Reaching Your Ultimate Potential

“You have potential.” Those words have never seemed to move people toward success. They send the message, “You are not yet where you need to be.” The spirit of the message, that you believe in that person is an important one. However, what’s key is not just that you believe in someone, it’s teaching them how to get to where they need to go.

Strong belief drives strong behavior. The way to increase your belief in yourself is to make progress toward your success. Momentum is contagious and pushes back any resistance we may face. Many people put limitations on themselves and get in their own way of their ultimate potential. The best thing you can do is know what you want, know what is holding you back, and create a self-strategy to get there.

3 Ways to Develop a Self-Strategy

[wcm_restrict]Strategy is just a fancy word for plan. Executives spend countless hours on business strategies, so why not spend some time on developing strategies for yourself that are about yourself and will propel you to reach your potential?

The key to unlocking your potential is to Stay Simple. Success is not easy, but it is simple. If you think about the best of the best of companies, they have a simple and strong user interface. Let’s take Apple for example. An iPad can be easily used by an 8 year old or an 80 year old. They just pick it up and it works intuitively. In order to create that level of simplicity it takes a lot of work and sophistication to get to simple. When it comes to reaching your ultimate potential, the hard work comes in being disciplined and being focused. Over the past decade and a half I have seen people take on too many areas of growth at once, and they end up achieving none of them. In order to stay simple in pursuing your potential, focus on one setback, one strategy, and one shift.

One setback: Find out what tends to hold you back or limit you. For example, it could be you doubt yourself, or that you don’t have the skill set needed, or that you lose confidence when talking to people more senior to you. Identify what your setback is so you can address it. Become an expert in your deficiency and it will yield results.

One shift: This is all about being intentional about your beliefs, attitude and grit. This leads to having strong psychological swagger, which is one of the four foundations of success. The question to ask yourself is, what do I need to believe in order to succeed? Lead yourself toward beyond your potential to performance by asking simple and progress oriented questions.

One strength: Leverage what you are good at to get better. This means knowing what your top strengths are and continuing to develop those strengths so you have an edge. It also means using your strengths to help you address any setbacks you may have. For example, one of my setbacks used to be that I did not have strong reading comprehension, but I did have strong creativity. What I learned to do was to break up complex problems into short stories and that helped me learn and apply what I learned.

An additional simple strategy related to reaching your ultimate potential is to make a long list of people who have accomplished what you want to accomplish or are doing what you want to be doing. Then find out what were the keys that unlocked their potential to get there. Ideally you can find someone that you can reach, and have a conversation with them. Ask them what setbacks they faced, what shifts in their mindset did they need to make, and what strengths got them there.

Reaching your ultimate potential isn’t easy, but it can be simple. Dream huge, vision big, and step small. What’s going to be your first step toward making your potential your reality?[/wcm_restrict][wcm_nonmember]

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About the Author

Dr. Rob Fazio is the author of Simple Is the New Smart. He is the Managing Partner of OnPoint Advising, Inc. Rob advises with executives, athletes, and businesses internationally to guide them toward success. He can be reached at Rob@OnPointAdvising.com.