Michael Fox Coaching Free Community

Have you ever heard the story of the fleas in a jar? It’s a simple yet profound illustration of how limitations are created. When fleas are placed in a jar with a lid, they instinctively jump, hitting the lid over and over again.

After a few days, they stop jumping high enough to hit it. Here’s the interesting part: when the lid is removed, the fleas continue to jump within the same limited range, never realizing they could escape.

The lid was gone, but their belief in the barrier remained.

This is how many of us live our lives. We encounter a challenge, a rejection, or a failure, and we adjust our efforts accordingly. We tell ourselves, “This is as far as I can go.” Over time, the belief solidifies, and we stop trying to reach beyond what we think is possible—even when the barrier is no longer there.

Think about the areas of your life where you’ve stopped reaching. Maybe it’s your career, where you’ve convinced yourself that you’re not qualified for the next big opportunity. Or perhaps it’s in relationships, where past experiences have led you to believe that love or connection isn’t for you. It could even be your personal growth, where the voice in your head says, “This is just who I am.”

The truth is, most of those limitations aren’t real anymore. They’re patterns we’ve learned, like the fleas in the jar, keeping us jumping within the same invisible boundary. But here’s the thing—those boundaries can be rewritten. You’re not meant to live confined by an old story.

The lid is gone. The only question now is whether you’re willing to jump higher, to trust in the possibility that there’s a whole world outside of the jar. What’s one area of your life where you’ve held back? What if today you decided to leap just a little higher?

The lid was never meant to keep you in. It was meant to show you that you could break free.