6 Things You Need To Find Your True Potential
Discovering your true potential can be life-changing. In this post, I share six actionable tips for unlocking your hidden talents and achieving your goals.
As humans, we will always find ways to find our true potential. But what does that mean? Living up to our true potential provides a distinct sense of fulfillment, and according to Aristotle in his book The Nicomachean Ethics, we all have the potential for greatness. Furthermore, he believes that finding our potential is the key to living a truly happy and fulfilling life, even in our older years.
Nevertheless, fulfilling your life purpose and being a high performer requires developing specific skills and mental traits.
So, without further ado, let’s look at those traits and skills for finding your potential. Shall we?
Finding Your Potential
Self-Awareness
If you want to discover where your true potential lies and how to achieve it, you must feel at ease with who and what you are. Don’t pretend to be someone you’re not; don’t try to change yourself solely because others tell you to.
Instead, understand who you are and what you want to be. If you don’t know, you should find out by doing things and analyzing yourself and how you feel about them. This is the essence of self-awareness!
Read, write, think, and speak. That is self-awareness: simply being aware of your thoughts and feelings. When you are self-aware, you automatically learn more about yourself.
When it comes to finding your potential, it all starts with awareness.
No awareness – No knowledge!
Perseverance
Perseverance is inferred from failing and rising again. You cannot become resilient if you do not commit mistakes. Sometimes you work, and you get nothing in return. For years, you work but do not see any outcomes.
You get no acknowledgment, no money, and no rewards. But eventually, you start seeing the results you have long been waiting for. You get better at your job and gain more confidence. You even start earning more.
If this sounds familiar, consider this – if you didn’t persevere, you would not get any of those things.
Writing
We’ve all felt a need to vent and express ourselves in an attempt to get our point across. But on the other hand, writing can assist you in achieving this. When you write things down, you become more conscious of your choice of words.
This implies that your writing will be more insightful, concise, and elegant than your speech. Improved writing leads to improved thinking, which in turn leads to improved communication.
Better communication translates to improved career outcomes. So write, write, write! Whether that means writing down your goals and plans or simply writing creatively. In all honesty, this is why so many people have turned to journaling as their main source for regulating their emotions and practicing mindfulness.
Mindfulness
Mindfulness is more about mindfulness than meditation, yoga, or Buddhism. A mindful person is in command of their emotions and thoughts. They are as solid as a rock.
Someone on whom others can rely. However, achieving that inner peace takes a lot of practice. You might think that you will never fully master this skill. However, you can improve your control over your thoughts by practicing.
The essence of the mindfulness practice lies in recognizing recurring patterns and making conscious decisions at the moment of their occurrence, contrary to that automatic reaction. If you can perfect the art of mindfulness, you will be one step closer to finding your life purpose.
Productivity
It is essential to understand that the more present you are, the more opportunities you have to improve your life. This is because you can improve your life by working on the things you like. Unfortunately, thinking about achieving your goals will not do anything tangible for you.
Evolve into a person who is productive every day.
Please don’t continue wasting it by watching TV, hanging out with the wrong people, or engaging in other mindless, mundane activities. Instead, make the most of your time.
Leadership
Leadership is all about motivating people and helping them reach their full potential. One way to do this is to teach others autonomy and focus on themselves.
When you fix your problems and become a strong person you can rely on, you help others more. When you can do this, you inspire others to do the same. Only selfish and narcissistic people want to make people dependent on them.
Leaders believe otherwise!
Final Thoughts
If you’ve started doing something, do it to the best of your ability or don’t do it at all. That is the quickest way to realize your full potential, and it’s also the most difficult.
That, however, should come as no surprise to you. If you fail the first time, learn from your mistakes and remember Henry Ford’s words:
“Failure is simply the opportunity to begin again, this time more intelligently.” – Henry Ford
Perseverance really rang true for me here… falling and rising again. Thank you for all of this post – especially this part x
Laura,
You’re welcome! I’m happy this post resonated with you in some way.
I agree with these especially writing. As a blogger, it may just be in my nature, but when you write, you have to find the words to express yourself. There is also no judgement between you and the medium you’re writing on, so you can let it all out and in doing so, discover who you are.
Shelly,
I love how you worded this. Sometimes when I write, I feel like that’s the only time I can truly be myself without someone judging me for my thoughts or actions.
I think being mindful and productive are the basis of basis for me. I enjoyed reading your post, it made think of writing as a part of my life too, I probably should work it more
Lyosha,
That’s wonderful to hear! Writing should be considered a part of your life, especially since you blog so frequently.
This was a good read, thanks. I’m trying to be more mindful and I’m working on improving my productivity each day.
Kelly,
That’s great to hear! I’m always working on mindfulness and being more productive.
I’ve found that all of these things have improved significantly since I became a blogger. Because it really forced me to take a look at who I am, and work hard to achieve my goals. I am bookmarking this list so I can pay more attention to where I can improve, as I know leadership is a definite area that needs improving on.
Erica,
I can completely agree with these sentiments. Ever since I started blogging, I find that practicing self-awareness and perseverance has helped me the most on my journey. I’m happy that you enjoyed the post.
As a single mum, a full-time student and a blogger..you can imagine how busy and tired I am. However, I do try to be productive and give it all my best. As you said, it is either all or nothing.
Sonia,
I commend you for managing all of these tasks with motherhood. For many people, that is one of the hardest things to do. Being productive is not the easiest thing to do when balancing that with raising a child, so definitely don’t pressure yourself too much.
Such a wonderful read and great reminders! X
Thanks Hannah!
I don’t think there has been a single moment in my life where I’ve lived up to my potential. But it’s hard when everyone is trying to destroy you when you’re a child leaving you with mental health issues that don’t want you to try and get that potential back
I can completely relate. I feel like I could have done so much more if it weren’t for the debilitating mental health issues I encountered due to life. But, I am trying now to live up to my true potential, and so should you. Thanks for sharing this with me.
Thank you so much for sharing this post Seriah! I am soaking up as much help on working on myself this year and especially on growth and personal development. Having been crippled by my mental health lately, I really haven’t been giving live my all and I need a change. Learning from our mistakes and getting back up again after a fall really is an integral part of growing.
Jordanne,
Awe I’m so sorry you’ve been struggling with your mental health, I have too. It’s hard to go on a personal development journey when you have so much to deal with, especially since you have children. Learning from our mistakes and continually trying is really important for growth.
Thank you so much for this post! Sometimes I feel like I’m stuck and going nowhere, but I’ll have to try all of these (especially productivity 😅) to try to feel more like I’m reaching my full potential even if I’m bombarded with school work.
Thanks!
Loren,
I can relate! Even with working, I feel like there is so much more I can be doing to reach my true and best self. Hope these tips help you out in the long-run.
Love this post! I am in a leadership role at my job and I find it very fulfilling because I get to help people!
That’s great to hear!