How To Break Down The Walls In Your Life & Find Incredible Victory
The ideal reader for this article isn’t quite sure what to do in life or just can’t seem to get any traction out of it. He or she is frustrated with him or her self because they can’t figure it out. Other people seem to have no difficulty knowing what to do or how to do it to make money, feel fulfilled, and make an impact on the world.
I’m writing this specifically for who I was before I figured it out. Two years ago I was that ideal reader. Are you that person, too? If so, please dig in and grab all you can out of this article because it’s going to hit hard. Keep an open mind and a willingness to implement the ideas and you are well on your way “out of the Box.”
I graduated in 1995 with a degree in architecture. Creativity was, of course, a fundamental topic throughout this period of my education and I carried an interest in the subject for many years into the future.
One central theme I have heard through all this time is the ability to be able to “think outside of the box.”
Creativity Versus Assumptions
What many people fail to realize is that the “box” is a term that came from a creativity test known as the Nine Dot Puzzle. You have probably seen this before and racked your brain trying to solve it just as I did at first.
The puzzle is a simple grid of nine evenly spaced dots. The challenge is to connect all nine dots with only three straight, connected lines.
But, here is where it gets interesting—The even arrangement of the dots give the appearance of a square, or a “box,” hence, the name.
In reality, there are no actual lines that define the square—our minds fill in that assumption without even asking. Our highly developed brains recognize an “inside” and an “outside” merely by interpreting the pattern it sees.
But this is our downfall in finding the solution right here.
At the outset of the exercise, nobody said there are any boundaries. Yet we subconsciously assume those beliefs. And, of course, the solution lies in the fact that there need, in fact, be no boundaries.
While we are trying to make sense of how to connect nine dots with three lines we invariably never think to use the area outside of the assumed perimeter because we see that as outside the parameter of the problem.
If you’re curious, there are any number of possible solutions. The most recognized one is this: If the lines you draw are skewed ever so slightly so that they pass through three subsequent dots and extend to a vertex well outside the field of the box, each dot can be crossed off with a zig-zag pattern.
While no limits were ever stated they were automatically assumed preventing us from solving the problem.
Your Nemesis, The Box
In much the same way that our assumptions limit our ability to think creatively and solve problems, they can limit our ability to live effectively, too.
What do I mean by this?
Assumptions are a kind of limit that we assume without questioning their validity.
To assume means simply to pick up responsibility for as when someone assumes someone else’s loan.
In this case, by assuming those limits we eliminate the only solutions that will actually work for us, those outside the Box.
As limiting beliefs, assumptions are deadly to your potential.
See if some of these assumptions look familiar to you:
- Success is only for other people.
- It’s too late for me to do anything significant.
- I’m not good at anything.
- I’ve committed so much to this that I shouldn’t even think about doing that.
- I’ll never figure life out.
These are all things I believed in my life. I really thought I had no success gene and that success was something that would never be possible for me. Only other people got that chromosome.
And I was 44 years old—how I was going to do anything significant in life at this point? I had no direction and no money.
I really believed I wasn’t good at anything. I couldn’t do all of the regular guy things like hunt or fish or fix cars or houses.
My education and career were centered around architecture and construction so how could I transition to anything else as a middle-aged man?
And the saddest assumption of all was that I truly believed life was hopeless for me. I didn’t think that I would ever discover who I really was and what I was supposed to do with my life.
The Power of Assumptions
Because I held so strongly to these assumptions I couldn’t see past them at all. In fact, my assumptions seemed to always become reality.
When I was in Psychology 101 our professor introduced us to this phenomenon known as self-fulfilling prophecies. You’ve heard of them before. Essentially, whatever you believe you consciously or subconsciously tend to realize into actual form.
If a person believes they are unattractive they will dress poorly, neglect their hygiene, etc. and become, wait for it, unattractive.
If someone believes they are poor they are going to actualize it. They are going to settle for a subpar job and they will manage their finances poorly. Money is simply going to scurry away from them.
Another way to put all this is that we tend to go where we are looking.
That was one of the main pieces of advice that I remember from my dad when I was learning to drive. If I looked somewhere off of the road I would drift toward whatever was holding my attention. But if I focused just beyond where I needed to go next, somewhere far down the road, I would always safely find my way in that direction. That was pretty sage advice and it applies in all sorts of ways.
How We Unknowingly Strengthen Our Assumptions
What made my barriers so strong was not just the inherent power of assumptions but that they were reinforced by some very powerful motivators. If the assumptions were just there of their own accord I might have been able to see past them and watch them crumble.
My Box was becoming very strong, however, in part to three emotions:
– Fear
Fear has got to be one of the strongest motivators that mankind has ever known. At its core is the self-preservation of all that I know myself to be.
When I am motivated by fear I tend to keep the status quo. In no way do I want to rock the boat and possibly realize whatever it is that I’m fearing.
Fear paralyzes and inherently prevents change. But change is exactly what is needed to effectively break out of the Box. Remember that Nine Dot Puzzle? Our assumptions are so strong that we can’t break free from them without some type of disruption.
Disruption is key to creativity and it is key to breaking through the life-assumptions of our Boxes. We have to attempt to break out of our mental-lock or be willing to let something else knock us out for us.
But how can we do that if we are afraid to do anything but hold to the present conditions?
– Complacency
Complacency is a lack of caring. If I don’t care enough to even look for another way then, guess what? I never will find it.
In my experience, complacency is a product of a lack of hope. It says I will never win anyway so what’s the use.
For me, I found myself devoid of hope for two main reasons:
- Ignorance. I literally did not know what to do with my life or how to be successful so I gave up trying.
- Failure. I sandbagged any perception of failure and used it to predict the future. If I failed twenty times before why try again? In all actuality, I would make the same excuse with only one failure.
How many people do you know that are suffering from complacency? They live their lives watching television or playing online bingo.
Nothing moves them. Everything is everyone else’s problem. They simply seek to live out their lives in comfort.
– Self-Loathing
This was my bread-and-butter motivator at times. Because I did not know what to do, because I failed in the past, because I couldn’t succeed while others around me could, I hated myself.
I actually found myself reinforcing failure because I felt that I deserved it.
Some people cut themselves because they don’t love themselves. Me, I used deliberate failure to harm myself.
I would do it because of the hate and then I would use it to reinforce the walls of my Box even more.
Related: Your Pain Is Leading You To Your Destiny
The Day I Figured It All Out
I wanted to know so bad what in God’s name I was actually supposed to be doing with my life. I wanted the peace that came from that certainty, the complete fulfillment that I knew was possible.
One day, I figured it all out. But I really had nothing to do with it. The breakdown of the process looked a little like this:
The first thing that helped me break down my walls was pain.
To set the stage, I had just spent a couple of weeks fighting the “Toilet from Hell.” I said earlier that I can’t fix things like other guys can and I really meant it.
It was a simple leak in the tank but I spent night after night after night trying to repair it and multiple trips to the hardware store. A knowledgeable person could have fixed it in a night.
This was a source of real frustration so just know I walked into this one afternoon with this mindset.
I was carrying some real pain about my lack of worthiness as a man. As I recall, my wife and I ran a car over to a friend for him to look at because my wife wanted to buy it.
Of course, I felt an inch tall in front of Jeff because I know nothing about cars and have to rely on him to help my wife make a decision about this vehicle.
Second, something pushed me over the edge.
Jeff said to run from this particular car but talked about another opportunity.
I felt even more shame pour over me when my wife told Jeff we wouldn’t have enough money to buy this other car he knew of (even though it was an affordable offer).
I don’t know Jeff to be a judgmental man but I imagined a disgust in the way he looked at me right then. He would have been able to afford it for his wife and he was only recently released from a nearly three-decade prison term.
That’s the part that possibly hurt the worst.
I was extremely happy for Jeff and his entrepreneurial success after prison but it left me feeling even more ashamed of myself. You could say it was the final straw on this camel’s back.
I broke.
My Box came crashing down. No, I didn’t have a meltdown right there. But inside something broke free. Something dislodged “me” away from all of my assumptions. I had my disruption.
That a disruption is big enough to break a person free from his life-long Box, the only reality he has ever known, is really saying something.
It was also a little disorienting. I had nothing to grab onto except for…truth.
The final step to freedom was inspiration.
My truth was the inspiration that Jeff gave me in showing me how he was free from his own Box.
He didn’t mean to do it but, nevertheless, Jeff’s story was the final key to unlocking the walls of the Box.
The way that he showed me by his life that a person can not only be set free from literal walls but mental ones as well. You see, a lot of felons would think that’s all they are—a label with not very high expectations attached to it.
But Jeff has never submitted to labels and expectations. Where others would see limits, he only sees opportunity.
Jeff did more, entrepreneurially speaking, in about a year-and-a-half than I had done in all of my adult years at that time.
That stung a little to realize but it was also incredibly inspirational.
That his gameplan was not anywhere near what mine was going to be didn’t matter. What did matter was the ability that I gained to see possibility.
All I wanted to know was that odds can be beat and we can find things to excel at. And that’s when my Box broke wide open.
Something amazing happened when I broke out of my Box—I could see everything I needed to see to live my life powerfully.
It was a moment of great awareness. I saw things for how they really should be.
I became a writer right then. I experienced my calling.
But that was just the beginning. My mind opened to all possibility right then. My Box was defeated in that moment. I saw the interconnectedness of the Universe, I saw that I am consciousness and soul and not my fleshly body or my ego.
I had also had an awakening. In just the span of a moment, I was aware.
All this was possible through a Grand Mal size disruption.
The Key To Escaping The Box- Confrontation
The reason the whole thing I call the Box survives and never collapses is because of safety. I was so preoccupied with avoiding harm or even discomfort that I built this elaborate, unbeatable system around me. I built it with the whole intent of ensuring failure and I never even realized it.
I wanted to avoid the pain of looking stupid. I isolated myself. I kept up an image that I thought was fooling people.
I avoided the pain of exerting energy. I liked being comfortable. Everything I tried actually did seem to hurt because it was so outside of my ability level.
It took being forced into confronting my Box to see it for what it was—the obstacle in the way of solving the problem of what to do with my life and how to find victory despite it.
Will you have to be thrust into such a situation yourself to break out of your Box? Maybe.
But I don’t think it need be that way.
Choosing your way out of the Box
I believe if you really begin to identify the walls, loosen your fixation on them, and open yourself up to possibilities that you might be able to break free on your own.
To do so you are going to have to choose awareness.
You have to begin to “see” all that you have taken for granted. It’s time to look at your life with fresh eyes. Face your assumptions head on and question them.
The first unfortunate thing is that I don’t believe you can do it without pain. That was the key to my awakening and the only thing that could distance me enough to see my Box.
But, that’s why so much of humanity is stuck—because the process requires pain. I guess if it were easy everyone would be doing it.
To break down the walls of your life is going to hurt a bit. If it doesn’t, you are not prying hard enough.
The second unfortunate thing is I don’t think anyone is capable of dishing out and enduring that much pain on their own. It takes someone else to help you.
Have you ever had a band-aid that just felt like murder to pull off by yourself? You gingerly pull and roll it back and just can’t ever bring yourself to remove it.
But what does your friend do when he sees you pussyfooting around with it? He grabs it and yanks it off!
You yell and curse and ask what kind of friend would do that. But, truthfully, he is your friend because he did it.
He saw your need and that you couldn’t bring yourself to drive through the pain on your own.
This, by the way, is the benefit of life coaches and counselors.
Finding help in others
I have had a couple of times in my life where I needed professional help to get through painful events. One was after a suicide attempt in college.
I was caged in on all sides by my Box at that time, lost in a sea of hopelessness. I was gingerly trying to pull off the band-aids in my life.
But this psychiatrist—he was almost callous. He went straight to each and every bandaid and yanked them off, hair and all.
There is no doubt I could not have done that myself and who knows if I would still be here today without his help.
And I say with firm conviction that you can’t do it on your own either. Not with the Box. There are no heroes here.
But do everything that you can on your own because I believe that ability to self-empower is critical.
Still, you are going to need someone, if not a close friend or family member, to point out your assumptions and your reinforcers in life. You need them to help you confront your Box.
At the same time, you need to find people to inspire you. These can’t just be people on Oprah, although that couldn’t hurt.
You need real people that you can see living powerfully first-hand. And you need to be able to get to know them enough that you learn their own back-story that they have overcome and the limitations they defeated.
You need somebody whose actual presence makes you a little uncomfortable because you are wondering what they think of you in your mediocrity.
When this happens you not only become inspired but motivated to answer them in relation to that question.
Take Away
I wish the answers for breaking free from your Box were easier to implement.
They aren’t.
But they are within your grasp. Knowing them is the first key and I didn’t even have that at the time.
To break out of the Box requires disruption in the form of pain and inspiration. The only way you are going to get there is to finally confront your Box.
How I hate that word, “Confrontation.” I spend so much time avoiding it. But avoiding confrontation only leads to mediocrity and it produces its own evil to protect itself in the form of lies and deception.
Read that again: When we fear confrontation, we will lie and deceive ourselves and others to protect ourselves from it.
We will believe our assumptions and never question them.
Freedom is painful my friends. Thousands die in wars to gain it or protect it. It can’t come without a price.
So come to grips with it. Journal your thoughts and brainstorm your Box. Figure out what it looks like. Find out how you need to confront it. Then find someone to confide in. Pastors or lay-counselors can work great for this if you can’t afford a life coach.
But, by all means, become open to the idea of confronting it. As you do, you set in motion the wheels of victory.
How are you confronting your Box?
Aaron Force is a blogger from Seattle, Washington. He writes from a point of authenticity, as an outpouring of a spiritual calling and awakening that occurred in April of 2015. His purpose is to help better the lives of his readers with instruction, insight, and inspiration related to spirituality and self-improvement. The story of his remarkable calling can be found (here).
Aaron Force is a blogger from Seattle, Washington. He writes to educate others about the nature of an expanded consciousness to evolve humanity. Aaron unexpectedly experienced his own profound awakening and ego transcendence in 2015 and soon understood that the qualities of his own experience (a greater expansion and evolution in his life) could be applied to mankind collectively.