Breaking Points

Have you ever reached a point when you feel like you just can't go on.  Maybe your dream is in pieces. Or you realize that you are going around in circles and are back to where you started, again. Or even worse, you have run headlong into a brick wall that you knew was coming and thought that you had taken steps to avoid this time. You are at a breaking point and it is an important moment for you and your dream.

You may wonder, what can strategy do at this point? The answer is nothing, unless we are willing to act on it. At breaking points, there are a lot of unproductive things that are revealed that we need to get rid of - like blame, excuses, rationalization and escapes. As the internal pressure increases it usually gets harder and harder to resist the unproductive path we may have taken many times before.

When I think of breaking points, a scene from the Disney movie, Bambi, comes to mind. A young quail is hiding as hunters approach. They know that they are not supposed to flush but the pressure builds and builds until they finally give in and burst into flight. Within seconds they are shot and killed by one of the hunters. 

You can view the short clip here.

Breaking points test our character and our capacity to carry our dreams through to completion. They are characterized by thinking that says, 'I just can't take it anymore!' The question to ask is why? Why can't you take it anymore? What is coming to the surface in you? What is the worst thing that is going to happen if you continue to not give into your internal pressure?

It is difficult to face our breaking points without some type of an anchor, like our personal vision or core values, to keep us steady through the process. The other thing that is essential is perseverance. As we persist, and keep our eyes on our higher purpose, the things that we thought we could never do, the obstacles that we thought we could never get past, get challenged and revealed for what they are. 

Eventually, the whole concept of a breaking point itself gets challenged. Breaking points are usually self-imposed and self-perpetuated. As we give less and less room to 'I can't do it anymore' thinking, we become more prepared to put the pieces of our dream together.