Do you feel very happy after some success/achievement then feel sad? You work hard for few days then you feel sick suddenly? Do you pick up fights with your spouse/close friends after having a period of good time? Then you may be having Upper Limit Problem .
After I accomplish some thing I feel happy then some thing used to come up that will create some disturbance. And, I also used feel that some how the level of happiness stays pretty much in the same range . I used to believe this is how happiness cycle work. And I knew that some how there is a some kind of internal thermostat that trips off. But I did not knew what to call this.
One day, when I was searching for some thing on google I found a book called “THE BIG LEAP”. Author & Psychologist Gay Hendricks called out the above phenomenon as Upper Limit Problem.
What is Upper Limit Problem (ULP)? Human beings have an internal thermostat setting for how much happiness, love, joy, etc (any positive emotion) one can experience. This means once you reach a certain level of happiness then your unconscious mind will trigger events (like feeling sick or picking up fight, etc) that will bring your happiness level down to your threshold. This is also the reason some people can’t scale up their success further and get into wrong track. They have ULP problem. Highly successful people might their thermostat much higher level but even they will experience ULP at some point.
How ULP come in the first place? This basically comes from your unconscious beliefs (limiting) about your self ( how much happiness you can handle, self worth ,etc) and also about other aspects of life.
Here are some quick thoughts on how you can overcome ULP problem.
Recognize your ULP areas/patterns – Understand which areas you have main ULP problems. Try to recognize the patterns on how your unconscious mind is behaving once your touch ULP. Then try to change those patterns.
Take one area of your life to PEAKS – To remove ULP take any one of the areas like fitness, business, relationships or even fun to one extreme end. By doing this you are pushing your thermostat limit. Once you practice this in one area then you can implement it for others areas very easily.
Most important take away from this is – understand about ULP and recognize your patterns in your life. By knowing this and practicing you can experience more happiness and joy in your life.
