All people are sent to the world with limitless credit, but few draw to their full extent.
It is a tragedy to know that with over five billion people on this planet today, only a minute percentage will experience a significant fraction of their true potential. Perhaps you are a candidate for contributing to the wealth of the cemetery, your potential was not given for you to deposit in the grave. You must understand the tremendous potential you possess and commit yourself to maximising it in your short lifetime. What is potential, anyway?
Potential Defined
Potential is:
· Dormant ability
· Reserved power
· Untapped strength
· Unused success
· Hidden talent
· Capped capability
· All you can be but have not yet become
· All you do but have not yet done
· How far you can reach but have not yet reached
· What you can accomplish but have not yet accomplished
“Potential is unexposed ability and latent power.”
Potential is therefore not what you have done, but what you are able to do. In other words, what you have done is no longer your potential, what you have successfully accomplished is no longer potential. It is said that unless you do something beyond what you have done, you will never grow or experience your full potential.
Potential demands that you never settle for what you have accomplished. One of the great enemies of your potential is success. In order to realise your full potential, you must never be satisfied with your last accomplishment. It is also important that you never let what you cannot do interfere with what you can do. The greatest tragedy in life is not death, but a life that never realised its full potential. You must decide today not to rob the world of the rich, valuable, potent, untapped resources locked away within you. Potential has never got a retirement plan.
The Potential Principle
To simplify this concept, let’s look at one of the most powerful elements in nature – the seed. If I held a seed in my hand and asked you, “What do I have in my hand?” what would you say? Perhaps you would answer what seems to be obvious – a seed. However, if you understand the nature of a seed, your answer would be fact but not truth.
The truth is that I hold a forest in my hand. Why? Because in every seed there is a tree, and in every tree there is fruit or flowers with seeds in them. And those seeds also have trees that have fruit that have seeds and so forth, in essence, what you see is not all that there is. That is potential. Not what is, but what could be.
Don’t Settle for What You Have
Nothing in life is instant. People think success is instant, but it really is not. Achieving success is a process. You are full of potential. Potential is always present, waiting to be exposed. It demands that you never settle for what you have accomplished. Oddly, one of the greatest enemies of your potential is success. Never accept success as a lifestyle – it is but a phase. Never accept an accomplishment as the end – it is but a mark in the process. There are many selves within you that lie dormant, untapped and unused. Your primary problem is that you do not think about yourself as having even greater potential.
You can maximize the potential within you. You are not yet what you are supposed to be – though you may be pleased with what you now are. Don’t accept your present state in life as final, because it is just that, a state. Don’t be satisfied with your last accomplishment, because there are many accomplishments yet to be perfected. Since you are full of potential, you should not be the same person next year that you are this year.
There are many selves within you that lie dormant, untapped and unused.
You should always be looking for what is not yet visible. There is more inside you than is evident on the outside. On the other hand, humankind is often satisfied with nothing better, thus we settle for what we have. Do you? Therein lies the tragedy of life. The minute that we begin to settle down and be satisfied with what we have, we lose the possibility of revealing what is really inside us. Too often we die without exploring the gifts, abilities, and successes that lay hidden within us. Our thoughts, ideas, and possibilities are not used. We fail to realise the vast potential that is stored within us. We are like batteries in a radio that is never played – our potential is wasted.