Barriers to Potential, Part Two
Potential is rooted in what someone is capable of accomplishing in the future. While most people will say they want to live a life of significance and reach their full potential, very few actually make it happen. Last week I talked about eight distractions that keep us from reaching our potential. The distractions aren’t necessarily bad when they are the result or product of us leaning into our true purpose - it’s the prioritization and pursuit of them that causes problems. This shift in focus directs attention away from the things that truly matter and often results in a lack of satisfaction and feelings of emptiness. This week I want to expand on what keeps us from reaching our full potential.
One of the biggest barriers to potential is success. As we accomplish great things in our lives, most people have a tendency to slow down or stunt their growth, living in a comfort zone of excellence. We get a boost of confidence and satisfaction from our initial success, so we look to repeat what we did before. We become comfortable knowing that specific effort or activity will result in a predictable outcome that is excellent. The problem is that the feelings of joy that we felt upon the original accomplishment are fleeting and wane as time goes on. We don’t find the same satisfaction and, in our attempts, to do more of the same, we fall into the trap of the distractions discussed last week. When we settle for excellence, we rob the world and ourselves of our genius and it’s only when we operate in our genius that we can maximize our potential and the positive impact we have on the people around us.
I believe that everyone has certain skills or abilities that they are world class at. Talents that they naturally have that allow them to far surpass what most of the population can do in that area. Most people never reach their genius for two reasons. They don’t take time to understand what it is and they don’t have the courage to pursue it. Identifying your genius is risky because it moves you one step closer to potentially having to do something with it. It’s why people naturally have a hard time accepting compliments or downplay their abilities. If they aren’t aware of their genius, it makes excellence look like they are at the top of their game. Investing time in figuring out your genius helps identify the direction you need to go, but not everyone is ready for that journey.
To pursue your genius and have maximum impact, you must step out of your comfort zone and risk the unknown. The distraction of fear often kicks in here and we settle for good instead of great. In his book, The Big Leap, Gay Hendricks suggests that we actually self-sabotage our potential because we don’t believe we deserve higher levels of success or happiness. That when we start making progress, we will unknowingly set ourselves back with conflicts, illnesses, injuries, and mistakes to stay in our zone of excellence.
We all have potential and I hope these messages have shined a light on what is preventing you from getting there. If you haven’t already, I hope you can identify your genius and that you have the courage and support to overcome the distractions to pursue what matters most to you. We may never be able to reach our “full potential” because the measuring stick continues to evolve as we make progress. But when we believe that we can always grow, the constant pursuit of having an even greater impact on others increases the possibilities in our reach and helps us to lead more rich and fulfilling lives.