Am I Limiting My Potential to EXPAND with a Container that's too SMALL?

Today's episode is all about POTENTIAL and EXPANSION and how sometimes (even if we don't realize it or intend it), we can trap ourselves in limitations that don't serve us.

Follow along for a fun little sour dough analogy (you do NOT need to be a sour dough expert to understand this episode!!) and some thought-provoking ideas of ways you might be CONTAINING your possibilities. 

Love you, thank you!

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Transcript

Speaker 0:40

Hello. Hello. Welcome to another episode of the podcast. I'm so glad you're here today. I am. I'm not talking about sourdough. I don't want you to hear me say that, but I had an occasion this last week with my sourdough starter, which is a whole relationship. If you don't know anything about it, if you do know stuff about it, like if you're a sourdough person, please reach out to me and let's talk, because I love talking about it and asking questions about it and picking your brain about it. But a few months ago I got started with the sourdough starter. I'm baking bread left and right, especially now that I'm working from home. I can like stick a loaf in the oven while I'm working and then when I take my next bathroom break, take it out. It's great. I love it. But this last week. I had an experience with my sourdough starter that kind of lit up something in my brain where I thought, oh, I could talk about this on the podcast this week, because I really think that it could play this analogy for other people. And when I was talking to a couple other people about the analogy, they were like, oh, that's a really good analogy. And so it gave me confidence to come on here and talk about sourdough, even though you might not care about it, but. Before we get into that, I did just wanna say that this episode will not be all about sourdough. I'm truly just using it as an example so that we can talk about potential and outgrowing our containers that we put ourselves in. So I am really excited about the episode. I hope that you resonate with it. If you do, I would really, really appreciate it if you sent it over to someone. Even just send it right now before you even know if you appreciate it, because every time that you. Send word of mouth recommendations about the podcast. It makes such a difference. And if you haven't already and you listen to this on Apple Podcasts, please, please, please leave a review because that makes such a big difference in getting it out to other people that are listening to podcasts. It helps with that little discover page where it's like, these are things that you might like. I get those all the time because I listen to a lot of personal development podcasts and it will recommend personal development podcasts. So. When you leave reviews, it boosts it up in that discover page a little bit more. So I would super appreciate it if you could leave a review, but if you listen on Spotify or you're watching on YouTube or something like that instead, you could also leave a comment, leave a review, subscribe. Five stars, whatever, all the things, but it would be, I would super appreciate it wherever you're listening or watching, if you would give that extra level of support. So without further ado, I wanna get back into the episode. So today I wanted to talk about, so I had this experience. If you are not a person who baked sourdough, I'm not gonna give you the nitty gritty of it all because. Even some of the terms like feeding your starter are just even before I started sourdough, that was just nonsense to me, and so I'm sure it'll be nonsense to you if you are not a sourdough person, but I'll give you like a one and a half minute, two minute crash course. To give you context to what I'm gonna talk about in this episode. So if you wanna skip that, you can skip ahead like two minutes. But basically whenever you get a starter for sourdough, you feed it equal parts, water and flour, and your starter absorbs and. Eats that for like four to eight hours. It depends how cold your house is for how long your starter takes to rise and when it's rising, it gets really active and bubbly and it. Literally, we'll double, sometimes triple in size inside your jar. So whenever you have your jar of starter and you feed it the flour and water, you wanna make sure that there's enough room for it to expand. And this last week I had my starter in a jar and I was feeding it, which you do this daily. You probably, I'm not rigid about it, but you feed it about. Once a day, or if you're using the fridge method, which is a little bit more convenient for people who are not baking regularly, you can stick it in the fridge while it's already have been fed and then take it out like a week later whenever you wanna bake it and feed it again regardless. You do this about daily, so I was doing my daily feed and I fed it, and then when, and I usually do it before bed so that in the morning I can whip together some. Dough really easily, and then it ferments all day long. So I fed it before bed, and then when I woke up in the morning, it had. Totally expanded outside of the jar, but it had not a lot of room to grow because I had a specific jar and I thought that the jar had enough room in it for it to, it usually doubles. Mine does, but it must have just been real healthy and active this day because it definitely wanted to triple, but because the jar, you put like a loose lid on it, or even just a towel or something because the jar had that. Cap on it. It was trying to expand and it was kind of like bursting at the seams and coming down the jar, and it was really messy to clean and disgusting. If you do sourdough, you know what I'm talking about, but it is the sign of a healthy starter that wants to grow, and I accidentally, unknowingly capped its potential to grow by having it in a container that was not. Big enough for its potential and it really just gave me this thought of how we do that to ourselves. Sometimes in our lives we cap ourselves at a certain potential when we really, we are our internal beings. I'm, I really believe, are always wanting to expand and grow. And that doesn't necessarily mean, I feel like sometimes people get turned off by this because they're like, I don't need to. Like, sometimes it's okay to just. Be content, and I totally agree with that. But there are areas of our life that we want to expand, and I think we all, at the core of our beings, we want to be better. We want to be good people. We want to be successful in the things that matter to us, whether that's career or relationships or family or. Our hobbies or self care? It could be, it could be anything, but sometimes we limit ourselves unknowingly by capping our potential and keeping ourselves inside of containers that are too small for us. And I really believe that if we would just ex get a larger container or expand our horizons of what we believe to be. Possible for us, then we would, we would get real active and real energized, just like my starter did, and we would be able to expand and grow even further. So I wanted to talk about some areas in our lives where we might be capping our potential or our container may not be the appropriate size for where we wanna go, and then talk about how we can make some changes to be sure that we are. Allowing ourselves room to grow in the areas that matter to us, right? I always, specifically on this podcast, I always wanna encourage you that if I talk specifically about. Working on our physical bodies, or I talk about career development or I talk about family development like children or something like that. Not all of those things are gonna be important to every single person. And there might be other things that are more important to you than those. So when I give examples of certain spheres of life, just take it and apply it to the sphere that matters to you. It doesn't have to, we, none of us are going well. Maybe I'm limiting us, but maybe I'm capping our potential by saying this, but I was gonna say, none of us are always gonna care about being in great shape and like being in our peak physical shape, and then also being at the peak of our career, and then also being the peak mom that we possibly can be. And then also having the cleanest house and just all of these different things I don't wanna say we can't do it all because we can have everything that we want, but we really need to focus on the areas of life that actually matter most to us. So whenever I talk about the different areas of life, just know that you can apply it to whichever area is most important to you. So one area might be physical. I was talking to Jared about this concept and my husband and he was telling me about back in the fifties, it had been a just a knowable fact, and I'm saying fact with air quotes because it wasn't a fact. But spoiler alert. But he was talking about back in the fifties, up until this specific. Track runner. It was a fact that it was impossible for a human to run a four minute mile or less like, or quicker than that, and no one had done it that they knew of. Of no, or of record. Until 1954, this guy, I think his name was Roger or something, I looked it up right before this Roger Banister broke the quote unquote impossible, four minute mile barrier in 1954 with a time of 3 59. And then like 45 days later, the next person did it. And then quickly after that, more people did it. And over time, people have gotten faster and faster and faster. But because us as a species, I guess, humans. Said, oh, it's impossible to run a form, run a a mile and let under four minutes. So many people had that psychological barrier and that that was something that they unknowingly was keeping them from making that physical change. Now, I can't run a four minute mile, or maybe I could if I gave myself the right container and room to grow and blah, blah, blah, but. All this to say that that was something that psychological, it was a psychological roadblock more than it was actually a physical roadblock. They thought it was a physical roadblock, but it actually was a psychological one, and now like hu saying bolt and whatnot, it has beat that record so many times. And. It just was giving, it was just reminding me that there are some, there are times in our physical journeys where we limit ourselves or we cap ourselves or we say, oh, I could just never do that. And it's actually more of a psychological roadblock than it is an actual physical one because of the limitations that we're putting on the. Potential that we have. Another example with the career, for instance, is that we can sometimes get stuck in roles that no longer serve us or no longer suit us because we aren't allowing ourselves to think more broadly or think more about what we're capable of or what we could do, and I think that a lot of the time, especially in the corporate world or just really. Old fashioned structured job types, there's a very specific ladder of growth that happens. So it's, you know, you start at this level and then you move up to the senior level or the one level, or the two level, or the three level, and then you're a. And then you move up to the manager and then you move up to the director, something like that. And in those cases, I think that it can really limit the, our ability to dream about what is possible for us, because we're just thinking about the next level or the next rung on the ladder, really, we're only focusing on the ladder, but there's a whole, I don't know, escalator to the right of the ladder. That could take you way further away faster. And it's not about speed necessarily, but just about are you going in the right direction and is this something that you feel like will expand you as a person? And I think sometimes when we're feeling really, really drained at work, it's mostly. That we've outgrown the role that we're in, and there's not a direct. Trajectory for us to be able to grow because there are such, they in the corporate world, there is limited structure, there's capped potential. And a lot of the time, I think a lot of, a lot of employees who have a lot of potential don't ever meet their potential at corporations because of this rigid structure that a lot of them have. But that could be something that in your career you're experiencing. And that might be a container that you look at and see, okay, do, is this a container that I need to change? Another example could be relationships. I say this all the time. I feel like the people around you make such a difference in who you are as a person. And if you have specific goals, if you have physical goals or career goals or hobby goals or family goals, the people around you are gonna directly affect. How the way you go after those goals. And so with relationships, especially with people that you've been friends with since you were like really, really young, they may be stuck on the image of you that you have been for a long time. Or maybe you, you made friends with them in college and they always know you as the drinker and the partyer and, oh, you're the fun one when we go out or something. And that's not really. The image that you want anymore or the person that you're striving to be anymore. But it's so easy to fall into that role when you're with them because they've known you so long at this point. The thing I always think about, I can't remember where I heard it the first time, but is that you are the sum of your five closest friends or five people that you hang out with the most. So if you look around at your five closest friends and. They and, and they all care a lot about their health and care a lot about their family relationships and care a lot about their marriages and they always speak highly of their husbands or wives and they are not trash talking them or they're. Going on regular walks or, I don't know, whatever the things are, those are the things that I care about. I really wanna have an awesome marriage that I'm obsessed with. I really wanna have really solid friend and family relationships, and I really want to take care of the vessel, my body that I'm in while I'm living here on earth. Those are kind of the main things for me that I care about. And so when I look at my friends or the people that I'm closest to. If they look like that, then more than likely it's going to help me look like that and that's gonna be the appropriate container for me to be in. Now if my friends are always trash talking their husbands, which it's totally okay you guys, like sometimes you just have to vent. But if they're trash talking their husbands, and all we do is drink and snack and eat fast food when we're together or sit and rot and gossip and talk poorly of other people that we're literally gonna see the next week or something like that, then that maybe is not a container that I'm going to be able to grow in and that I'm going to be able to flourish and feel good and energized and happy about. I'm, it's, it's not the direction that I wanna go. So that might be a container that I might look at changing. Another one, and this might be kind of controversial, but it's been coming up a lot recently, is I think sometimes we put ourselves in containers with the algorithm in our like social media bubble. Or the news that we're watching or something along the lines that is influencing the way that we think about current events and world affairs and all of that. And social media is so good at learning what opinions you like so that it can feed you more of those. And it just kind of becomes this echo chamber of opinions. And I think that that can really limit your possibility to connect with other people who have different opinions or expand past what opinions you already have about. Certain things and really open your eyes to what other sides may have to offer, so I think that that's a container that you could also look at, look at yourself, reflect and think, is this limiting me? Is this keeping me from growing and expanding and connecting and flourishing outside of the jar that I'm currently in? So how do we fix this? So first. Obviously we always wanna reflect and see where this is happening. So ask yourself, what things in your life are you most often saying? The phrases like, oh, I could never do that. You know, I could, I could never work out five days a week. I could never be the manager or boss of a company. I could never direct people. I could never keep such close track of my finances and be. Such a good financial planner. I could never, you know, whatever those, those areas where you're saying, I could never do that, or I can't even imagine having the life that she has, or I can't even imagine being the CEO of a company or I can't even imagine waking up at 5:00 AM to work out I can't even imagine having lunch or dinner with my in-laws every weekend or must be nice, you know, must be nice to have the support that they have, or must be nice to have the bank account that they have, or must be nice to have the body they have or the car they have, or must be nice to have so much free time. What the, these phrases are good indicators of areas of your life that you might, you may be limiting the potential of what you could be doing. Because when you essentially, when you're saying, that must be nice, but not for me, you're saying, yeah, that is great and that's nice, but I could never do that because I don't have the potential to do that. I don't have the capability to do that. And that you're immediately. That should be a flag to yourself that this is an area of life that you are limiting your potential. And so I think that once we recognize that we are limiting ourselves in certain areas of this, it makes it a lot easier to figure out, okay, this is a container that I need to move myself out of. So whether that's in a job or in a relationship or in a hobby even, or a social media outlet. Or a physical routine that you have, you can point to that thing and say, this is the area of my life that I am limiting myself. And the cool thing about this is that when we limit ourselves, we're the problem. And when we're the problem, we're also the solution. So that's the thing that rocks about it. It can be defeating when you're like, oh my gosh, I'm keeping myself from. I'm, I'm the only person in my way. Well, that's great because if you're the only person in your way, guess who is You're, is the only person that you can control in any given day. You, so if you're the only person in your way, you're also the only person that can move aside or. You are the, if you're the problem, you're also the solution. So it is, it should be a very empowering thing. It shouldn't be like, oh my God, I'm trapping myself in this container. I'm never gonna grow enough to make bread. But really it should be like, oh, I wanna give myself room to grow and room to flourish and dream big and actually believe that. I can do the things that I want. I can have the life of my dreams. I can have an amazing relationship with my husband. I can have an amazing relationship with my child if you're, A lot of my friends are having kids right now, and I know that they're being really intentional about the things that they do in their everyday lives with their children so that they can try to grow and develop the healthiest relationships that they can have with them or. Or in your physical body because what you do today to what you do today and what container you put yourself in today completely impacts the container that you could be in the future. For instance, I'm just gonna bring it right back to the sourdough. Let's make it full circle, but with sourdough it. Like I said, it doubles, triples, all of that. And so there's this thing called discard. I'm not gonna get into it, but if you don't discard, then your sourdough constantly expands. And so what it's doing is it's in that container. You feed it the equal parts, flour and water, and then it doubles or it triples and it grows. And then it will subside a bit, but then the next time that you feed it, it's gonna double and triple again. It's gonna be even bigger. And so what you do today to your sourdough starter could potentially make it grow so much in the future. And it's the same way with our lives, like what we are doing today. It. Planting the seeds, or really, I guess in this analogy, it is feeding the flour in the water so that we have the potential to grow into an even bigger, broader, expansive container in the future. And one that you would never even have dreamed of because you've got this little mason jar sitting on your counter and you think, oh, that's all that I can be, and that's all that I can ever grow to fill. And you don't realize that the jar could be. As big as your effing kitchen. I don't know. And you could fill the entire kitchen come 5, 10, 15, 20 years from now. So. Hopefully if you don't do sourdough, this still made sense for you. If you do sourdough, I wanna hear from you. And even if you don't and you want a starter, hey girl, I got you. I'm happy to bring you a starter and give you all the tips and tricks and whatnot. But regardless, I hope that the analogy hit home whether or not you are a sourdough person, because I do believe that the containers that we put ourselves in can limit us or they can give us room to expand. So I love you. Thank you. Have a great week.