The Big Leap - Avoiding Self-Sabotage & Reaching your Full Potential

Have you ever come across a situation in life that seems suspect and you just know there's more to the puzzle? I love finding books that flesh out and complete these lil life puzzles. One of these fine books is “The Big Leap” by Gay Hendricks .

There’s a phenomenon in life I’m sure you’ve come across – someone, maybe even you, experiences some success then suddenly finds a way to self-sabotage that success, sound familiar? My man Gay makes some interesting connections – taking the idea further and labeling this phenomenon as everyone’s “Upper Limit Problem” ULP.

He says we all have an imaginary bar we set for how much abundance, creativity/success, and love we allow ourselves to have. Once we hit that bar, we unconsciously knock ourselves down self-sabotaging. He takes it further and says we’re doing that to avoid facing our deeper fears - like imposter syndrome, the fear of success ie now I have to live up to these high expectations, or we think we just don’t deserve it..

Below are some of my actual notes, not a copy pasta gpt answer ?? I hope these ideas help you like they've helped me step outside myself.

1?? Identify what your ULP or ULPs are and exposing your hidden fears – this is where the magic happens, you have to almost step outside yourself to catch this.?Maybe after a big win you take a big risk you didn’t think through, or maybe things go awesome at work and you pick a fight at home. Gay says these are ultimately rooted in hidden fears you need to shine a light – ie like the fear of outshining a sibling or being fundamentally flawed. Shining a light on these fears helps you challenge the hold they have on you. Gay gave a good list of red flags in the book to help you catch yourself bumping into that upper limit ceiling, here they are with some commentary:

• Worrying – yep worrying never helps and is paralyzing
• Blame and criticism – look in the mirror buddy ??
• Getting sick or hurt – I thought this one was interesting but man the mind is a powerful thing, think through life and I’m sure you can find examples of this.
• Squabbling – You can avoid a lot of arguments if you can genuinely take the perspective of the person you're about to lose it on. Even if you don't agree with it, taking their perspective shows the other person you care and can help you come to a compromise easier.
• Hiding significant feelings – When you suppress feelings they take space in your life consciously, and subconsciously, ultimately not leaving space for you to feel the good feelings.
• Not keeping agreements – love this one and the whole idea between expectations and agreements. I've found humans ultimately don't want expectations put on them, and ultimately try to avoid them. Also, expectations are usually vague - most folks can't read minds ;). Lastly, even when someone lives up to an expectation there is no reward, because that's what is expected of you. But agreements, oh agreements are special. People inherently don't want to let an agreement down, they want to fulfill that end goal and accomplish something.
• Not speaking the relevant truth to the proper person – If you’re upset with Joe he’s the relevant person to talk to, it doesn’t help to tell Franky you’re upset with Joe – in other words don’t gossip and take your problems head on – you'll usually find they’re not the problems you thought they were and likely just a misunderstanding.
• Deflecting – I think of this one in a couple different ways, Gay uses the example brushing off compliments, but I also think it applies when someone is not being accountable.

Some others I added:

• Risk taking – it’s easy to think you’re the champ when you’re winning, lock in and do the same due diligence that got you there champ ;)
• Arrogance & lack of empathy – stay humble man, nobody likes to work with a dic*, I don’t care how smart you are.
• Carelessness – I think this ultimately comes from the fear of success and living up to expectations, I know a stretch but think hard about it.
• Vices – Oh yeah I’m looking at you! ??

2?? Cultivate an “abundance Mindset”?- ?ULP seems to come from believing there’s only so much success to go around. You have to shift your mindset to abundance – it’s important to allow yourself to celebrate successes, but I think it’s even more important to celebrate others successes. Gay says if you adopt this you’ll lift your bar of how much good you allow into your lif. I whole heartedly agree with this, and boy have I struggled with allowing myself to enjoy my success over the years, for a long time it was never good enough, and tbh sometimes it still isn’t. It wasn’t until I let go that everything really started falling into place. Always a struggle, but knowing is half the battle..

** When you notice yourself doing something like this, shift yourself to the REAL issue, expanding your capacity for abundance, love, and success. Use the resources of your whole being, not just your mind – like really feel it in your heart and whole body. If that sounds stupid to you, then you’re already hitting your ULP and you need to lighten up buba ??

3?? The Goal is to operate in “Your Zone of Genius” as much as possible!! - He lays out 4 work zones – Incompetence, Competence, Excellence, and Genius. ?Genius is where you lose track of time and your passions & talents collide into a flow that’s hard to describe – the key here is you’re able to create the biggest impact with the least effort. An important point that really resonated with me – when you’re in the zone of genius you feel curious and playful.

So to tie this all together – when we identify and challenge our ULPs we give ourselves permission to be awesome and ultimately expand our limits for abundance, love, and creativity. When you truly embrace this you’ll grow like you never have before while uplifting everyone around you. One way to challenge your ULPs is to use the Ultimate Success Mantra shared in the book, he encourages modifying this to your liking, for example I like using creativity instead ?of “success”, the Mantra is: “I expand in abundance, success and love, every day and I inspire those around me to do the same” – don’t be shy say it to yourself, and say it to yourself often. ?

So my friends as you dig into this new year let yourself go, take the compliment, use your strengths, and be curious and happy - ?you do deserve it!

If you like these ideas I highly recommend you read or listen to the book, there's a ton more info in it. I love audio books read by the author and The Big Leap is one of them! - you can find it here - https://amzn.to/4fMPJRF