You’re capable of so much more than you think.

Are your expectations of what you can do LIMITING you?

Last night my daughter and I were in the pool, swimming underwater.

We started talking about how long we can hold our breath.

Now, I’ve been practicing holding my breath, and the last time I tested myself, I was at around 35 seconds.

And my daughter doesn’t really practice more than typical swimming.

So we discussed how long we could probably hold our breathe for – our timing for static apnea.

I said I could probably hold my breathe for 45 seconds.

She said she could probably get 15 seconds.

We started testing each other, counting down, putting our face in the water, floating.

We quickly saw that we were doing much better than our expectations.

Our initial thoughts could have been extremely limiting!

The first time she held her breathe, she stayed under for over 18 seconds.

Then over 33 seconds.

With a longest breathe hold at a time of 36.61 seconds.

I tried and got to 1 minute 17 seconds immediately – completely crushing the 45 seconds I thought I was able to do.

Do you get it?

If I had come up and gotten 45 seconds initially, I would have been so happy!

I would have tried to go for a bit longer – if I hit 1 minute, I would have been jumping for joy!

But we pushed all thoughts of expectations out of our minds.

We sat in the water and relaxed.

Got zen.

Let ourselves float away in the tendrils of time immortal.

I tried again, relaxed more, and got 1 minute, 29 seconds.

Now I saw I could do more, hold it for longer.

I tried one more time.

Again, I channeled my inner zen.

I floated.

I relaxed.

When I came up for air, I expected the result to be huge.

But my daughter announced, to my dismay, that my time was only 59.34 seconds!

I took a deep breathe, sighed, and said “oh man, I thought I did well!”

She started LAUGHING!

Laughing, laughing, laughing!

She showed me the phone screen, showing I hit one minute 41 seconds!!!!!

101 seconds!

A full minute longer than what I thought I could do!!!!

For me, that is a personal record.

And a crushed, no-longer-limiting belief.

I never, ever thought I could hold my breath for almost 2 minutes.

I wasn’t sure how long it would take me to get over 1 minute.

My daughter was also surprised at what she could actually do.

Remember, we thought we could do 15 seconds (her) and 45 seconds (me).

We both more than doubled what we thought we could do!!!

All because we didn’t let our initial expectations limit us.

All because we were able to channel our inner zen and relax, while a stopwatch ticked away the seconds.

I say challenge your limitations!

Know within yourself that you can probably do A LOT MORE than you think you can do.

We limit our possibilities with our expectations all the time.

We have to know that we can do it.

Show ourselves we can do it.

And then never settle for any limits.