Realize your full potential

SEVEN STEPS TO REALIZE YOUR FULL POTENTIAL

It does not matter whether you are six or sixty. You can realize your full potential and achieve that which will satisfy you and make your life fulfilled. Learning the rules and ropes of how to make your potential real will empower you to be all you can be and inspire to do more than what you are doing right now.

The first principle is Choice. Many of us do not choose to succeed. We go to work because others go to work. We go to school because others go to school. We go to church because our mothers tell us that it is good to go. We do most things for others. The magic happens when we choose to do something for ourselves. Suddenly it does not matter if anybody else is doing it. Doing what I want to do empowers me more than anyone can motivate me. Choice draws out the deep reserves of power in you that you don't know exist. Consider the energy and focus and that is released when anyone makes a choice (or decides) to do something.

Second, you must have vision. You may have it but maybe you have never used it. Sight is the ability to see things around you that need doing and then doing them. Does your desk or bedroom need to be tidied up? Many people walk into a dirty house or office every day and do not see the need to do anything about it. How many years have you been going through life without seeing the need to improve yourself? You may not own a home today, but if you see the need for it in the future, you will begin to build one now, long before you retire in public interest. That is vision. Vision gives you the power to walk out of your comfort and create your future.

Third is Potential. None of us knows how much we have. That is not the problem. The problem we have is that we do not use it. You will never know what you can do until you try to do something new. You will never know how far you can run until you start running. Many of us strike ourselves out before the ball is thrown. We lose the race before we enter it to race. We lose the match before the game is played because we don't know if we can make it. Our responsibility is not how much potential we have, but to use the potential we have. You will never access your potential until you put it to the test. To realize you potential, you must try. Using your potential releases power to achieve goals.

Fourth; Goals. I don't need to say much about goals because I know you know that you cannot claim to achieve anything without having set them. You also know that, "you always achieve your goals even if you have none". Setting goals directs the energy you have to achieve them. Set goals for life.

Fifth; set up a project to absorb your potential. If you want to own a house. Make it a project. Projects break activity into phases that use your energy in stages. When each stage is complete, you gain energy for the next phase. You cannot build a house in one day. But if you work out what you need to do, you can do it in phases. You cannot win a marathon by making a decision today, but if you make it a project, you will train daily, progress monthly and run the marathon successfully in a years' time. Break it down lest you get discouraged. Eating a cake whole will choke you, do it in bites.

Sixth; work. Work is a principle of life and the key to all success. Whatever you "win" without work is at best lottery or at worst, stolen. Work requires you to apply yourself and change the state of yourself and the things around you by your (own) effort and initiative. By applying your potential things change in the direction you want them to change. However, work is a discipline that must be mastered to realize your full potential.

The final element is the principle of potential itself.  Your potential is named "potential" because we know it is there, but we don't know how much or what it is. Another thing you need to know about your potential is that; the more you use it, the more of it you discover. It is as if you create it as you use it. Never have any fear that it will ever get used up or finished. People who achieve outstanding success often make statements like, "I never knew I could do this". You may have said similar words yourself – that is your potential speaking. Even you don't know what you are capable of. It is your job to use your potential, discover it and explore its limits. The only limit to your potential is what you set your mind to do.

Allan Bukusi