Do you ever wish you had more of something? Could you fulfill a dream if you had more money? Would you take on a new project that could significantly change your life if you had more time? What more would you attempt to do if you could tap into more energy?
Each of us has a limited amount of these resources (money, time, energy) that provide the opportunities for improving our lives. But we all have some.
I am awestruck by the opportunities that are available to us compared with the generations that preceded us. Never before have there been as many new resources to improve the quality and productivity of our lives. Several years ago I heard a speaker point out that the modern conveniences we enjoy in our homes represent the equivalent of approximately two hundred personal servants in ancient times. He made this proclamation before the advent of home computers, the Internet, e-mail, cell phones, online banking, and many other technologies that have connected us to an ever-expanding world of convenience and efficiency. How many "servants" do we have working on our behalf today?
Never before have there been as many diversions for our time, and never before have there been as many ways to increase - and spend - our energy. Never before have there been as many charitable organizations doing as much humanitarian work. Most important, never before has our understanding of human potential and the path to achievement been as comprehensive as it is today.
Have you ever taken time to think deeply about your personal potential? The word potential means the latent, unrealized power to become what has not yet come into being. How does this concept of potential affect you? How important is it in your life? What is your absolute greatest potential? What are you consciously, deliberately doing to move toward the fulfillment of this potential? What great thing would you attempt to do if you knew you could not fail?
H.G. Wells, the famous novelist and historian, said that wealth, notoriety, place and power are no measure of success. The only true measure of success is the ratio between what we might have been and what we have become. What is the ratio between what you might have been and what you have become? What unrealized potential still resides within, waiting to be brought forth?
A writer asked George Bernard Shaw to lay the "what if" game shortly before he died. He said, "Mr. Shaw, you have visited with some of the most famous people in the world. You have known royalty, world-renowned authors, artists, teachers, and dignitaries from every part of the world. If you could live your life over and be anybody you have known, or any person from history, who would you choose to be?" Shaw replied, "I would choose to be the man George Bernard Shaw could have been, but never was."
Pursuing your potential is not found in attempting to be like someone else, or achieving what someone else has achieved. It is a pursuit of the untapped reservoirs of potential within yourself. And few people come anywhere close to exhausting the resources within. John Maxwell, author of The 21 Irrefutable Laws of Leadership, wrote, "Many intelligent adults are restrained in thoughts, actions and results. They never move further than the boundaries of their self-imposed limitation."
One of the greatest demonstrations of pursuing personal potential is the story of Helen Keller. She lost her sight and hearing in 1882, through illness, when she was only nineteen months old. She became a wild, rebellious, uncontrolled youngster until a nearly blind teacher was attracted to the challenge of teaching her. As a result of Anne Sullivan Macy's belief in Helen's potential, she later attended Radcliffe College, studying French and Greek and typing her papers using a Braille-keyed typewriter. She went on to become a world-famous prodigy, raising funds for the American Foundation for the Blind, lobbying for change around the world, and brightening the spirits of wounded soldiers during World War II.
Although she lived in a world of silence and darkness, Helen Keller refused to let a disability stand in the way of her potential. She altered people's views of individuals with disabilities, while expending the awareness of their own potential. Her greatest capacities were tapped because she never made peace with the status quo and she never tried to be like anyone else. Instead, she invested all of her efforts toward becoming the best that she could be. She saw herself as a change agent, having discovered the possibilities for positive change through her inner journey of self-awareness and achievement. Mark Twain said of her, "She will be as famous a thousand years from now as she is today."
What about you? What is your untapped potential? How can you convert your view of life from "what is" to "what can be"? Winners do not leave the development of their potential to chance. They pursue it systematically with the excitement of knowing there are unlimited possibilities residing within, waiting to be discovered and put to work.
Click here for Action Steps to explore your untapped potential.