How to play on your limitations & turn them into portals for quantum leaps

“She’s disgusting. But she’s perfect,”

It was the summer of 2018 - going into my junior year of college - & my teammate and I had just signed the lease on our first house EVER. The best part? We got a screamin’ deal on it because we signed the papers while the owners were doing a few renovations. It wouldn’t be until we moved in that I understood what constituted as “renovations”…

Duct-taping broken floorboards.

Plastering white paint over bugs that had hopefully died before they were mummified.

& caulking over chronic rust in every crevice of the bathroom.

The place was…something. But it was OURS. Fast forward 6 years & this is what the inside of most people’s minds look like when it comes to their business.

Wounds & limitations just smothered in water colors & scotch tape (until a rainstorm comes in and wipes them all away). I know you’re fluent in Abraham Hicks, Neville Goddard, & Wayne Dyer. I know that you’re good at redirecting your focus…but what if instead of covering up old things with prettier thoughts, we actually just teamed up with the little dirtbags?

And in the process, made them obsolete so they stopped showing up uninvited to our business — at the WORST times — like Uncle Eddie from Christmas Vacation. Let’s try it on:

Step 1: What are you working on bringing to life rn? Bring to focus your big desire or goal.

Step 2: Now, I want you to ask yourself, “Why can’t I have this thing right now?”

By asking + answering this question, your subconscious is telling you HOW you’re getting in your own way. Here’s an example from my own life a few years ago:

I used to HATE grocery shopping and cooking. It wasn’t until I moved in with my then-boyfriend-now-husband, Chris, in 2022 that I realized the truth…

I f*cking loved cooking, but hated grocery shopping. Why? Because I was raised in a separated household that could only afford discount grocers and was no stranger to whipping out a calculator in the chicken nugget aisle. We never had (or were allowed) more than the absolute essentials - frozen meals, deli meat, tortillas, chips, salsa, and canned soup. And there was never a world where I’d dare ask - because I knew the answer & didn’t want to upset anyone - if I could get gum or nutter butters from the checkout line.

But the day that I felt slightly more domesticated, I realized that cooking was a way for me to show my love. It also was a level of intense creativity and intuition that I’d never be able to access before. (I’ve birthed whole new levels of my business while making homemade gnocchi and fresh chowder). Cooking became meditative - somehow a hybrid of aloe vera for my soul and caffeine for my creative endeavors. I quickly realized that I harbored my parents financial limitations around grocery shopping, all while daydreaming about Trader Joe’s hauls, frivolous snacks, spices in the cabinet that I may only use 1x/year, and a pantry full of food that I might need to cook “one day”.

But in my reality, I was avoiding any grocery store that wasn’t Winco, constantly talking about how expensive groceries were, only buying the absolute essentials & having mild panic attacks as I mentally calculated the total in my brain (& put things back that I didn’t “need”).

Step #3: Team up with it that limitation to create new story & take better action.

When you decide that it’s time to team up with your limitation, you’re honoring that it’s time to create a new experience with that limitation. One that is a match for your next level or new reality. It doesn’t have to be earth shattering - it can totally be microscopic - but what matters is what it means. What matters is that you use that limitation to move closer to where you’re trying to go. This is how I used it with my grocery limitation -

My true desire was to shop at grocery stores that made me feel alive, buy food that created rich experiences for my family & to feel financially safe to do so. Why couldn’t I have that in that moment? I believed that one Trader Joes haul would be more than I was used to spending in a month on food and that I could buy so many more logical things with the money that I would spend at the grocery store on delicacies.

My logical brain was creating an experience that was sucking the life out of me and wasn’t at all getting me closer to where I wanted to be.

How I teamed up with it:

I had to create a new story around the situation using the reasoning in my limitation. My new story became,

“Even if I just buy one, awesome thing at Trader Joes every single week, I can call myself someone who shops at Trader Joes. And that’s logical to me. It’s logical for me to spend money on things that expand my self-concept and to shop at places that excite me. When I spend money at Trader Joes - even if it’s a little bit at a time - it’s a sign that my money is creating my future. And this is the future that I want.”

I programmed the new belief that when I went to TJs and bought a loaf of bread & mini peanut butter cups for $6.99, I was still fulfilling my desire. Based on my energy, the Universe didn’t know the difference between me spending $6.99 or me spending $699. I started loving my TJ’s experience. I was excited every Monday afternoon to wrap up work and head there. I loved showing Chris the cool things I bought. And - shocker - TJ’s was the most reasonably priced grocery story I’d ever shopped at (hashtag Oregon probs).

There could be ZERO correlation…but a few months later, I had a new client pay their invoice while I was in the checkout line buying chili crunch and provolone. It was a $12,000 sale…the biggest sale I’d ever closed and the most money I’d ever received at once. And it felt poetic that I was doing it in the exact same spot that used to make me break out in hives.

A totally new experience created by a totally new story.

Own what you want. Figure out why you can’t have it now. And then use that limitation to consciously create new experiences - even if they’re little ones - until that limitation no longer exists for you.

Your limitations aren’t there for you to clear — they’re here for you to USE.