What do you perceive your limitations are?
What limits you and prevents you from doing what you want to in life? Or I should ask what do you perceive limits you? My favorite football player ever retired from pro football because of an injury that often occurs later in football players careers and has been known to cause many players to retire. The injury is to a seemingly small body part that has an enormous role in a persons ability to balance even when walking, let alone running and tackling other football players.
I have a long time on line friend who I recently met in person. This woman is an athletic professional and in incredible shape. Even though she is well into the middle of her life, she is in better shape than the vast majority of people who are half of her age. When I met her in person she revealed to me that not only does she have a similar injury to the one which caused my favorite football player to retire, but her injury is to a much more severe degree. She is missing this body part completely. This body part which is key to balance and movement is completely missing from her on one side of her body. Despite this seeming handicap she has not let it stop her from pursuing her dreams. This is a condition that would sideline the vast majority of people and most people would use as an excuse to either walk with a cane or worse. And yet my friend did not let it stop her. She has had to work hard in life to overcome the limitation, but she has done just that. She has been very successful in her efforts.
Learning of this and seeing how this condition does not stop my friend has been very inspirational to me. It has also caused me to think deeply about limitations and how often what we call our limitations are actually only our perceived limitations. If your doctor tells you “you will never walk again because of an injury” will you let that statement control your life? Or will you challenge yourself to work hard and prove the doctor to be wrong by not only walking but becoming a star athlete who motivates others to get in shape?
Often our limitations are only our limitations because we perceive them to be limitations and we allow that perception to be reality. I have been guilty of this many times in my life. It has only been in the past 10 years or so that I have begun to learn how to navigate through the perceived limitations of being autistic to overcome them. I still have quite a bit of work ahead of me in this endeavor, but what I no longer do is allow the challenges to be my excuse for lack of effort to overcome them. Your attitude and willingness to overcome limitations is often what determines if the limiting factor does actually limit you or instead serves as your motivation for success. If you learn that you are autistic at the age of 41, the way I did, will you let that diagnosis of autism stop you from pursuing your dreams or will you use it as motivation to learn how to navigate the challenges of autism and succeed in your dreams?
So I end this short mental exercise by asking you: what are your perceived limitations and what do you plan to do to overcome them?
