Are You Living The Life You Want? Or Are You Getting In Your Own Way?

The Story of the Fleas in A Jar

Thomas Edison, of electric light bulb fame, captured several hundred fleas in a jar for an experiment. When he had caught the fleas, he put the lid on the jar and sat back and watched to see what they would do.

Initially, the fleas repeatedly jumped as high as they could in a bid to escape and return to freedom; they jumped with all their effort and kept banging up against the lid of the jar.

As Edison continued to watch the fleas however, an interesting thing happened. To avoid their painful encounter with the lid of the jar, the fleas one by one stopped jumping so high.

The fleas had quickly become conditioned to believe that they were imprisoned within the jar and could only jump to a certain height before they would meet with much resistance.

Even when Edison removed the glass lid altogether, interestingly, the fleas didn’t even look up to see the lid was no longer there.

I believe that we all act like Edison’s fleas at times and perceive limitations and restrictions are holding us back in life. We inadvertently set our walls and boundaries and  ‘glass ceilings’, beyond which we don’t think we can go.

Perhaps you have stopped yourself believing you can improve your health, go for a promotion at work, apply for that dream job you know you’d love, set up or expand your business?

Perhaps you have talked yourself out of taking up an exciting hobby, entering a tournament or competition, asking someone to marry you, or going out on a date?

Most of our problems as humans stem from our own self-doubt and our lack of belief in possibility. We hold ourselves back and tell ourselves we can’t do things. We set boundaries beyond which we think we can’t go.

In truth, we can all inadvertently get in our own way and sabotage our chances of happiness and success from time to time.

The great thing is you do not need to stay there.

I encourage you to take some time now to reflect on what you could start doing differently to bring about a better and more rewarding outcome.  I believe in you.  You have got this!

It’s time to take responsibility and ownership of your thoughts, beliefs and actions.  Your power lies within you. Make this the moment you say enough is enough to your getting in the way of you being your best you.