I want to share something personal, a realization that snuck up on me slowly, one climb at a time.
It started with rock climbing.
I’d be up on the wall, working my way toward the top, and then I’d hit a point where something in me just said: that’s it. That’s my limit. I can’t reach the next hold. I can’t get to the top. This is as far as I go.
And the strange part? I usually had people right there with me, cheering me on. They could see what I couldn’t.
“Stephanie, just reach up with your left arm.” “Shift your right foot over.” “Now grab it, it’s right in front of you. It’s totally in your reach. You can do it.”
But in the beginning, I didn’t believe them. I’d look at that next hold and decide it was out of reach, decide I couldn’t get there, and I’d climb back down. And it was never a neutral decision, it came wrapped in fear. Fear of falling.
What if I really can’t reach it?What if I fall?
What’s interesting, looking back, is how one-sided that fear was. The thought of falling was vivid, immediate, almost like I could already feel it. But the other possibility, that I might actually make it, barely showed up in my imagination at all. I wasn’t weighing two real outcomes. I was only picturing one.
Something Started to Shift
I kept climbing anyway. Same pattern, over and over, reaching a point, deciding it was my limit, coming down. But the people cheering never stopped believing in me, even when I didn’t believe in myself.
Then one day, still terrified, still sure I was about to fall, I decided to try anyway. I reached for the next hold, not because I felt ready, but almost in spite of feeling ready.
And I made it.
So I kept going. Hold after hold.
The Bar Was Never Really There
Here’s the thing I keep coming back to: even after that first breakthrough, I’d still catch myself setting new limits. People would still be cheering, still believing in me, and I’d still decide, at some new point, this is as far as I go. Not because I’d actually tested it and failed, because I’d already decided I couldn’t.
That’s when it really landed for me: the limit was never on the wall. It was in my mind.
If I set the bar low, that’s exactly where I’ll stay. I won’t go further than the line I’ve drawn, because I’ve already told myself this isn’t for me, I can’t go past this. But nobody put that line there. I did. I set the limit.. not to protect myself from an actual fall, but to keep things predictable. To keep an overview. Because the unknown feels scary, and what if I fall? is a very loud question.
But there’s a second question that’s just as important, and it’s much quieter:
What happens if I don’t fall?
What happens if I reach anyway, and it turns out I could hold on the whole time?
You Decide Where the Limit Is
I think about this off the wall now too, in work, in relationships, in everyday moments where I catch myself thinking I can’t, that’s out of reach, I’m not good enough. The limit is a decision I made quietly, without even noticing I was making it, usually to feel “safe”.
But are we actually safe
Belief is powerful! What I believe about what I can reach shapes what I actually try to reach for. And what I try for shapes what becomes possible.
When you feel yourself at the edge of what you think you can do, on a wall, or anywhere else, it might be worth asking: is this really the limit? Or is this just where I decided to stop?
You set the limit. Which means you can move it, too.
