Do you feel like you’ve hit a wall in your progress? Are you trying to compete at a higher level but you just can’t get over the hump? Or maybe you’ve made a huge advancement only to be set back on your ass.

Have you considered it could be an upper limit problem holding you back?

What is that you ask?

An upper limit is a self imposed subconscious level of success, happiness, abundance and love where we are comfortable. The comfort zone – that warm and fuzzy place where all is well.

What can happen is when we start to grow and push ourselves to grow, whether it be entering a bigger event, going pro, committing to a big goal, we hit a success limit.

Enter the upper limit problem.

If our internal success blueprint doesn’t align with what we’re achieving or what we’re about to achieve, we end up self sabotaging.

If you don’t feel deserving, worthy or enough to achieve what you’re about to, you can hit a glass wall. I think this can also happen if you’ve never dreamed or envisioned the door you’re knocking on. I feel like this is where I’m at, and I’ll explain later.

We get the flu, we miss entries, we almost fall of, our horse comes up lame or another big bill takes up all our entry money. Just a few examples of how we can subconsciously sabotage our success when we start getting outside our comfort zone and pushing our limits.

When our upper limits are pushed (like when everything starts going our way and we see an influx in success or love or money etc.) we will start to self-sabotage ourselves back into our comfort zones.

Strange to think we could sabotage ourselves from getting the same things we’re thinking about and dreaming of achieving.

For example, I was going to enter a rodeo for the first time with Squiggles (pushing outside of comfort) but she cut herself so I ended up having a relaxing family weekend (comfort zone). Coincidence?

But get this one that really got me working on this upper limit theme.

At Ponoka last fall I ran my fastest time on a standard pattern. A 17.665. Being from Manitoba it’s not like I’ve had a lot of opportunities to ever run on a standard pattern and when I have, it was on heavy sand or hard rodeo ground where you could win with a time slower than that.

This spring, I traveled to Montana to the Copper Spring Ranch and ran in the derby. My first run I had a hiccup (interesting) and got a no time, but my second run was good and I ran a …wait for it… 17.665. Weird right? What are the chances of that happening? Not high!

Needless to say, I’ve been learning more about upper limits and glass ceilings. What’s keeping me from breaking this time barrier?

First of all I never truly believed I would have a horse as nice as I have. One that could make mistakes and run a 17.6 her first weekend out of the season with not very many runs in her life yet.

I’ve wished for one, I’ve known they were out there, but I wasn’t really sitting around waiting for one to land in my lap.

Second, I didn’t really have a time goal. I’ve never said “I want to run a 17.1 on a standard pattern. I was just going to have a nice run and see where we landed. I haven’t really given it much thought. Now I think I really should say 16.9 so I can win something bigger! I’ll have to go to places where the ground supports runs like that.

When we set these goals, we really need to align with the type of person who would achieve them. When I think of who does that, I don’t really feel like I fit into the line up of people who do that. That’s a good example and a test you can take to see if your blueprint matches what you’re trying to achieve (imagine yourself in the lineup).

I haven’t been trying to achieve that fast time, so I haven’t been working on my 16.9 second rider blueprint. I will have to get on that and start clearing away all the limits I carry that make me feel like I don’t belong in that club.

I’m the limiting factor here, not my horse. The good news is, I can change my blueprint and change my thoughts. It’s the awareness of what’s going on here that is big.

If this upper limit problem resonates with you, start by asking yourself where you aren’t aligning with where you are trying to get. Do you feel like you don’t belong? Do you feel like you’re not worthy? Do you identify as the person that does the kinda thing you’re trying to do?

Maybe you just need to dream bigger than you are. Instead of deciding what your highest level of achievement is, just simply ask the question; “what else is possible?” and wait to be shown possibilities you never thought of.