The Power You Were Born With
It's All Within You! By Solomon • Issue #52 • View online
Have you ever experienced a challenge in your life, whether in business, health, or relationships, where you felt you just needed some thing or some person to help?
There have been pivotal moments in my life where I looked for something or someone outside myself, like a mentor or coach, when, in the words of Albert Einstein, “in the middle of the difficulty lie the opportunity” to reveal the confidence within myself. After some inner tension and nothing seeming to move toward receiving what I thought I needed, I learned to trust myself.
A similar approach applies toward breaking free of a habit that doesn’t serve you and replacing it with something empowering. In order to rewrite the program, a person must have the desire to change. Even with the assistance of a teacher or coach, they can open the door, “but only you can take the step through the door” (Chinese Proverb). In chapter 9 of Limitless, Jim Kwik writes about the importance of small, simple, steps to help develop a skill and/or accomplish a project. When it comes to breaking a habit there are 3 elements that a required:
The motivation - how strongly a person wants to stop/to change?
The ability - how established is the habit? Will they have the ability to change it?
The prompt or cue - what are the consequences of not breaking it?
The teacher or coach can educate the person (showing them the door) about the ability and getting started (the cue), but ultimately it’s up to the person to improve himself or herself i.e walk through the door.
This is an ability - to break through (un)natural tendencies - granted to man from the Creator. It is alluded to in the words of Jewish Sages that, “an oath administered to him [before birth, warning him] be righteous and do not be wicked” (Niddah 30b). In the hassidic discourse, Overcoming Folly, Rabbi Shalom Dov Ber, the 5th Lubavitcher Rebbe, writes that the word in Hebrew for oath (shevuah, </