The Bigger Picture: Most of us today have to dodge and battle through a set of perceived limits. "You can't do that." "That's just silly." "Nobody does it that way." "It has never happened before, and for good reason." "Why would you want to do that?"
We consistently hear these irrational presumptions, if nowhere else than inside our own heads. And rather than serving some useful purpose, they only narrow our belief in ourselves and our understanding of the world.
I have spent much of my life challenging limits. I insist that I deserve access to the limitless potential of my imagination, my life and human connections.
I have understood and believed in a great power inside us - of human love - that can transform any struggle, meet any need, and create a world of much greater joy and fulfilment.
When you really explore an idea, and continuously challenge yourself to learn in the process, it is interesting to see how your understanding can transform completely.
As rigidities fall away, you are not just left with the obvious extension of the first idea, but something completely new and transformed: an insight that is truly limitless, and not in the form you originally anticipated.
In this way, I have come to see that some limits are indeed good to us. The struggle in reaching for a life beyond all limits opens a new struggle upon which to focus and make decisions.
When you unlock your potential and access the possibility of being able to do anything, you face a conundrum: does it make sense to actually do anything?
The original idea of being more and having more (which should, indeed, be of things that are meaningful to us, in any case) can become a nightmare of working yourself to death.
I know we are each vulnerable to this. I know this because it is our modern society's mantra to "be anything", "do anything" and do it to the "furthest reaches of success".
Times have changed dramatically from a few generations ago when you followed on in a family business, trade or occupation, and your work was a tool for practical security, not a definition of you.
Today, however, the expectation is that we find a job that has an element of glamour, do it so successfully that we are singled out in the world as being exceptional in that area, and earn vast amounts as a result. In short, we must each strive to be "rich and famous". Otherwise we have somehow surrendered to our limits.
Whatever vision we have, we will never achieve it as long as our eye is continuously on the idea of being universally "limitless".
We need some limits that nurture and guide us, and allow for greater depth of happiness. These will allow us to take root, strengthen from the ground up, reach tall and expand ourselves from our branches.
Without these limits, we can only explode into chaos: a hectic, rat race, energy-drained, exhausting life.
It does not make sense to be everything, do everything, train in everything and achieve everything.
While we have very much been told that we must be multi-skilled, hold numerous qualifications and generally "be all" in order to make ourselves competitive in today's market, it is not a reasonable request of a human being.
Furthermore, it is not necessarily making us more successful. Take the self-employed, for example. How is one supposed to find time to do what it is you do, and do so with joy and grace, if you must also be your own book-keeper, administrator, IT expert and marketing guru rolled into one?
It's an unrealistic expectation and not a recipe for success in business. Rather, success comes from being able to draw in partners. Our outcomes are far more successful when we develop strong relationships, co-operate with different skill sets and support each other to each be our best while pursuing our individual paths.
Those limits that allow us to grow are helpful and should be embraced. These are the result of empowered decision-making, rather than disempowered hopelessness. By choosing against one direction, we push ourselves further towards another. This focus allows us to define a vision and take steps in realising it.
It provides a foundation, structure and discipline which allow the development of courage, strength and wisdom in the process. Rather than suppress our vision, these limits create a path to it. The limits that cannot be accepted are the ones that restrict our imagination, have us believe we are less than we are, and generally make us feel bad about ourselves. These are the limits that put us into "the box".
Even with a limitless potential, we must exercise choice. By making decisions and clearly closing some doors in order to open windows - particularly when those decisions reflect our core values - then our potential to achieve within that area finally becomes truly limitless.
Shalini Sinha practises life coaching and the Bowen technique in her clinic, Forward Movement.