Limiting Beliefs and the Tesla

One thing I know for sure is that what you see, think and believe - in your head- becomes reality in your life. So cliché and yet so true. Think about that. We have all heard the sayings. You know, what you see is what you get, I think therefore I am etc. Believing is seeing. What you believe is what you’ll see and most importantly, what you will do. I think we all really need to understand this.

A little story

A year ago, my just turned 14 year old daughter, comes excitedly out of her room at 9:40 pm on a school night. Her idol, Elon Musk just announced his economy line Tesla.
“Mom, Elon Musk just announced his economy line Tesla and they are only 35,000.00 dollars. They will start production in 2018 and the deposit is only $1000.00 dollars. Can I put a deposit down on one? I will be 16 by the time it is ready.”

Me (in my head) OMG child, where did you come from??? You couldn’t babysit your way to 35K USD (we live in Canada) even if you babysit night and day…..

Me (out loud) Wow sweetheart, that’s neat, go to bed now, we will talk about it in the morning.

My daughter goes to bed. I check to see if the deposit is refundable. She has just enough money from birthdays and her meager book sales for the deposit. I call my husband and we talk it over. He double checks to make sure it is in fact refundable and not a scam.

Here is the rub: We have always taught our daughter that anything is possible. So what do I say now? Dear, when I told you anything is possible, I was lying? What we did was this:

We told our daughter - pushing my own limiting pre-programmed beliefs aside - that she could go ahead and put the deposit down. We told her that we did not know how she could make that much money but that didn’t mean it wasn’t possible. We told her that people do it all the time. It could be done. Just because we don’t know how she could do it, did not mean it can’t be done.

The question then became “How”. How can she make that much money. She put the deposit down that day after school and she has been working really hard to reach her goal ever since. Its been a little over a year and she is a long way from the amount she needs but she still has 11 months left and she is not giving up. The lessons she has learned and the way this goal has opened her mind is incredible. No matter what happens, I think we did the right thing.

The main take away from this is that my daughter hasn’t entertained the thought that she can’t do something. Granted, she has been raised that way deliberately. This experience helped her to push herself to write her third book over the last year, invent something that was unfortunately already patented by someone else and she created a product to sell on Amazon. Will she earn enough money? Who knows? Will she get an agent? Who knows? What I do know is that she will accomplish nothing if she if she believes she can’t and she would give up before she ever began. Limiting beliefs will hold you back and keep you from reaching your full potential and living your dream life. Loose the limiting beliefs and realize that anything is possible.