How to Overcome Limitations

The limitations we live with come in several forms: intellectual, emotional, mental, physical, circumstantial and environmental. The process to overcome limitations remains similar even if the application may vary from one situation to another. The most important step to overcoming limitations is the initial and sustained desire to do so. One of the challenges of limitations is that it can rob a person of the desire to struggle, adding this 'theft of motivation' to the original limitation. If the desire is present and strong, then overcoming the limitations being faced becomes much more possible.

Things You'll Need

• Micro-tape recorder with batteries and tapes Light snacks Meeting place

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Instructions

Overcoming Limitations

• 1

  List the nature of your limitation. Try to define the limitation, identify the way it negatively impacts your life, the behaviors or choices you are making which maintain the limitation, and the goal you believe is being blocked by your limitation. While some limitations are not directly correctable (such as physical or intellectual limitations), a process of improving how limitations impact your life is possible.

• 2

  List five people whom you believe are good at developing strategies. These need to be people who are accessible to you in real life, through the phone or in person. Ask or invite these five people if they will form a team to help you develop a strategy to improve or overcome one or more limitations in your life to improve your quality of life. These people should be of high quality with good ethics, trustworthy, goodhearted, intelligent, with good social fluency and they should demonstrate some type of success in their life that you admire. Try to include both men and women for different viewpoints. Some people may not be able to join your team, so have a few alternates available in case you need to ask others.

• 3

  Organize a meeting at a location and time that is convenient to everyone. Begin your meeting by describing your limitations, as you view them, and your goals. Ask each one to make a list of up to 10 ideas they feel could be used to improve your situation. Ask them to number each item in the order it should be done.

• 4

  Invite each person, in order, to read their list to the group. Turn on your tape recorder so that you can replay these sessions later in private. Ask people not to discuss the suggestions until everyone has read their lists. You should find several people with similar suggestions. Make a list of the suggestions you hear more than once. Invite your group to discuss what they have heard and thought about.

• 5

  Limit this discussion to one to two hours and serve some kind of small refreshment. Thank your group members and request to set up a second meeting for the next month. Ask each person if you have permission to call them on the phone once or twice during the month to discuss the options you have heard. (Only call them once or twice per month as this should not be a burden on their life.)

• 6

  Open your second meeting by discussing what you heard and understood from the previous month and the tentative strategy you have developed to overcome your limitations and work on your goals. List the steps you feel should be taken first and how you can do each step. Invite your mentors to write down a few thoughts about what you have shared and then repeat the process of the first meeting. In this way you and your mentoring team should be able to develop a realistic strategy to overcoming your limitations. At the beginning of each meeting, note your progress, your concerns or failures, and ask for thoughts and help to address the next step you should take.

• 7

  Thank your team at the end of each meeting. Work hard to implement the suggestions that make sense to you and consider that five good opinions plus your own will probably move you forward toward the best possible outcome.