Have you ever thought about your potential?
What you’re capable of? Have you ever challenged yourself to do something you didn’t think would ever be possible for you? Run a marathon, started a business, wrote a book, broke a record, blogged every day for a year, built an empire, traveled the world, made a positive difference to a million people.
Do you live life constantly pushing the boundaries mentally and physically to see how far you could go, how far you could stretch yourself?
When I was 15 years old, I wrote in my diary the question, “What Is My Potential?” I wanted to find the answer why some people thrived, succeeded in life, achieving phenomenal goal after goal and other people struggled.
It started as a small project when I was younger reading, researching, studying, testing on myself and even after all these years, I believe I’m still just at the tip of the iceberg for me, and in the last 10 years having uncovered, discovered and learnt so much it has become my absolute purpose, and mission in life to help people start to realise theirs.
What I know for sure, is that every single one of us has so much untapped potential just sitting inside of us right now, waiting to be tested, burning to be used, begging to be stretched, mentally and physically.
There is absolutely no question about it, we are all capable of so, so much more than we could ever even believe. We could live fully the life of our dreams, find meaning, purpose, fulfillment and true happiness and do and achieve all the things we’ve ever dreamed of.
But why do so many of us accept, settle, and never question, strive to pursue more for ourselves? What is holding us back? Why are we so afraid to dream big?
The answer is fear, fear of the unknown, fear of failure, fear of being humiliated, lack of self-belief, lack of confidence, unlimiting beliefs that it is not possible for you, that you’re not capable, not smart enough, not fast enough, not strong enough staying comfortable, living within the status quo, listening to other people, the words and the stories that you tell yourself on a daily basis that you’re not good enough, that you can’t have it and maybe never even being brave enough to contemplate the question, just accepting the easy life as it is. Let those thoughts and negative beliefs go.
Start small, do something that scares you every day, be willing to fail, be willing to go for it, be willing to put yourself out there, be willing to ask for help and most importantly, believe that you can, and what you’re capable of will begin to surprise you.
On holiday with a friend once, we talked about things we would like to do, small challenges and she dared me to run a marathon, 26 miles. I’d never even thought about running a marathon, never run a race, never having done any training, had no idea what it would involve, whether I could do it or would even like running but I took on the dare. I signed up, bought a book, completed 6 months of training and ran the New York Marathon and I now look back on this as one of my fondest memories. The first time that I accomplished something more than I thought I could.
Give yourself the benefit of the doubt, trust you’re capable and go for it. When you set yourself small challenges and achieve and accomplish something incrementally more challenging time and time again, you’ll start to develop the mindset that believes that anything is possible.
Because belief that’s it’s possible is key.
To achieve something much, much bigger, blows your mind, the icing on the cake that’s the next level. This crucial step to this level requires spending time to work on yourself, really working through, unraveling, understanding uncovering every limiting belief you have.
What thoughts, beliefs, stories about yourself have been holding you up in the past, and eliminating, eradicating and letting those go for good and replacing them with new empowering thoughts and beliefs that help you to get what you want. This part is essential because until you’ve worked on your mindset, to clear out the negatives, those reoccurring old thought patterns will always hold you back, stop and sabotage unconsciously from really getting what you want.
The only difference between those that truly succeeded in life, achieved everything they wanted and more, wasn’t money, IQ, family, luck, it all helps but the difference was in their mindset.
When you know who you are, when you have a strong powerful, positive mindset, unwavering belief in yourself, when you’re fearless, confident, authentic, driven, you will be absolutely unstoppable in reaching your potential.
The only limitations you ever have are the ones you set for yourself.
In his short life, I think we could agree that Bruce Lee was pretty close to fulfilling his potential and his philosophy was “As you think so shall you become” Bruce Lee, which is the same as Oprah’s “You become what you believe”.