6 Keys to Overcoming Limitations

Life coach Paul Forchione works with high school and college athletes on their mindset, the mental game to improve their performance. He developed this powerful approach dealing with his own personal challenges.

Source: Paul Forchione, used with permission

Paul was born with cerebral palsy. Because he had trouble moving the right side of his body, his mother took him to the doctor, who said he’d spend the rest of his life in a wheelchair. His mother finally found another doctor willing to help, and with physical therapy, Paul began walking (Forchione, 2024). His journey to flourish reveals six keys to developing a stronger mindset.

6 Keys to a Stronger Mindset

1. Honor Your Commitments. Exercise was a vital part of Paul’s physical development. His mother signed him up for soccer when he was five. After running a few yards, his right leg would give out and he told his mother he didn’t want to play soccer any more.

She said, “Paul, if you don't want to play soccer anymore, that’s fine, but you need to honor your commitments, so you need to finish out the soccer season.” He finished the season, stopped playing soccer, and learned a valuable lesson, “Anything that I commit to do, I honor that commitment.”

2. Look for Solutions. Paul’s mother taught him to be a problem solver. When he’d come to her with a problem, she’d search for a solution. So he learned “that if I had a problem, there’s a solution.”

3. Positive Self Talk. When Paul was seven, he had surgery on his right foot, which made a big difference. One day, in gym class, the teacher said. “Okay, guys, run a lap.” Paul thought his right leg would give out and the other kids would laugh at him. But because of the surgery, he went past the point where he usually had to stop, and told himself, “Paul, you got this bud! Keep going. Keep going.”

4. Set a Goal for Yourself. When Paul was twelve, his parents divorced, and he changed schools. He was the “new kid who walks with a limp and holds his right arm differently.” He could not make friends and was bullied. When dealing with his sadness and anger, Paul turned to the problem-solving mindset, deciding to set a goal that helped him “ignore the noise with being bullied and teased.” He set a goal to make the varsity baseball team in high school, played baseball summer, fall, winter, and spring, and practiced on his own.

4. Find a Supportive Community. Paul’s little league coach noticed his strong commitment to baseball and asked him about his goals. The coach persisted and finally Paul told him about wanting to make the high school varsity team. His coach said, “Paul, that's absolutely doable. But you’ve got to have other people keep you accountable for this goal,” and that he needed to share his goal with the team. Reluctantly, Paul agreed. The next day when he told the team his goal, they didn’t laugh at him, but began clapping.

When he got to high school, some of his little league teammates went there too. He says, “as a result of that, I started sending a different energy out towards the kids in high school" and “kids started sending me a different energy back. Instead of bullying and teasing me, they started rooting for me.” He made his varsity baseball team and in his senior year pitched a three-hit shutout. “My team poured the Gatorade on me, and I felt so alive, so great.” Paul’s coach was right. We need community. We need support. We can't climb the mountain of achievement by ourselves.

5. Don’t Accept Other People’s Limiting Judgments. Paul’s mother enrolled him in a Catholic high school where he had to take a placement test. “I must have bombed it,” he said, because the principal called him and his mother in for a conference, telling them she was placing him in the lowest level because he was “not college material.”

But after graduation, Paul reflected on his varsity baseball team goal and thought, “I made this goal to make my varsity baseball team, and I was able to accomplish it. Why can't I set another goal that I am college material?” He enrolled in junior college, got a math tutor, a literature tutor, studied hard and raised his grade point average to a 3.5 to transfer to a four-year university.

Paul realized he could let go of the limited narrative other people had given him, that we’re the only ones who can determine our own narrative. Today, Paul works with other young people to share his mindset approach. After a successful career as a mortgage broker, he began a new career as a life coach. He realized if he expected his clients to be vulnerable with him, he needed to be vulnerable with them. “So I started telling my story. It was shaky at first, but I kept doing it over and over again, finally getting my first client, saying, ‘Paul, I don't have cerebral palsy, but I have X, Y and Z. I feel like you can help me.’"

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6. Maintain Confidence and Positivity. Paul says, “When you feel better about yourself, you play better, and things just come into place. But we all have this inner critic, “saying nasty things to ourselves, things we may not even say to our worst enemies.” He’s found we can silence the inner critic and build positivity with gratitude by focusing on “what’s going well.” His advice is validated by research in positive psychology showing how positive emotions can “broaden and build” our capacity for success (Fredrickson, 2001) and how gratitude is a powerful way to cultivate positivity (Emmons, 2007).

With these mindset keys we can change our inner landscape and take charge of our lives.

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This post is for informational purposes and should not substitute for psychotherapy with a qualified professional.© 2024 Diane Dreher, All Rights Reserved.