Have you ever been told that if you set your mind to it you can achieve anything?

That's a faslehood, and one that I personally believed for a long time. When I was young and told this, as were my siblings and friends, I believed it and set my mind to do things, and failed. Most of these things I wanted so badly but was still coming up short. And with these failures came feelings of inadequacy and self-loathing.

Sometimes we fail at things because we are just not well suited for them. But we are seldom told such things when we are young. The maxium that we can do anything if we set our minds to it is so absolute and so often reinforced that when we follow it and fail, we are left with one conclusion: There must be something wrong with me. Many of us struggle with these feelings of insecurity throughout our whole lives, and they affect our relationships, the way we progress professionally, the way we manage our time and whether we dream or dont dream.

If the lie is that you can do anything you set your mind to, then what is the truth? Some would say cynically, "you CANT do anything you set your mind to." But they too would be wrong. The truth: We are all capable of extrodinary things, but each of us is different. That doesnt make any of us bad or deficient- just human. Finding the things that we are better suited for, and over time the things we are BEST suited for, is one of the great adventures of life and I have found the source of a great deal of happiness.

(This however does NOT in any way take away from the greatest "If at first you dont succeed try and try again." It's just that after the third time find a new source of happiness....lol)