Whether you think you can or you can't, you're right!
An exposition into the limitless state of the brain and unlocking your life potential
Hello Dear Friends, It's a Sunny Wednesday in Lagos, I hope the rays of the sunlight brightens your life and unlock your potentials. Keep enjoying your life.
This Newsletter is making me better, a proof that all I'm sharing is not from my bank, and I am not a reflection of it all. Just like you, I am also learning to be better.
To the business of today.
Just like the last book, this book is was written by someone who fought his way out of a brain deficiency. Jim Kwik grew up to be a child who sustained a brain injury and as a result of that, he couldn't learn in school.
He narrated his childhood experiences suffering from that brain injury in the early chapters and mentioned that one of his teachers would call him “The boy with the broken brain.” This appellation affected him and caused a lot of limitations for him. Instead of trying to do something or learn, he simply would give up and remark, how can a boy with broken brain do anything.
Adults have to be very careful with their external words because these quickly become a child's internal words. Verily, when you put a label on someone or something, you create a limit and the label becomes the limitation.
Limitless is a book that wants everybody to be self aware and majorly know that our brain is limitless without any boundary except the one we set for it ourselves. The book was written to prove that we can learn to be or do anything without constraint, only if we have chosen a constraint for ourselves.
When growing up, some of us would love to do somethings, maybe drawing, learning a language, writing or doing some other thing. Eventually, we suddenly give up on those things, perhaps we tried for a little while and didn't get it right, thereafter we tend to set limitations to that habit. Forever, we would be haunted by that limitation. If you ask me to draw something for you today, I'd simply tell you, “I am bad at drawing”. It started with 2 or 3 trials then I limited my brain.
To break this shackles, the author explain the Limitless Model to guide us.
Firstly is having a Limitless Mindset. With the limitless mindset, we break the barriers of our thoughts and belief. Our deeply held belief, assumptions and attitudes is the first we need to make unbounded. With a limitless mindset, you can give anything a shot and even if you suck at it initially, you keep shooting.
Secondly is having a Limitless Motivation. The purpose one should have for taking any action should be limitless. Contrary to popular belief, like your mindset, motivation is not fixed. No one has a set level of motivation. And when people say they are unmotivated, it’s not completely true. They could have a high level of motivation to stay in bed and watch telvision or press their phone. That is a limitation of their motivation to only what they'd be relaxed at doing. Motivation is not derived from seminars or speeches, it is meant to be sustainable and that one derived would most likely end in few hours. Motivation is a process that requires strategy. Jim Kwik gave a formula;
Motivation = Purpose × Energy × S³ (Where S³ means Small Simple Steps)
This implies that motivation requires a clear purpose, invested energy and small steps. It is purpose that will drive us to act, so it needed to be gotten right.
Thirdly is the Limitless Methods. After all the above, we should derive a clear and specific process for accomplishing whatever we needed to accomplish.
Beside the Limitless Models, the author explain things to do to keep our brains active in the later chapters. Drinking water, exercising the body and the brain (remember your dream, brush with your left hand and others), taking fruits that boosts the brain function (avocado, blueberries, etc), sleep, positive peer group.
It is not my intention to make this Newsletter lengthy but I wouldn't have shared the insights in a 300+ pages in lesser lines. I hope you will be limitless now.
Thank you for reading till this point. I do not take it for granted!
Book Recommendation:
The Subtle Art of not giving a fuck by Mark Manson.
Wow! This is really insightful. The fact that we create constraints or set boundaries that eventually limits our achievements is very true. Thanks for writing this intelligent newsletter to help us break the boundaries we've created for ourselves.
I'm ready to be limitless like Jim now 😎😁