Don't be a flea

There is a story I heard once that I think really illustrates the limitations that we sometimes put on ourselves based on past experience. Fleas jump, that's what they do. If you put a bunch of fleas in a jar, they will almost immediately jump out of the jar. If you close the lid on the jar, the fleas will jump up and hit the lid of the jar... at first. Then, after a while they figure out that if they jump as high as they can, it hurts. So, after a while, all of the fleas figure out that if they don't jump as high as they can and they just jump about an inch short of "their best" jump, it wont hurt. Then, after a while of jumping just short of the top of the lid, the lid is taken off. Guess how high the fleas continue to jump? They continue to jump just short of the top, even though now they can easily jump right out. Their memory tells them that they can't. What we are capable of is based on what lies in front of us now, not our memories of "failures" in the past.