The Big Leap by Gay Hendricks

I enjoyed the book here by Gay Hendricks. I chose this audiobook largely because of the cover that showed a goldfish looking to jump out of a fishbowl. The description of it also interested me as it talked about different ways to break through our upper limits and continue to propel ourselves forward.

I’ve learned a lot about imposter syndrome, the following might be similar to that. This was the premise of a lot of the book. It was all about overcoming your — often self-imposed — limits.

“I think I got happier than I ever imagined I could be and then some part of me reared up and grabbed me. Some part of me that didn’t think I deserved it. And this problem with Larry, there was something that I did to try to find something wrong with him to give me an excuse to end the relationship and all because I think I don’t deserve to be this happy.”

The author shared 4 common fears and false beliefs that people carry with them. Both of these categories cause us to have greater difficulty when looking to break through the upper limits. The false beliefs are more personal to me than are the fears but everyone is different and because of our individual backgrounds and experiences, that is no surprise. Here are the 4 fears and 4 related false beliefs.

4 fears and 4 related false beliefs hold the upper limit problem in place.

4 fears:

1. Feeling fundamentally flawed in some way

2. Disloyalty and abandonment

3. More success brings a bigger burden

4. The crime of outshining False beliefs

4 related false beliefs:

1. It is my fault

2. If I do things different, people won’t want me

3. People see me as a burden, anything I produce is too

4. Are you afraid your success will steal attention from someone who you believe needs it more?

This is a very logical way to approach a situation and while it is something that has worked well for me, for someone more driven by emotion, I could see this being a very difficult approach, at least at first.

The author wrote, With worry thoughts, ask yourself: Is it a real possibility? Is there any action I can take to make a positive difference?

Map of the upper ceiling: Punishment, prevention, protection. Punishment results from doing something or thinking something you shouldn’t or think you shouldn’t. Prevention and protection work together.

This next part was something that I took a little time to reflect upon. It shows a lot when we can empathize with someone but we need to be able to experience our own version of emotions and events also. It’s vital that we are able to take responsibility for ourselves in all areas.

It’s called projection If you experience or have an emotion within you that you don’t know how to manage, you seal that emotion away and try to manage someone else’s version of it.

While I do act on logic a lot of the time, once we get past emotion, everything can be thought out. If it can’t, then it’s probably not up to us. If we know God is calling us to give a certain amount to the church but we don’t know how, it’s up to God, but nearly everything else is up to us. Saying things like, “I want to go to the gym but it’s raining today,” should be re-written, as Daniel Pink advised, to say, “I want to go to the gym and it’s raining today…” Okay, now what? Now we act. There was an underlying reason that we didn’t want to go, every complaint that we say can likely be connected to a fear.

There’s a fear behind every complaint of someone not being able to do what they want to be doing.

This was one of the author’s life missions and the things that he was striving to do day in and day out. “I am” statements are incredibly powerful and this reminds me of something a psychologist used to instruct his patients to do. This psychologist, Émile Coué de la Châtaigneraie, told his patients to repeat, “Day by day, in every way, I’m getting better and better.”

I expand in success and love every day while I inspire those around me to do the same.

This was probably my greatest takeaway of the whole book. We have control, but we must prioritize actions that support the things we desire to become good at and master. We must take total responsibility over everything we can control. Along with that, even the things that we cannot control, we must still act as though we are responsible for the outcomes.

You are the source of time, MAKE time to master these principles, you don’t just have time to master them. Relationships, healthy ones, exist only between equals. Both must take 100% responsibility, each person is 100% the creators of their reality.