A man was walking through an elephant camp, and he noticed that the elephants weren't being kept in cages or held by chains. All that was holding them back was a small piece of rope tied to one of their legs.
As the man gazed upon the elephants, he was confused as to why the massive animals didn't just use their strength to break the rope and escape. They could easily have done so, but instead, they didn't try at all.
Curious and wanting to know the answer, he asked a trainer nearby why the elephants were just standing there.
The trainer replied: "When they are very young and much smaller, we use the same size rope to tie them and, at that age, it is enough to hold them. As they grow up, they are conditioned to believe they cannot break away. They believe the rope can still hold them, so they never try to break free."
The only reason that the elephants weren't escaping from the camp was that over time they adopted the belief that it just wasn't possible.
We are all like those elephants. We go through life hanging onto a belief that we cannot do something, simply because we failed at it once before, or because a previous environment told us we couldn't.
Don't let the old ropes hold you back. The limits you thought you had are imaginary.