The Elephant and the Rope: A Lesson in Self-Belief

This is an oldie but a goodie.

A man was walking and spotted a herd of elephants. He looked closer at the herd and saw, to his surprise, that none of the elephants were moving. They were not caged up, and they did not have a ball and chain around their ankles. The man could not understand why they were not moving.

He looked closer, and to his even greater surprise, each of the elephants had a small rope tied to one of their feet, with the rope being attached to the ground next to them by a large nail. His surprise grew once again because none of the elephants were trying to break free from the rope that tied each of them to that one spot where they stood.

Curious about this really odd situation, the man asked the elephant trainer who was standing nearby how and why the elephants just stood there, and whether they had ever tried to escape.

The elephant trainer replied:

“When the elephants are young, we use the same size rope to tie them up. At that age, it’s enough to hold them. As they grow up, they continue to believe the rope holds them in place, and that they cannot break free.”

A Powerful Lesson in Self-Belief

Every elephant in that herd truly believed that they could not break free, that they could not walk forward, that they were held exactly where they were.

They had been conditioned from birth to accept the situation in which they found themselves.

The Moral of the Story

What’s the moral of the story?

I read this story as a great reminder to us all that no matter what we have been taught, told or conditioned to believe we are capable of, or even incapable of, it’s only true if we believe those stories, those conditions.

If we want to get ourselves motivated to do something, to achieve what we have been told by others is impossible, or that we have told ourselves is impossible, then the starting point is what we believe.

Do you believe you can get that Honors degree?

Do you believe you can self-fund yourself through college, in spite of your rough start in life?

If you don’t believe you can do it, I can guarantee to you; you won’t.

Untying the Ropes

So, let’s all start untying, let’s all start cutting through the ropes, the shackles that have been placed on us through other people’s conditions or views of us, through our own lack of self-belief, our own lack of self-worth, or our own insecurities.

Get Yourself Motivated!

Be your own fan club.

And most of all, start believing you can get that Honors degree, that college education, whatever your goal is.

Whatever it is that you’ve been told you cannot be, or you cannot do - whatever you have told yourself you are incapable of achieving - start with believing you can, and you are WAY more likely to make it happen once you start believing in yourself!