Limitations aren't fixed

You can't. It's too hard.

Is that you? Then stop lying to yourself!

I'm not an uncaring sort; I realize that many things ARE hard, mentally, physically, or otherwise. Sometimes your body causes the limitation, sometimes you really don't want to do something in front of a bunch of people that you're not good at. But what I'm getting at here are the self-imposed limitations that a person puts on themselves.

Waaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaay too often I see and hear people shooting themselves in the foot like this. It could be a series of motions that are tricky, and they'll say "I can't do that" before even trying it. Or it could be something that they'll try to do, but they feel so awkward doing it that it translates as too difficult.

It feels more to me like a self-defense mechanism than a real assessment of their skill. Throwing up the "I can't do that" barrier instinctively protects a person from feeling embarrassed or unskilled when they try it, but let me ask you this - what skill did you ever try that you were instinctively good at? If it didn't come to you right away, then why did you continue doing it?

The very first time I ever sparred, a black belt punched me in the nose and it was my fault because I didn't know to keep my guard up. I've had to do things for photo shoots or collaborations that were awkward and made me feel very stupid. I've had to play songs in my percussion ensemble that I was so not ready for. Each of those situations was a sort of limitation, but they were all temporary. I learned to put my guard up, I learned to trust in the artist to make a good product, I learned to try harder and do my best.

And you know what happened? The things that used to be hard weren't as hard anymore. The limitations that I refused to accept went away - and now I was ready for the next level of difficulty. Instead of accepting or defining something as a limitation, I tried until I made progress. And once progress is made, that limitation is shown to be less permanent, less "fixed".

There's a musical pattern called a "paradiddle". It's a percussion technique played R L R R L R L L, alternating back and forth. When I first tried it, I had a lot of trouble playing it with any sort of speed. I couldn't force it to happen and my hands felt stupid. A couple of years later, I was doing them with decent speed for fun, and I suddenly remembered how much trouble I had the first time around. If I had told myself it was too hard, if I had accepted that my hands weren't going to get it, there's no way they would be so much easier to play now.

Still, this isn't about what *I* did, this is about trying to get people to stop telling themselves what they can't do. I'm really not into "positive thinking" as a philosophy, but that sort of "believed negativity" is just as bad as someone physically stopping you from getting better. How would you feel if there was a new skill to learn, and someone literally stood in the way between you and your gear, or the practice space? You'd be pissed! So why accept it when it's you who's in the way of your own development?

To impose a limitation on yourself is to install a fence that stops you from progressing. It's only a fixture because you allow it.