If you want your life to be a magnificent story, then begin by realizing that you are the author and everyday you have the opportunity to write a new page.

— Mark Houlahan

Liz sat across the table from Ann.  “I could never do that,” Liz said.

Ann had been describing our marathon training. Granted there may be a legitimate argument that our program is somewhat extreme. But the “I could never do that” response is such a bugger for me.

Yet all of us do it. All of us have been guilty at one time or another of saying, “I could never do that.”

We enjoyed the summer flick Rise of the Planet of the Apes recently. In it, Caesar, the ape who becomes the leader of his tribe, learns how to fashion a key, open his cage and free himself from captivity.

It reminded me of the true story of one of the ways that monkeys are captured in the wild: hunters cut a small hole in a coconut, and fix the coconut to the ground with a length of chain. The hole is just big enough for the monkey to slide its hand into. But when it grabs hold of the tender meat inside the coconut and closes its fist, it can’t pull its hand out of the hole. It’s stuck on the horns of a dilemma: hold on tight to the juicy meat; or open its hand and escape to freedom.

You know what happens. Despite holding the key to freedom, the monkey stays stuck. Caught.

Just like us.

Brian Tracy, author of Create Your Own Future, writes, “Your greatest limits are not external. They are internal, within your thinking. They are contained in your personal self-limiting beliefs. These are beliefs that act as brakes on your potential. These are beliefs that cause you to sell yourself short, and to settle for far less than you are truly capable of.”

What we are capable of is: Anything.

Our brains don’t distinguish between internal visions and external reality. “If you can imagine it, you can achieve it; if you can dream it, you can become it,” said William Arthur Ward.   “All our dreams can come true, if we have the courage to pursue them,” Disney echoed.

“If we did all the things we are capable of, we would literally astound ourselves,” Thomas Edison said.

Think, for just a moment, of only a few of the things that have been “imagined” into being: the automobile, the light bulb, the television, the personal computer, space travel, the Internet, the iPod, and Facebook.

Yet our limiting beliefs continue to dog us, haunt us, infect us. They hold us captive. In cages of our own. (And as guests in others’ cages too.)

We are the jailer and the jail.

And we hold the key.

All we need to do is open to possibility. And the expansiveness of the Universe is ours.

With open hands and and an open heart, anything is possible.

Each day, we are given the gift of a new page. Each day, we get the chance to let loose our grasp again of all that holds us captive. Each day, we have an opportunity to create anew the masterpieces of our lives.

Or we can choose to hold on tight to the coconut.

It’s up to us.

Put all excuses aside and remember this: you are capable.

— Zig Zigler