Reach Your Potential
Know Yourself – Self Discovery
Achieving your full potential is about being the best person that you can be. Knowing yourself will be the most beautiful and useful thing U will ever do for U.
Taking responsibility for your life begins with an accurate assessment of your current skills and performance.
Because your sense of who U are determines your actions and what U end up getting out of life, it is extremely important for U to define the terms of success for yourself and have an honest opinion of yourself.
Exercise
Take a moment to write down your two or three greatest strengths and your two or three most significant weaknesses.
While most people can detail their strengths, they often struggle to identify key weaknesses. This exercise involves meaningful self reflection and an honest evaluation of yourself.
Self-reflection and evaluation should occur often. This needs to be an ongoing process because, as U progress, U will face new challenges and demands and your responses to these difficulties should be continually evaluated to insure you are meeting them in a manner that serves U best.
Sources and Citations
1. https://hbr.org/2008/07/reaching-your-potential
“The only way you can reach your full potential is if you open up and allow your self to be exposed to how you really feel.” ― Turcois Ominek
Reach Your Potential
Understand, it takes courage to discover who U really are and to follow your own convictions. From an early age, U are often inundated with expectations as to how U should behave and what U should do with your life. It is easy to succumb to what others want for U and forego what U want for yourself. It takes courage to follow your own personal vision. When you assume other’s opinions of U to be the ultimate truth, problems will arise. No one knows U better than yourself. To forge your own trail, U will need to be dedicated and persevere when the path is not clearly defined. Achieving your full potential is about committing yourself to the process of self-improvement; it’s not a single task. The commitment to discover U is necessary if U wish to be your own person. Following in the footsteps of those who have gone before U, will only lead U to someone else’s destination.
Following your dreams and being yourself requires courage, fearlessness, commitment, conviction, tenacity and the willingness to look in the mirror and take stock in what U really want out of life. Up until now, it may have been much easier to live in denial, than actually explore what U really want and desire. Often, it is much simpler to hold on to what is secure and not ‘rock the boat’.
To live a life fulfilled means standing up to yourself, listening to your innermost self rather than suppressing or denying yourself what U truly love. Granted, it is so much easier to settle for a life that is mediocre simply because we wish to avoid fear and repercussions from yourself and others. However, ‘settling’ is no way to live.
Heart Driven vs. Head Driven
Your heart will tell U what U truly desire because the heart functions by recognizing what we love and truly desire. On the other hand, the head is much more analytical and will soon put the brakes on as it operates on rationale thinking and is more in tune with what is practical and realistic. If U are ready to follow your heart and listen closely then U will need to let go of everything U think you know and understand.
Your Gift
U are unique in this world and U have something special to give to others and to the world. To reach your potential and share the gift of U, U must tune in to your heart and identify what U love.
Own Your Journey and U will Own Your Destination
Exercise
To assist U in identifying what your heart wants:
- Ask yourself if you are living authentically, truly in line with your values, beliefs and dreams.
- Write down your inner wishes and desires.
- Take inventory of what you love about U.
- Write down everything U love to do.
- What is your dream, your greatest aspiration?
- If you could have anything in life, what would it be?
“Have the courage to follow your heart and intuition. They somehow already know what you truly want to become. Everything else is secondary.” — Steve Jobs
