🔵 The Invisible Cap

Have you ever been on the verge of a breakthrough, only to suddenly pull back, procrastinate, or sabotage yourself?

Perhaps your business was thriving, and you made a reckless financial decision that set you back. Or your relationship was going great, but you picked a fight over something minor. Maybe you were close to finishing your book or on the verge of launching a new product, but suddenly lost all motivation to complete it. 

These are not coincidences, but rather subconscious barriers that limit how much success, wealth, love, or achievement you're comfortable with.

This is the Invisible Cap.

When you approach your cap, your subconscious steps in and pulls you back to safety.

The problem? That "safety zone" isn't something you created, and it's usually in direct opposition to your conscious goals and desires. And until you break past it, you'll stay stuck at the same level, regardless of your potential.

How The Invisible Cap Holds You Back 

The Invisible Cap isn't obvious. It operates quietly in the background, ensuring you don't push past what feels "acceptable" to it. And it shows up in many ways:

• Sabotaging a tremendous financial situation by taking outsized risks or missing a massive opportunity by amplifying the risk in your mind.

• Destroying unrelated areas of your life when you start doing well in another.

• Convincing you to change directions as soon as the finish line is in view.

• Performing well below your abilities in big moments where "winning" would put a spotlight on you.

At its core, the Invisible Cap is your subconscious keeping you in its comfort zone, even when that comfort zone is holding you back.

Read that sentence again.

Notice that I'm not saying that it's keeping you in your comfort zone, but in the zone that the Invisible Cap deems acceptable. You might feel ready for that level of success, consciously desire it, and be willing to do what it takes to achieve it. Unfortunately, none of that seems to matter when this subconscious barrier throws everything it can at you to keep you in your place.

This all comes back to the subconscious mind's primary function, which is to keep you safe. An Invisible Cap forms in pivotal moments when your subconscious perceives specific parameters of what is "safe and acceptable."

 It might be the perceived maximum income level that keeps you below the threshold of an "evil rich person." It could be a family member's peak yearly salary, so you don't exceed the success of someone you view as the ultimate authority figure.

It could be a level of success that keeps you on pace with your peer group, but not large enough to make you feel like an outlier and outcast.

Maybe it's keeping the level of relationship health you grew up around, even if it means never letting things get "too good." 

None of this makes sense to our conscious minds. Of course, you'd like as much success and happiness as you're able to achieve. However, the cap makes perfect sense to your subconscious when it perceives anything above the Invisible Cap as a threat. 

And when a conscious desire and a subconscious program conflict, the subconscious program nearly always wins.

The Two Ways to Break Through Your Cap

Breaking through an Invisible Cap isn't just about wanting more success...

...it requires rewiring how your subconscious perceives success altogether. There are two main ways to do this:

Option 1: Brute Force Approach

This is the "push through it" method. Consistently exposing yourself to higher levels of success until your subconscious gradually adapts. You expose yourself to the area above your cap until it stops feeling uncomfortable. 

The brute force approach can work, depending on the strength and depth of the subconscious program setting the cap; however, it requires an extreme amount of self-awareness and discipline to maintain.

Most people are unaware that these caps even exist. Self-sabotage, avoidance, and underperformance are seen as personal deficits or attributed to bad luck, rather than being viewed as a governor on a Formula One car.

It's difficult enough to push through an Invisible Cap you know exists, and it's nearly impossible to do with one you don't realize is there.

Option 2: Deleting The Cap

Instead of fighting against your subconscious, you can remove the cap altogether. Helping clients identify the root cause of their subconscious limitations, reframe them, and eliminate them is what my Mindset & Performance coaches and I do with our clients.

Instead of struggling to push past the barrier, we remove the barrier itself.

When successful, this feels like flipping a switch. Imagine suddenly stepping into that next level of success in a way that feels natural, effortless, and even obvious.

Top performers work with mindset coaches because they want to shortcut the process and eliminate the invisible barriers that hinder their progress, rather than trying a brute force approach that may never work.

How to Tell If You Have an Invisible Cap

Take a moment and ask yourself:

• Do I consistently stall out at a certain level of success?

• Have I ever sabotaged myself when things were going "too well"?

• Do I resist opportunities that would take me beyond what I've experienced before?

If you answered yes to any of these, there's a strong chance you're operating under an Invisible Cap. And until you break through it, no amount of skill, effort, or strategy will be enough to take you to the next level.

What You Can Do Right Now

• Identify Your Cap: Look back at your past patterns. When have you unknowingly pulled back just as things were going well?

• Start Expanding Your Comfort Zone: Push slightly beyond your current limits in small, consistent ways.

• Get Help to Remove It Completely: If you want the fastest and most effective way to break past your subconscious limits, our coaching team specializes in eliminating these caps altogether.

If you're stuck at the same level (or worse) that you've been at for years, there's a good chance it's not a lack of skill that's holding you back; it's an invisible limit you didn't even know was there. 

The good news? You don't have to stay stuck.

If you're ready to break past your subconscious limits and unlock the success you're capable of, click here to apply for coaching.

The next level is already within reach. You just need to remove what's blocking you from stepping into it.

If you want to hear one of our top coaches, Adrienne Carter, discuss the Invisible Cap on one of the world's biggest golf podcasts, check out her interview here on the Chasing Scratch Podcast. 

See you next week,
Elliot Roe