Who says I can’t?
Airborne jumper landing with full gear, Italy
At the US Army’s Airborne School, candidates learn to parachute in rapid succession out of a c-130, 1,250 feet over a drop zone. Before they go up for their first jump, they learn to land properly (“Never look down at the ground!”). They practice drill after drill. And then they go up for their first jump. The instructors — or “Black Hats” — prepare them rigorously, right down to many meticulous checks of their equipment. Almost all of the candidates, brilliantly prepared, will then jump from a plane for the first time in their lives. They cannot help being nervous, but they make the leap.
Except for a few.
When it comes time to jump, some candidates stop themselves. In the moment when all their hard work would be realized, they balk. And they end up leaving the school.
The difference is not training. It’s not physical conditioning. It’s not their actual abilities. It’s not the presence of fear.
The obstacle is instead a self-sabotaging paradigm that they generate from fear: a thought that says, I can’t.
Paradigms create a context for your responses in life. We define them as “ways of thinking”. If you’re not aware of them, you can be so caught up in the way of thinking that you prejudice everything you encounter with it. Paradigms are problematic because once we have a way of thinking, we tend to want to prove it.
So if the paradigm is “I think I can’t”, you will prove yourself right. We’ve encountered many leaders who thought they could not ask for a raise or a bigger role despite abundant evidence to the contrary. They weren’t just ignoring the evidence they were wrong. By thinking they couldn’t, they also generated proof of their inability by not asking. What an absurd trap!
If you find yourself frustrated and gripped by the thought “I can’t”, consider challenging the thought with a question: “Who says I can’t?”.
That can lead you to see that a contrasting paradigm is thinking “I can”. Thinking “I can” invites possibility. Obviously this is not the same as actually having the ability or skill. To think you can be a doctor does not mean you can now treat someone with a medical condition. That would be magical thinking. But when you stop saying “I can’t” you allow possibility into your life. Saying “I think I can” opens you to the effort you could make to do something bigger and juicier than you have done before, without making the effort any easier.
On a recent visit to Target I came across a copy of The Little Engine that Could. I read it again and savored the chugging rhythm of “I think I can, I think I can, I think I can” as this little engine brings the stranded train over a hill. I love the story because it reminds me of the childlike curiosity to enthusiastically explore what’s possible, rather than close ourselves off because “we know better”.
So, what in your life do you look at and think “I can’t”? What would happen if you rewrote that in your mind to: “I think I can”? Give that a go and let us know. And reach out if you are interested in discovering your relationship with your own paradigms in life.
To more possibilities,
Tom and team