Climbing out of The Pigeon Hole

Hi Guys, thanks for your well wishes. I’m getting better and doing my best not to infect the masses with my germs. But as you can imagine, my compulsion to hug Johnny is somewhat overwhelming. It’s a constant battle. My throat still feels like hamburger and I’m still sounding like Barry White, but overall my energy level is picking up slowly. I’ve moved twice today! Anyway, enough sooking from me, enjoy your Tuesday… Oh yeah, I nearly forgot, the Bald Man just put up a video of one of my recent Channel Ten segments in the left side bar. Take a peek if you haven’t seen it already.

On with today’s post…

Pigeon Hole Construction 101

Have you ever noticed how we mere mortals have the capacity to pigeon hole ourselves into irrelevance, mediocrity, frustration, under-achievement and even misery? For a range of reasons, some of us arrive at a point (mentally and emotionally) where we build ourselves a boring and frustrating (but safe and familiar) pigeon hole to inhabit. And sadly, some of us spend our entire lives in there. Only inches away from greatness without really knowing it, believing it or exploring it. Never daring to put a toe outside our safe but ultimately debilitating and toxic sanctuary. While many are consciously and proactively creating their best lives, for some, life seems to happen to them, around them and in spite of them. They are spectators not players. Missing out on the best game of all.

The Value of Risk

At some point on our life journey, many of us decide who we are, how we are, what we are and what we can and can’t do and then we build a box that looks just like that. Then we live in it. Forever. We create a practical existence to conform to our self-limiting beliefs and our fears and eventually our crappy mindset becomes our crappy reality out in the physical world. Our internal reality becomes our external reality. We waste our time, our talent, our potential and numerous opportunities by living in our pigeon hole. We spend a lifetime rationalizing, explaining and justifying what we’re not doing with our lives and why we’re staying in our respective holes. Sure we want the pot of gold (whatever that means for us personally) but we don’t want the risk. The emotional risk. The mental risk. The financial risk. Any risk. We want safety and where the safety is… there ain’t no rainbow and there definitely ain’t no pot of gold at the end of it.

What Scares Us

There’s no fun, joy, excitement or personal growth living in our pigeon hole but at least we know what to expect every day and that predictability and familiarity gives us a level of security and comfort; two things we love. Change, uncertainty and the unfamiliar scare the crap out of us. Interestingly, they are three things which also cause us to grow, learn, adapt and become better people. Pity we avoid them.

Rats Up a Drainpipe

“Just ignore me, don’t put any pressure on me, don’t expect too much from me and whatever you do, don’t ask me to get out of my pigeon hole Craig. I feel safe in here.” While it’s never an exciting place to be, the pigeon hole serves a purpose because when we’re in there we don’t need to take chances (we hate those), we don’t have to make tough decisions (they terrify us) and we don’t need to get uncomfortable (we don’t do the discomfort thing). And when we do leave our hole on those rare occasions, it’s because life (a situation, circumstance or event) has dragged us out of there kicking, protesting and screaming. And as we’ve always done, the vast majority of us will scamper back to the security of our holes like rats up a drainpipe as soon as possible.

“I could never run a marathon… I’m the chubby one, she’s the athlete of the family”
So what’s it like in your pigeon hole… will you be moving out any time soon?

“I could never write a book because I’ve don’t have a creative bone in my body… just ask my mother”

“I could never speak to an audience… I’m the introvert of the family”

“I’m the problem child, the black sheep of the family… failure follows me around”

“I would love to start my own business but I’m too old… that’s something a young person should do..”

“I’m too fat, too stupid, too ugly, too shy, too short, too tall, too uneducated, too unskilled, too busy…..”

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