Are You Reaching Your Potential

Are you achieving your potential?

Tim Connor

Ask the average person if they are reaching their full potential and I’ll bet the answer would be no most of the time.  Ask them if they were to  achieve more of their potential if their life would be better in many ways and I’ll be the answer would almost always be yes.  So why the disparity?

Is it a lack of faith or self-belief?  A lack of self-confidence and desire?  Or could it be a mindset of a willingness to settle for what is as acceptable given the extra effort, dedication, commitment or courage required to reach for more and use more of their God given talent and right to do more with their life?

I have read dozens of books that focus on achieving potential and the common message in all of them is that each of us could do more with our life.  If this is true why do so few people stretch their limits, reach out for more and just lack the motivation to go for it?

One of the major issues is the fear of rejection or failure.  No one likes to have either of these in their life but to reach for more you have to risk both.  The only way to succeed or accomplish more is to try and to try always brings with it the potential for mistakes, failure and lessons that need to be learned.

Potential is simply what is waiting in the wings of your life patiently hoping one day you will believe in it and embrace more in life whether it is in relationships, a career or some interest that you have failed to accept or decide to embrace for fear that in the end it might not work, so we play it safe.  Playing it safe is not a recipe for achieving excellence or doing more with your time, talent or resources no matter how limited they may appear.

No one knows how much potential they have to do more but the thing to keep in mind is that if you don’t try you will never know what you could have done.  Are you OK with this?  Well most people are.  But, we are all fortunate that over the years there have been thousands of people who stretched their boundaries and went for it.  Whether it’s been in medicine, technology, travel or any other area in life or society. Think for a moment how your life might be dramatically different if so many people who have done so much with their potential had settled.  I could give you a list that could go on forever but how about a few; Walt Disney, Steve Jobs, Bill Gates, Thomas Edison, Henry Ford and Bill Marriott.  There are thousands of people over the centuries that because they were unwilling to settle changed life for all of us.  So, the question remains buy settling what are you not accomplishing for your; family, employees, customers or society in general?  Or yourself?