Possibilities: How are You Limiting Yours or That of Others?

Prejudgement in Action

As I headed out for a morning run, with its lack of sidewalks, two lane roads, barely any road signage, and an uncertainty about the neighborhood, it was my belief that running in St. Croix was going to be a challenge. I believed, if I was lucky, I would be able to find space to run three miles, at most. Any possibilities of it being more than that, I did not believe existed. My plan, then, was to run about one and half miles out, then back from the condo where we were staying in Christiansted St. Croix USVI.

By the time I got down the hill, running in the direction of on coming traffic, with no other real estate than the road to run, I had already surpassed that predetermined three miles. Curses!

Perceived Challenges Affect on Possibilities

Between miles four and five, the Caribbean sun had started to beat down on me and the humidity had started to thicken. It wasn't even quite 8:00 in the morning. I was cursing myself for not having water with me. There was no doubt that I could run another three miles, but without being able to hydrate myself, I was forced to head back to the condo to not risk passing out on the side of the road. Again, I cursed myself. My perceived challenges had affected my possibilities.

That run triggered a thought. Had I been a lot slower to judge what St. Croix had to offer, I would have been better prepared to run a lot more miles than what I did. There was so much more that I had the possibility of doing on that morning run, but I did not do what was possible because I had dismissed what was possible by prejudging. I was disgusted with myself.

Do not let prejudgement or perceived challenges limit the possibilities for you or anyone else.

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Who or What are You Limiting?

Not only that, but I also thought of other times in my life where I may have – scratch that – not may have – when I did limit my possibilities because of an unwillingness to try or because of my prejudging thoughts that something was going to be a challenge. I felt so strongly about the dangers of such thinking, I created a video right after returning from my run and posted it on the canwillDONE Facebook page.

[youtube]https://youtu.be/S9vKK6IRxWo[/youtube]

The aim of the message was not to look so mean in the video. Didn't I look like I was angry? The aim of the message was to encourage others to not be too quick to judge and count out possibilities by limiting yourself, someone or something else. I encourage you to not do the same.

Start the Discussion: Think about a time when you limited the possibilities of yourself, someone else, or something else all because you perceived there would be a challenge. What would you do differently, now? Share in the comments on this post, on Facebook or Twitter.