Book SummaryThe Big Leap, by Gay Hendricks

1-Page Summary1-Page Book Summary of The Big Leap

The Big Leap, by psychologist and personal growth coach Gay Hendricks, aims to help the reader overcome some of the psychological barriers to success and fulfillment. Written in 2009, the book collates advice accumulated over Hendricks’s many years in the coaching business, and it’s geared toward the reader who has achieved some success in life, yet still feels a lack of fulfillment.

Hendricks asserts that, while we all have an innate call toward our most successful and fulfilling life, even highly successful people are often plagued by an inability to achieve beyond a certain self-imposed limit.

This limit is what we’ll call our “happiness threshold,” a maximum amount...

The Big Leap Summary Success Propels You Toward Your Happiness Threshold

According to Hendricks, many people who appear outwardly to be highly successful are plagued internally by a sense that there’s something missing in their life. Others may be thriving in one area of their life, such as their career, yet experience continual frustration and disappointment in another, perhaps in their relationships. If this sounds like you, you may be unconsciously limiting yourself by what Hendricks calls the “Upper Limit Problem,” an internal threshold for the maximum degree of success and happiness you’ll allow yourself to experience. This happiness threshold works to prevent you from reaching what he calls your “Zone of Genius,” which we’ll refer to as living in a state of fulfillment.

Life Dissatisfaction May Be Caused by Hedonic Adaptation

Hendricks’s happiness threshold is similar to the positive psychology concept of hedonic adaptation, also referred to as a “hedonic treadmill,” described in The Paradox of Choice. This is the theory that we all have a natural “set point” for...

The Big Leap Summary The False Beliefs That Hold Us Back

To learn how we can work toward our state of fulfillment, we need to understand why we have a happiness threshold limiting us in the first place. Hendricks says this threshold is set early in our lives by having false beliefs ingrained in us that cause feelings of fear, unworthiness, or guilt when we achieve success. He identifies some common false beliefs, and gives examples of how we might end up internalizing those. He says everyone holds at least one of these false beliefs, and some more than one. The first step toward transcending your happiness threshold will be doing some self-examination to identify which of these you hold and where it came from.

(Shortform note: Limitless by Jim Kwik discusses another kind of false belief that could negatively affect your success: self-limiting beliefs about learning. He argues that we impose limitations on ourselves through false beliefs about our intelligence that we likely learned when we were young.)

False Belief #1: “I am flawed at my core, so I can’t also be...

The Big Leap Summary Spotting Your Limiting Beliefs and Behaviors

Now that you know what kinds of false beliefs people tend to have and where those come from, you must identify your own limiting beliefs by closely observing your own behaviors. Hendricks points out that these telltale behaviors can crop up in any area of your life, including in your relationship dynamics.

Once you’ve identified some of the behaviors that may be reinforcing your limiting beliefs, you’ll need to begin confronting those in your day-to-day life. Keep in mind that these behaviors have been conditioned over a long period of time, so it will take diligent effort to overcome them. Therefore, the first step will be to make a firm commitment to keeping an open and positive attitude toward this.

When you’re fully committed, begin by making a list of all the behaviors you recognize in yourself, and then consciously start watching for them to crop up. When they do, think about how they might be connected to limiting yourself. It’s also important to approach this non-judgmentally. As you become aware of these beliefs and behaviors in yourself, don’t be too self-critical;** try to have an attitude of amusement toward yourself, and refrain from making negative judgments...

The Big Leap Summary Envisioning Your State of Fulfillment

Addressing our happiness threshold problem by identifying our false beliefs and self-limiting behaviors is crucial for working toward living in a state of fulfillment. But Hendricks points out that it’s equally important to have a clear vision of what a state of fulfillment looks like for you. This begins by discovering your “passion.”

Those of us in all levels of success, even the high-achievers, often spend time feeling frustrated and unhappy with some aspects of our lives and blaming outside forces. Hendricks points out that we all have excuses for why we can’t do what we would love to be doing. But our excuses are never really the reason we don’t act; underlying those excuses are self-doubt and fear of failure. We need to shift to thinking about the inner resources we do have to reach our state of fulfillment. (Shortform note: Some common excuses people give for not pursuing their passions include: lack of time, lack of resources, lack of knowledge, being too young or old, and fear of failure. These all reflect limiting beliefs and a deficit mindset.)

Therefore, Hendricks offers...

The Big Leap Summary Navigating Your State of Fulfillment

When you learn how to break free of your limiting beliefs, discover your passion, and make the “big leap” into your state of fulfillment, Hendricks says you’ll need help navigating life in that state, because it’s different from the life you’re accustomed to. It’ll likely take some amount of diligent maintenance to avoid falling back into your old patterns of thought and behavior.

Hendricks emphasizes that the first important step to living your fulfilled life is to explicitly and fully commit to doing it. (Shortform note: Hendricks doesn’t give specific instructions for a commitment strategy, but psychological research shows that having a friend act as an accountability partner may help you achieve goals.) Then, there are some practical changes you can make in your life to help you maintain your state of fulfillment.

Set Healthy Boundaries

Living in a state of fulfillment requires that you prioritize spending time on activities that enhance that state, and avoid activities that don’t. But one of the most common boundary problems people tend to struggle with is saying “no.”...

Shortform Exercise: Turn False Beliefs Into Positive Affirmations

Create positive affirmations out of your false and negative beliefs about yourself.

Which of the false beliefs Hendricks identifies do you recognize in yourself? Can you think of any other false or negative beliefs you might have about yourself that weren’t mentioned here? Write down any false or negative beliefs you can think of.