“I could never get a keynote speaking slot, it would freak me out!”

“Whenever our monthly sales exceed $80,000 I start to sweat. I’m waiting for something bad to happen — sure enough it always does.”

“I thought it was too good to be true, I had my dream team until one of them quit, now I’m just convinced that I’m going to lose them all…”

Growing is hard work. It’s hard to “take new ground,” to live in new territory, to try, and do things you’ve never done before. It involves risk, uncertainty, and take a lot of effort.

Living within your comfort zone is — well, comfortable — you know the lay of the land. You know what’s expected of you. Life is good.

But when where we want to go is different from where we’ve been, then we have to push the boundaries. We have to confront barriers and limits and enter unfamiliar territory. Limits that we put on ourselves, territory that might exist only in our mind.

What part of your challenges, the things that are holding you back, are beliefs that you have created to keep you safe? To keep you comfortable? To keep you from banging your head, or skinning your knee?

When you put grasshoppers into a jar, they will try to hop like they did outside the jar. They jump high, hitting their heads on the jar-top. After a while they no longer jump so high, they jump just the right height to avoid hitting their heads. Even after you remove the lid to the jar, they still jump low (and never escape the jar).

Don’t be a grasshopper.

If you don’t believe me, check out this video of an experiment done with fleas.

Photo courtesy of Thomas Krahn