A newly wed wife came home from work one day to find her husband had prepared a roast. She was thrilled, but puzzled: he had cut the ends off the roast before cooking it. In her sweetest possible voice she asked, “Sweetheart, I notice you cut the end off the roast. Any particular reason why?”
Busy preparing the rest of the meal, he replied, “That’s the way you cook a roast. I learned from my mother”.
The next week the young wife saw her mother-in-law. “John says you always cut the ends off the roast before you cook it, and I was curious to know why.”
With a patient smile the mother-in-law replied, “Well, dear that’s just the way it’s done, I learned from my mother, and you know what a cook she was in her day.”
At the next family event, the young wife approached Granny and said, “John and his mother both cut the ends off the roast before cooking it. They told me that was the way you did it. Since you are a great cook, I just wondered why.”
Granny laughed and slapped her thigh, “I don’t know why they cut the ends off, but for me, I never had a pan big enough”.
This is an old story I heard twenty years ago, but the point is still valid. We continue doing things that made sense at some point but they may no longer make sense today.
You may be cheating yourself of options and opportunities because you are holding onto ideas, processes, even hopes and dreams that were right for your parents or for yourself at an earlier time.
- It’s not fair to use “connections” to find a job. My father was passed over when someone with “connections” got hired instead
- I better stick with the job I have even though it don’t like it. My aunt left a job and it took her 18 months to find a new one.
- I’m too old to start a new career. My mother had retired by the time she was my age.
It’s time to clear out the old! TRY THIS:
- What about your work or life is bothering you right now?
- Brainstorm your beliefs and assumptions about it, including anything you may have heard parents, teachers, siblings, friends, or experts say that feel true to you.
- Look at the list. Challenge each belief even if it feels like a “law”.
- Where/when did I first start to believe this?
- How has this belief helped me?
- How has this belief held me back?
- How has the world changed since then?
- How have I changed since then?
- Does this belief still serve me?
- What do I REALLY know to be true?
Let me know how this works out for you! See you Tuesday…
Yippee!
Elizabeth
Great post and sortie!