Legend has it, that Harry Houdini, the master magician, once claimed that he could break out of any jail cell in the world. All he had to do was to walk into that jail cell with his street clothes on. He claimed that he could break out of any jail within 1 hour.
A very old jail down south heard about Houdini’s claims, and they accepted his challenge. On the day of the event, many people gathered outside. With much confidence, Houdini walked right into the jail and into the cell, and they shut the metal doors behind him.
The first thing Houdini did was to take off his coat. Then, very strangely, he took off his belt. Secretly hidden in Houdini’s belt, was a 10 inch piece of steel, very tough and very flexible, and Houdini started working.
In about 30 minutes, that confident expression Houdini had when he walked in, disappeared. In one hour, he was bathed in sweat, and at the end of two hours, Houdini, in defeat, collapsed against the door, which then opened. It opened because that door had never been locked. It may not have been locked, but to Houdini, the door was firmly and thoroughly locked, in his mind. Which meant it was locked as if the best locksmith in the world had put his lock on it.
The mind is very powerful. How many doors in your life do you think are locked, but aren’t? How many times have you been stuck in the mental prison of overthinking something that had a simple solution? There is an ancient African proverb that says, “When there is no enemy within, the enemy outside can do us no harm”. Your mind is the most powerful force you will ever face. It will tell you lies, it will tell you that you can’t do that, that you’re not meant for that, that you’re not good enough for that, that you are too old to start that, that you are not smart enough for that, that you can’t go on anymore, that you don’t have the energy, that you don’t have what it takes. You must thank it for it’s opinion, and carry on. Because, like Houdini showed us, the only locked doors that exist, are the locked doors that are in your own mind. The doors in reality, are open, and all you have to do is walk through.
The first place we loose our battles is in our own thinking. If you think it’s permanent, then it’s permanent. If you think you have reached your limits, then you have. If you think you will never get well, then you won’t. You need to understand that everything that’s holding you back, every obstacle, every limitation, is only temporary, you are the one who makes it permanent. If you only knew how powerful your thoughts are, you would never think a negative thought again. Whether you think you can or whether you think you can’t, either way, you are right.