What is Potential?
One of the most deceiving concepts in the world is the concept of potential.
Potential, right?
You hear people talk about how you have so much potential.
There’s so much potential in you or there’s so much potential in her or him.
Potential basically is worthless.
It’s not that it isn’t something that is inspiring or that it could be good.
It’s that potential in and of itself is worthless.
What potential means is greatness not yet experienced.
What potential means is there’s so much more that could be, that is not yet.
So, potential is hard because sometimes people get rewarded for their potential.
You don’t deserve to get rewarded for your potential.
And by the way, you do have a lot of potential.
Everybody has a lot of potential.
You are not special if you have a lot of potential.
Every human on the planet has a lot of potential.
That isn’t what makes you valuable. The fact that you could do great things.
What makes you valuable?
What makes you worthy of admiration and praise and respect is what you actually do.
It’s the results that you provide. It’s the action that you take.
And the challenge is that a lot of times we struggle.
Those of us with a lot of potential, right?
We struggle between believing between the moment we say okay, I have potential and then taking action.
Believe in Yourself
There’s this gap.
There’s this gap between what I’m capable of and what I actually do.
Why is there that gap?
What is that mysterious force or emptiness that continues to separate us, withhold us, and restrain us from becoming everything we can become? From doing everything that we are capable of doing or from making the impact we are capable of making?
What is that gap between having the potential and taking the action?
It’s an important question.
It’s something I’ve spent a lot of time thinking about.
In fact, it’s something I’ve spent a lot of time wrestling within my own life.
Obviously, it’s something that we have spent a lot of time coaching people throughout our careers.
And here’s what I’ve realized.
It doesn’t matter what you’re capable of.
What matters is what you believe you’re capable of.
It does not matter what you’re capable of.
It matters what you believe you’re capable of.
See, you’re capable of incredible, extraordinary things.
I mean, the human body is extraordinary.
One of my friends, Navy Seal Joe used to tell me this all the time, and I love this.
He used to say, “Rory, the body can take damn near anything. It’s the mind that needs conditioning.”
The body can take damn near anything. It’s the mind that needs conditioning.
You are capable.
You are powerful.
You were born for greatness.
You have magic inside of you.
You are just like every other human who has changed the world.
There are humans who have invented things, who have accomplished extraordinary physical feats, who have made an impact with charity and with thought. People who have shaped the world. People who have provided extraordinary entertainment in a variety of ways.
All of those people are humans just like you.
The difference is you might not yet think that you’re capable of doing what they did.
You actually believe in your brain that somehow other people have something that you don’t have.
You believe that somehow something is missing from you or your life that other people have, or other people have figured out that you haven’t figured out.
And I actually would say that they have probably figured out something you haven’t figured out, but I would not say that they have something that you don’t have.
I would say that all of us have potential. All of us have an extraordinary capability.
I believe that we were designed and created for extraordinary things. Why else are we here?
I mean, what else are we doing every day if we’re not here to do something magnificent and meaningful and to serve the world and the people around us?
Otherwise, we’re just aimlessly wandering through this life of mediocrity, doing nothing.
How to Achieve Success in Life?
So, what is it that they have figured out that you haven’t?
They have figured out how to believe that they are capable of it.
They have figured out how to believe that their potential is real.
Not just that they have it, it doesn’t matter what you’re capable of.
It matters what you believe you are capable of.
Well, how do you do that? How do you change your belief system about what you’re capable of?
It’s so simple.
You have to just tell yourself that you’re capable of it.
The human mind is a computer.
And by the way, in the Take The Stairs book, my very first book, there’s a chapter called the Creation Principle of Integrity that walks you through this in detail.
We also talk about this at our Conquering Impossible Goals event. If you go to roryvaden.com/cig, you can read about this event where I personally facilitate you through this process.
But what you have to understand is the human brain is a computer.
You don’t believe what is true. You believe whatever you’re told most often.
Just like a computer, it doesn’t do what is right.
It doesn’t do what is true.
It just does whatever it’s programmed to do.
Your brain is programmable and whatever you are programming your brain is what will become true in your life.
If you don’t believe you’re capable of it, you won’t actually take the actions that are necessary to demonstrate that you are capable of it.
But if you believe that you are capable of it, then you will take the actions that demonstrate that you believe that you’re capable of it.
But to shape your beliefs, all you have to do is reinforce your programming.
Anytime you want to reshape your beliefs, you just have to reinforce your programming.
You have to repeat over and over what you want to believe to be true.
And as you do it, as you believe it to be true, you will then live according to that truth and results will show up according to that programming.
Just like the output of a computer is whatever it’s programmed to do, so is your life.
So is you.
So is your brain.
So is your belief system, but it does not matter what you’re capable of.
It matters what you believe you are capable of.
Most of us don’t need to spend more time being reminded that we have potential.
We have to spend more time believing that potential is real.
We have to spend more time believing that we’re capable of it.
We have to remind ourselves and program ourselves of what is possible.
And then as we do that, we will begin to take the actions that are necessary to where that capability and that potential becomes reality.
How about you? Are you ready to believe? Comment below and let me know!
