-------- "This is the time for action not only words, use your God given gifts to develop this country, dont be afraid to speak up, and feel PROUD THAT U R EGYPTIAN." -------- Mohaly, Feb 2011

Tuesday, November 15, 2011

799) Break the Chain ... Set your Mindset !!

From my conversations with many of my friends, students, and even taxi drivers over the past couple of weeks, I realized that we -conciously or unconciously- are hooked to the past and what has been nailing us to certain perceptions that we mistakenly think about as facts..

Consider with me the following story about Elephants:


Elephants are massive creatures, they weigh at least couple of thousands of kilograms, and stand as high as three or four meters tall. Despite their enormous power, elephants can be chained! It doesn’t seem to make sense; does it?
What chain is strong enough to hold an elephant who struggles to break it? The answer is a small one: a small chain fastened to a metal collar around the elephant’s foot is attached to a wooden peg nailed into the ground. This holds the elephant so strongly that it doesn’t ever struggle to break free.

The way to chain an elephant is to start when it’s a baby. You don’t even need a chain – a strong rope will do. 
The baby elephant will struggle, but eventually it will realize that it can’t break the rope, and even worse, continuing to struggle creates a painful burn on its leg. The baby elephant learns not to struggle – it accepts that the limit imposed by the rope or chain is permanent, and there is no use struggling against it.
Sure, the elephant grows up, and becomes the most powerful land mammal on the face of the earth. But the chains in its mind remain, and so the chains on its leg are never broken

We may not be as massive as the elements but the power of our minds is; an inspired being of enormous power and capability. And just like the elephants that we might see tied up, our internal powers are also put in chains. May be because of wrong bring up, or stupid education and media, but we end up not believing in ourselves and the enormous capabilities are locked up within us. 

How many of us want to change their jobs, get hooked or break up with someone, practice a hobby, ..etc?! and just keep telling him/herself that so and so are keeping him/her ... money, time, family, country, even Satan! and rarely admit that it is YOU. All these chains can be broken, sometimes easier that you can imagine if you have the strong will, vision, and persistence on the goal no matter what...

Break your chains, live wont stop at your lousy manager, stupid teacher, or crazy wife... If you want to do something and you feel good at it, do it .. If you believe in your ability to do something, don't think much, give it a try and evaluate yourself ... then see how can you take it further..

The "Egyptian Political System" that is not down yet, has embedded all the negative constrains in our minds, and they are now like land-mines that we need to carefully dig for and safely get rid of it..

Just go now and think about 1 single thing that you really want, and try to take practical steps to do it even if you see that there are millions of obstacles... just give it a try..

Mohaly

3 comments:

Anonymous said...

Lovely morning to you Dr. Mohamed and to all your readers ;-)
i understand what you mean. often these chains exist just in our minds.i understand too, that often they are not easy to break.
changed my career 3 times due to various reasons. i wasn't fearing the change, just feared the failure like any normal human being. ppl call me daring, often, bc i welcome change most of times. i learned it at school that change is healthy, should be desired every now and then, and welcomed when it comes.
did you notice that people didnt "learn" how to be free and open to changes while they were still at school? almost nothing changes for a very long time, and somehow this puts the mindset to relax in the comfort zone.then resistance is usually very high, when time comes for a change.
people cling to what they have in hand fearing the change and "daring to walk into the unknown armed with nothing".

do you really believe that something will change?
i often close my eyes and refuse to answer with the inevitable "no", but then i am not sure if it will.

Darren said...

Here are a few that I can think of that hold us back from ever reaching our full potential:

Continuous put downs from one or both of your parents. Embarrassing moments that you had in your teenage years.
A lack of confidence in your ability.
Fear of failure.Fear of the unknown, making the chain a bizarre security blanket.
Fear of standing out from the crowd.
Significant emotional abuse from a person of influence in your life.
Failed attempts that you haven’t yet learned from.

George said...

yes this is what we should be doing