Chapter Two Let's define the cow

After sharing this story many times, I have come to the conclusion that the cow symbolizes everything that keeps us tied to mediocrity. It represents everything that invites us to conformism and therefore prevents us from using our potential to the fullest. Unfortunately, we all carry more cows than we are willing to admit, each with special characteristics. Here are some of the most common:

-The most frequent cows are the excuses with which we try to explain why we have not done something that we know we should do.

-A cow is also an idea with which we seek to convince ourselves and others that the situation is not as bad as it seems. This, even though we can no longer bear it for a minute longer.

-The cow can also be an irrational thought that paralyzes us and does not let us act. In fact, the vast majority of fears are cows.

-Sometimes, cows take the form of false beliefs that do not allow us to use our potential to the fullest.

-Excuses are usually cows in disguise. These are explanations that we have used for a long time to justify why we are where we are, even though we would not like to be there.

As you see, cows can take different forms and disguises that make them more or less noticeable. In general, any idea that weakens you, that gives you a way out or offers you an escape to avoid responsibility for what you know you should do, is surely a cow.

Excuses are the most common cows; convenient ways to avoid our responsibilities and justify our mediocrity by looking for someone to blame for what was always under our control.

Excuses are a way of saying: “I did it but it was not my fault.” “I know I was late but it was the traffic that was to blame,” “I failed the exam but it was the teacher who didn’t give us enough time to study,” “I haven’t made progress at work but it’s my boss who doesn’t appreciate my talents who is to blame,” “I failed in my marriage but it was my wife who didn’t understand me who was to blame.” All of these

Are cows that only seek to exonerate us from all responsibility and place us in the role of victims. (What cows!)

There are three important elements that you must understand about excuses:

If you really want to find an excuse to justify anything, be completely sure that you will find it without much difficulty. When you start using an excuse (cow), be absolutely certain that you will find allies. Yes! No matter how incredible and absurd it may sound, you will find people who believe it and share it. They will tell you, “I know how you feel because the exact same thing happens to me.” The third truth about excuses is that once you make them, nothing will have changed in your life, or in your personal reality. Your mediocrity will still be there and the problem you are avoiding facing by using that excuse will remain the same. You will not have made progress towards its solution, on the contrary, you will have gone backwards.

However, the greatest danger associated with making excuses is that each time you use them you bring them one step closer to becoming your reality. For example, if you frequently use the excuse “I don’t have time” to justify why you are not doing many of the things you know you should be doing, you will discover that little by little you will begin to lose total control over your time and your life.

You will go on to live a reactive life, from urgency to urgency, with no time to work on what is truly important. The truth is that excuses are an ineffective way of dealing with the worst enemy of success: Mediocrity.

Certain thoughts become cows because they paralyze us and do not let us act. Many times, these are ideas that we have been repeating without knowing why, concepts that we have heard from other people and that repetition and time have turned into popular sayings that are nothing more than lies covered in a thin layer of something that resembles the truth. An example of this is the very common idea of: “I am a realistic person.” See? If you ask a positive person if they are optimistic, they will surely tell you yes. However, if you ask a negative person if they are pessimistic, they will surely answer something like this: “I am not a pessimist, I am simply a realist.”

Do you see why this thought is a cow? If you accept that you are pessimistic, negative and bitter, it is possible that sooner or later you will decide that you need to change and choose to:

Get help to do it. However, if you think you are being realistic, then you probably don't feel the need to change. After all, being realistic is about being down to earth and seeing things as they are. Or at least that's what realists believe. However, if you look closely, you'll notice that so-called "realistic people" tend to be pessimistic and have negative expectations. So you see, the "I am a realistic person" cow not only doesn't blind you to your own pessimism, but it acts as a lens through which you view the world around you. If you put on dark glasses, everything will look dark; if you wear glasses with a green tint, everything will look greenish. In the same way, the pessimist lives in a negative and depressing world, while the optimist lives in a positive and opportunity-filled world. However, they are both living in the same world. The differences they see are only the result of their dominant thoughts.

Pessimists, for example, tend to react negatively to everything, almost automatically. Their vision of life and expectations are almost always poor. And it's not that they were born that way, their pessimism has been a learned behavior or socially conditioned by the environment. Negative emotions and feelings are cows that we inadvertently adopt throughout our lives. We have learned and programmed them in the subconscious voluntarily and the consequences are disastrous. The good news is that even if in the past we have allowed our environment, or those around us, to have conditioned us for failure, today we can change our attitude and reprogram our mind for success (this is what I call killing the cow).

Negative thoughts are cows that not only keep you tied to mediocrity, but little by little they destroy your life. They generate harmful forces and feelings within you, which often manifest themselves not only in harmful and damaging emotional states, but also in physical ailments and afflictions, such as ulcers, heart disease, hypertension, digestive problems, migraines, and other afflictions. Hostile and angry thoughts, for example, raise blood pressure, while resentment and sadness weaken the body's immune system.

Indeed, the cow of pessimism has devastating effects on physical and mental health. Have you noticed that those people who constantly complain about everything are the same ones who tend to get sick more often?

Martin Seligman, a professor at the University of Pennsylvania, asserts that pessimists suffer more infections and chronic diseases and that their immune system does not respond as well as that of the optimistic and positive person. A study conducted by Harvard University showed that people who already exhibited a pessimistic attitude at the age of 25 had suffered on average a greater number of serious illnesses by the age of 40 and 50.

What positive effects can be generated as a result of killing the pessimism cow? In another study conducted by a group of researchers at King's College Hospital in London, with 57 women suffering from breast cancer and who had received a mastectomy, it was found that seven out of ten women who possessed what the doctors called a "FIGHTING SPIRIT" ten years later were still living normal lives, while four out of five of those women who in the opinion of the doctors "had given up hope and had resigned themselves to the worst" had died shortly after hearing their diagnosis. So you see, many of these cows are not only affecting our attitude and emotional life, but they may be robbing us of our life.

Some cows often become popular sayings that we often adopt as if they were infallible formulas of wisdom, but which are nothing more than erroneous ideas that do not allow us to progress. Sayings such as: “An old dog does not learn NEW TRICKS” or “A TREE THAT IS BORN CROWN NEVER STRAIGHTENS ITS TREE” popularize two erroneous and absurd ideas: They seek to make us believe that there is an age after which it is impossible to learn something new, or that there are certain habits or behaviors that are impossible to change. These two ideas not only disempower us, but they end up blinding us to the greatness of our own capacity to learn and change. The most curious thing about this kind of cow is that we very rarely question the supposed wisdom they contain. We assume that if they have become popular sayings it must be because they hold a profound truth. However, in many cases what has turned them into popular sayings is the fact that they are cows shared by a large number of people. For example, have you ever wondered if the following proverbs contain any truth, or if they are just cows that we conveniently use to justify a situation of conformism that seems to affect many?

-It is better to know the devil than the devil to know.

-Some are born with a GOOD star and others are born with a bad star.

-The important thing is not to win or lose but to have taken part in the GAME.

So before rushing to use any of these supposed "jewels of popular wisdom", make sure you are not perpetuating in your life those cows that are only achieving in your life to make conformism more bearable. After all, remember that misery loves company.

Now, the most recurrent cows, and those that bring the worst results to our lives, are false beliefs about what we can or cannot do and achieve in our lives; limitations that we ourselves are in charge of adopting about our own capacities, talents and skills.

For example, if you have the belief in your mind that you will not be able to succeed in life because you were not fortunate enough to have attended school, this idea will surely govern your life, your expectations, decisions, goals and way of acting. This false belief will become a mental program that, from the depths of your subconscious, will govern all your actions.

See? Your beliefs determine your expectations, your expectations influence your way of acting, and your way of acting determines the results you will obtain in your life. Limiting beliefs generate low expectations that produce poor results. Do you realize the danger that these cows represent?

How do these ideas (cows) become limiting beliefs? How do these absurd ideas manage to take control of our destiny? Observe how easily this happens. The person draws wrong conclusions from wrong premises that he has accepted as true. Observe how this mechanism works:

First premise: My parents never went to school.

Second premise: My parents didn't achieve much in life.

Conclusion: Since I didn't go to school either, I probably won't achieve much in life either.

Do you see the devastating effects that these generalizations that we ourselves have created with our internal dialogue can have? We can create one of the most self-destructive vicious circles imaginable, since the more incapable we see ourselves, the more useless others will see us. They will treat us as incapable, which will only confirm what we already knew beforehand: How useless we were. The truth is that the fact that your parents didn't achieve much may have nothing to do with whether or not they went to school.

Even if they did, that doesn't mean that the same will happen to you, or that you can't change that situation.

So question every belief that exists in your life. Don't accept limitations without questioning whether they are true or not. Remember that you will always be what you believe yourself to be. If you believe you can succeed, you will surely do so. If you believe you won't succeed, you have already lost. It's your decision.

The last kind of cow I want to refer to is justifications. These cows have a paralyzing effect that does not let us act. The reason is very simple: as long as you can justify something, you will not see the need to remedy it. For example, consider the following justification: "I know that I should spend more time with my children, but the truth is that I come home too tired from work. After all, I work to provide them with a better lifestyle and with this I am showing them that I love them."

At first glance, this cow seems real and it is possible that some of the readers who are uploading it may be thinking the same thing. If you use it, you may even find allies, and depending on the way you say it and the tone of voice you use, you may even be able to put yourself in the role of the victim who suffers the injustice of not being able to spend more time with their children. But the truth is that it is nothing more than a cow, since all of us can spend more time with our children. And with a little creativity and discipline you will realize that it is easier than you think. If this is your cow, be creative and come up with a way to involve your children in some of your activities; try to spend more time with them during meals, spend a few minutes each night asking them about their day before they go to sleep, organize recreational activities during the weekends that allow you to create a closer and more friendly relationship with them. It is not enough to provide their basic needs at the cost of depriving them of your affection.

Another excuse (cow) that some parents use to justify this same situation is the following: “The important thing is not the amount of time I spend with my children, but the quality.” This is a terrible cow, because it gives you free rein to the idea that it is not really necessary to spend more time with our children; that as long as we manage to convince ourselves that we are giving them quality time (regardless of what this means), the quantity is not of great importance. Do you realize how dangerous this cow is? Because the truth is that in our relationship with our children the quantity of time we spend with them is as important as the quality. In fact, if I had to choose one of them, I would choose quantity.

If you have doubts about this, try to visualize the following situation: Imagine that you go to a restaurant with a friend and the two of you order a fish fillet. Your friend is brought a huge fillet, thick and juicy, while you are brought a small fillet that is not even a fifth of the one your friend got. When you complain, the waiter answers: “Oh, sir, the explanation is very simple, your fillet is of better quality.” I don't know how you would respond in such a situation, but I would certainly let him know that quantity is just as important to me as quality and I would demand a larger portion.

In your relationship with your children, they may not often ask for a larger portion of your time than you are giving them today, but rest assured that if you are not willingly offering it to them, they are resenting it.

As you can see, it is easy to take on countless cows that only limit us and stop us from living our life to the fullest.

What makes a human being voluntarily keep a cow in his life, despite knowing that he is depriving him of living a full and happy life? It seems illogical to keep something that is detrimental to our own happiness.

The truth is that many people are not aware of the cows they have; others are aware of them, but continue to care for and feed them, because cows provide us with a comfort zone in which it is easy to accept mediocrity as an alternative way of life.

When we carry a cow on our backs, it ends up stripping us of total responsibility for our success and places the blame for our situation outside of ourselves. Suddenly, the blame for our bad luck falls on other people, circumstances or fate. Without any cow to justify our mediocrity, we would only have two options: accept total responsibility for our circumstances and change (success!), or accept that we are incapable of taking control of our life and resign ourselves (failure!). However, cows give us a third option, even worse than the second: they turn us into well-intentioned people, who unfortunately have not been lucky enough to be on their side; poor victims of a cruel fate (mediocrity!).

So, as you see, mediocrity is worse than total failure. It at least forces you to evaluate other options. When you have hit rock bottom, and you are at the lowest point in your life, the only option is to go up. Absolute misery, total failure, hitting rock bottom, forces you to act.

However, with conformity, the opposite happens, since it breeds mediocrity and in turn, mediocrity perpetuates conformity. The great danger of mediocrity is that it is bearable, it is livable. Some time ago I heard a story that illustrates this point very well.

A person came to the house of an old farmer, who was very fond of hunting. Next to the door of his house sat one of his dogs. However, it was obvious that the dog was not comfortable, something was bothering him and irritating him, as he barked and complained non-stop. After a few minutes of watching the obvious state of discomfort and pain that the animal exhibited, the visitor asked the farmer what could be happening to the poor animal.

-Don't worry, don't pay much attention to it. That dog has been in this situation for several years.

-But... haven't you ever taken him to a vet to see what could be happening to him?, the visitor asked.

-Oh no, I know what's bothering him, the farmer replied. What happens is that he is a very lazy dog.

-What does that have to do with his complaints? -What happens is that right where he is lying there is the tip of a nail that sticks out of the floor, it pricks him and bothers him every time he sits down, and that is why he barks and complains.

-But... why doesn't he move somewhere else?

-Because it surely doesn't bother him enough.

This is the big problem with the cow of conformity and mediocrity, which always bothers us and makes us uncomfortable, but not enough for us to decide to change. So decide right now to get rid of all the cows that are robbing you of the possibility of living a life of fulfillment.