Holding back.

Zookeepers typically strap a thin metal chain to a grown elephant's leg, and then attach the other end of a small wooden peg that's hammered into the ground. The 10-foot tall, 10,000-pound elephant could easily snap the chain and uproot the wooden peg, and escape to freedom with minimal effort. But it doesn't. In fact, the elephant never even tries. It's amazing to consider that the world's most powerful land animal, which can uproot a tree as easily as you can break a toothpick, remains defeated by a wooden peg and a small chain.

You see, when the elephant was a baby, its trainers used the exact same methods to domesticate it. A thin chain was strapped around its leg, and the other end was tied to a wooden peg. At the time, the chain and peg were strong enough to restrain the baby elephant. When it tried to break away, the chain would pull it back. Sometimes, tempted by the world it could see in the distance, the elephant would pull harder... but the chain wouldn't budge and the baby soon realized that escape wasn't possible.

Eventually, it stopped trying.

Now, the grown elephant see the chain and remembers what it learned as a baby... the chain and peg are impossible to escape. Sure, it's no longer true, but it doesn't matter to the elephant's mind. The elephant's self-limiting beliefs hold true over time.

If you think about it, we're all like the elephants. We have an incredible power within us, but we also have our own chains and pegs. Things that hold us back from greatness. Self-limiting beliefs that prevent us from being who we are capable of being. Maybe it's an experience from childhood... a failure in relationships... or words repeated to you over and over during adolescence.

We need to learn from our past, but we also need to be wise to updating the truth. Understanding that circumstances in our lives have changed, and are changing. We need to be wise to acknowledging that we have a power within ourselves to do great things, despite our pasts from which we came. That we can rise above and learn.

Rise up and be better.