How to reach your full potential in life, work, and career

Table of Contents

Potential meaning

Potential is a term used generally to refer to currently unrealized ability. It can be used to describe the situation of untapped strength, dormant ability, hidden talents, and reserved powers. In all these, it gives the picture of latent qualities or capabilities that may be developed, and lead to future success, usefulness, or an event.

Types of Potential

The term which is used in a wide variety of fields, from social sciences to physics, indicates things that are wired in a way that gives them the ability to change in certain ways. In this article, we will discuss the human potential and how you can achieve your full potentials in life, business, work, and career.

Human Potential

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Our Potentials are Limitless

Human potential is the phenomenon that pushes the idea of the human capacity for self-improvement by diligently applying themselves to studying,  training, and practices, to attain the limit of their ability to develop aptitudes and skills. The goal or idea behind human potential is the belief that in reaching their full potential, an individual will be able to lead a happy and more fulfilled life. This places happiness and fulfillment as the ultimate goal of human potentials.

The concept of human potential is sometimes described in terms of making people understand their capabilities, enabling them to develop them, and eventually becoming the best version of themselves possible. The lack of maximization of potentials by people who are believed to have a degree of such potentials earns them the description of failing ‘to live up to their potentials ‘.

Full Potentials

This is the concept used to describe the peak of one’s potential which can be skillfully applied and maximized for optimal benefits. It is pertinent to note that everything (animate or inanimate), has the potential to become or display certain abilities under given conditions. This establishes that the thin line between potential and delivery is an opportunity, given certain developments. In the absence of the aforementioned, however, potential will remain mere potential and will not come to the stage of actuality.

Examples of Potentials of a Person

People over time have demonstrated the potentials we have as human beings in spite of the limitations we may possibly be confronted with. Below are a few examples of people who unleashed their human potentials in spite of overwhelming challenges and limitations.

Nick Vujicic

Nick Vujicic speaking in a church in Ehringshausen Germany 20110401 02

Nick Vujicic is an Australian evangelist and a well-renowned speaker who has traveled the world. Given the fact that he was born with no limbs did not deter him from becoming the phenomenal, motivational speaker and preacher that he is today.  He is an amazing person who believes he has a lot to give to the world. At the age of seventeen, when many are so perplexed and trying to figure out what to do with their lives without finding the answers and guidance, and retorting to drugs and other unholy lifestyles as a result; Nick founded a non-profit organization named ‘Life Without Limbs’. This organization reaches out to many and blesses millions all over the world, especially the physically challenged. This brings to the fore the reality of our potentials, which, if maximized, can enable us to become anything in spite of the challenges we are faced with.

Jessica Cox

Jessica Cox

Jessica Cox is the world’s first licensed armless pilot, as well as the first armless black belt in the American Taekwondo Association. She was born without arms due to a rare birth defect. She has, however,  proven over the years that she can do anything that people with arms can do, achieving merits that most people would be incredibly proud of. She earned the pilot’s license after learning how to fly a plane with her feet- becoming the first woman without arms to do so. She was once quoted saying ‘naturally people saw me not having arms as a limiting factor – but I was there to prove them wrong ’. Her life and accomplishments once again reiterate the great potential in us to do the unimaginable.

Conditions and Skills for Maximizing your Full Potential

Below are conditions and skills needed in order to fully maximize your potentials:

Faith

This is the attribute of believing in the reality or possibility of an event or expectation, even when it is yet to happen. Here, it is the strong belief in the inborn abilities or inherent capabilities peculiar to you as an individual. Faith is important in the maximization of full potential as you first need to believe and internalize the truth of existing potential in you. It is by so doing that you can take conscious efforts geared towards the fuller discovery and the eventual maximization.

One that has faith in his potentials tends to be more proactive, happy, and peaceful, which leads to eventual productivity. On the other hand, one that has the low self-esteem syndrome, and pessimistic mindset, which strikes out the place of faith in the inherent abilities; tends to lead a life of no ambition and focus. This can eventually result in frustration, depression, and lack of fulfillment. It is important, therefore, for the sake of mental health and productivity, to believe and have faith in the possibility of certain amazing things that can only be done by you, even if you do not look like it yet. Do not allow circumstances, grades in school, and the wave of mediocrity everywhere, to determine the course of your life and make you feel like a nonentity which you are not in reality. Believe in yourself and the things you can do. This is a sure way to maximizing your potentials.

Discipline

Discipline is the conscious stretching of one’s self in order to achieve set goals or objectives. Discipline is very important for the success of our day-to-day lives which culminates in our overall lives and career.

Discipline holds an indispensable place in the maximization of the potentials and the eventual success that comes with that. A strong faith in one’s potentials without corresponding disciplined action and disposition will only result in daydreaming, self-deceit, and castle building in the air, as the said potential (not minding the validity of its presence), will not be maximized and actualized.

Discipline affects every area of life such as sleeping, eating, and talking among others. To be disciplined therefore entails putting a conscious watch on the performance of the aforementioned activities as legitimate and important as there are. This is needed in order to stay focused and fully maximize your potential.

Goal setting

Goal setting is the practice of mapping out a plan for the attainment of the desired outcome given the necessary timing, environment, and resource to that end.
Goal setting covers the visionary arm of life which is necessary for time management eventually leading to potential maximization and success.

Setting clear goals and envisioning their attainment, enables you to put in the best of your time and abilities which you probably did not believe that you are capable of. This will enable you to discover and maximize your potentials. The maximization of the potentials is made possible and fostered in the atmosphere of clarity of purpose which goal-setting makes possible.
In setting your goals, your goals must be SMART. That is to say, it must be

Specific,

Measurable,

Attainable,

Realistic, and

Timely.

It is by so doing, that you are stretched beyond what your set limit of capabilities is to a height of greater abilities, thereby enabling you to fully maximize your potentials.

Responsibility

As a consequence of, or closely in line with goal setting is the responsibility. This is the attribute of owning up and shouldering the demands of a set goal by way of actions or accepting the consequence of inactions, flaws, and negligence.

Maximizing your potentials is a development that can be attained on the basis of taking personal responsibility for it, and working through its reality. In order to maximize your potentials, the place of responsibility cannot be overemphasized. It eradicates the common, mediocre approach of blame games and laziness. A sense of responsibility infuses the hard work, smart work, and agility needed to maximize one’s potentials.

Diligence

Diligence involves the perseverance, determination, and conscientiousness employed when doing something.

In discovering and maximizing your potentials, diligence is an important factor to consider as it plays an indispensable role in making it a reality. Our potentials cannot be fully maximized by mere wishful thinking or sheer luck. It is the function of diligently applying ourselves on a daily basis to the task of getting it done.
Every other factor necessary in the maximization of the potentials is hinged on diligence. This is so because the process of fully maximizing our potential is a long one that can last even a lifetime.

Diligence makes for the necessary perseverance and grit, whether or not it is convenient. It enables the never-give-up spirit and challenges us to put in more effort, thereby enabling us to fully maximize our potential.

Ways of Releasing your Potentials

Have the Right Mindset

The right mindset, which eventually translates into an attitude, is a key to achieving anything worthwhile in life. Without the right mindset, the needed disposition and attitude for achieving success and accomplishing any task, will not be present, thereby, resulting in a waste of time and lack of fulfillment.

The same is true for releasing your potential. You need to have the right mindset and disposition in order to do so. Having the right mindset entails being open-minded, staying positive, and being optimistic about the possibilities that can be, which your intentional action can bring into actuality. The right mindset will positively affect your disposition and attitude. This will in turn enable you to fully release and maximize your potentials. In the absence of that, however, a mediocre life will become the norm.

Understand and Leverage your Resources

To release your potentials, you must have a deep understanding of your resources. For every potential, a corresponding resource is made available. You must first know that you have all that it takes to do the incredible things you have ever imagined. This will first, among other things, remove the wrong thought of being a nonentity- having nothing to offer or no abilities at all. Thereafter, you make conscious efforts at understanding and leveraging the available resource at your disposal in order to get it done. This could be in the form of knowledge, experiences, wisdom (the right application of knowledge), wealth, and even people. A deep understanding of what you have, and the right application, will guarantee a fuller release of what is in you, or what you are capable of.

Have the Right Environment

The environment has to do with the conditions that can have a direct or indirect effect (positively or negatively), on the performance, function, and development of a thing. These conditions can be internal or external. This speculates that the environment is a key factor in the release, maximization, or performance of anything. With this understanding, it is not out of place to conclude that the right environment is an important factor needed for the release of your full potential.

The specialty of our potentials and its demands gives the right environment an indispensable place in its release. As already established, the environment entails conditions (which may be internal or external) that have an effect on the performance of a thing- our potentials inclusive. Creating and engaging the right environment that will see to the release of our potentials, implies the following:

  • Having a stable and peaceful mind
  • Letting go of past hurts and ugly developments,
  • Doing away with toxic people that do not see any good in you,
  • Having around, and hanging around like-minded and inspired people
  • Surrounding yourself with the right resources such as good books, and important materials that can trigger a positive challenge
  • Engaging in productive and mind tasking activities and
  • Being happy with yourself every day.
  • In the right environment, you can do so much within the shortest possible time. It is pertinent to note that the right environment is not a magical stage that you get into because you want to release and maximize your potentials. It is an atmosphere you consciously create and employ yourself into its sustenance. By so doing, you will activate the energies needed for the release and full maximization of your potentials.

Work out your Potential

The place of work cannot be overruled in everyday lives. Worthy of note is the fact that work is very important in the pursuit of releasing and maximizing one’s potentials. Work here entails hard work and smart work.
Since we have established that potential is a dormant ability, it implies that it needs to be tasked and demands made on it, else it will remain dormant and useless. This can only be done through work. A hard-working person has a greater chance of succeeding in anything more than a lazy, indolent fellow. It applies to your potential as well. The difference in the outcome of two potentially skilled individuals will be determined by their level of work, effort, and commitment. To release and maximize your full potential, therefore, you must be willing to work.

Cultivate your potential

Potentials are like seeds that need to be cultivated in order to grow and produce the desired fruits, which in this case is the outcome of actuality. To cultivate your potentials, it must be:

  • fed with the fertilizer of good company of people
  • Watered by persistence, and
  • Grown in the environment of a right and open mind, alongside renewed positive energies. In addition, study materials will stimulate the faith you already have in your potentials, and nourish your dream.

Guard your Potential

You must consider your potential as a treasure worth protecting. When this is established in your mind, you will guard against negative traits and development, such as discouragement, procrastination, failures, people’s opinions, distractions, traditions, and compromise. The aforementioned are detrimental to the release and full maximization of your potentials, and you must guard against them with all that is in you. By so doing, you will remain focused and grow your potentials to actuality.

Share your Potential

The ultimate aim of the potentials you have is to affect others positively. A shared potential makes for a fuller release and maximization. You must make conscious efforts at sharing and making known what you can offer, and the possibilities associated with you, while finding and creating opportunities for that. You do this with the understanding that no potential exists for itself. Everything nature has provided operates with the potential principle, which can only be fulfilled when it is shared. The sun does not exist for itself, for example. The bee receives nectar as it pollinates the flowers, and plants release oxygen for us even as we give them carbon dioxide.

In a nutshell, the measure of true potentials and fulfillment is not necessarily what is accomplished but who benefits from them. Therefore, to fully release and maximize your potentials, you must prioritize sharing it.

Know and Understand the Laws of Limitation

As powerful as we are and can be; we must still understand and abide by the law of limitation. We are not free to do anyhow or anything we like because we feel capable of doing it. The two of the most important elements in our lives are power and freedom. Potential is the essence of both. For freedom to be enjoyed, it needs laws; and power, on the other hand, needs responsibility to be effective. One without the other produces self-destruction.

Knowing and understanding the laws of limitation on your potential is key to maximum performance. This explains why every manufacturer establishes the laws of limitations for his products. The laws are not given to restrict or hinder the potentials of the product, but rather to guarantee and protect it. The same thing applies to us too. In order to release and fully maximize your potentials, you must clarify what your limits are.

Finally, you must understand that you have potentials, and you can become all that you can imagine. Draw strength from the people that maximized their potentials and became a blessing to humanity. Understand that what they accomplished came from the DNA of our species. It means, therefore, that we all share the potential to do great things. Observe the principles above and unleash your unique potential. The US Army motto summarizes it thus: ‘Be All That You Can Be’.