, at least be smart enough to cover it up. This is where all too many people are today—not allowing themselves to make mistakes and thus blocking their own progress.”
This urge toward perfectionism can deeply affect us, he notes: “The symptoms of this ‘disease’ are feelings of boredom, failure, and dissatisfaction, although most of us never come to understand why we feel this way. After having it drilled into us for so many years, it’s hard to imagine that being ‘right’ could cause such unhappiness.”
Robert Kiyosaki is author of Rich Dad, Poor Dad, and Rich Dad Secrets.
In his book Your Own Worst Enemy: Breaking the Habit of Adult Underachievement, psychologist Kenneth W. Christian, PhD talks about styles or patterns of thinking and behavior that solidify into ruts that can limit our achievement and creativity.
One example are people he calls Extreme Non-Risk-Takers - who “focus totally on minimizing risk in their lives… because they try to avoid situations in which they could possibly fail, they gravitate toward occupations, relationships and activities that do not present serious challenges or reflect their real interests.”
Another one is Self-Doubters / Self-Attackers - who “block their success by holding high standards they feel they can never possibly meet and for which they therefore seldom strive.”
Being seduced by the comfort of routine and the known is another of the ways we self-limit. In his book on personal development and achievement, Unhypnosis, Steve Taubman writes that some people experience “atrophy of imagination” from a “continued repetition of an unsatisfactory life script.”
Master Designer Susan Kirkland notes in her post Surviving Troublemakers, “Idealism and youth perpetuate risk and adventure. As time passes, wisdom may view risk with trepidation, shelving adventure in favor of security. Choosing the predictable over the unknown buys us comfort and sadly, mediocrity.”
Hopefully, becoming more aware of the ruts we have made for ourselves can help us live more fully and expressively.
Related Talent Development Resources pages:
nurturing talent: teen/young adult
perfectionism
self-limiting
article: In Praise of Perfectionism by Stephen A. Diamond, Ph.D.
my article Perfectionism
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February 10th, 2007 at 2:08 am
Entrepreneurship is not bound by the mental barriers instilled into us by the economy and the society. Its all about letting yourself think freely breaking all the possibilities and hence coming up with Innovation that adds values to people’s lives.
Thank You!
Tarun Trikha
Founder and CEO
http://www.CashYourPassion.com