Mental Health Tip of the Week #3

7 Ways You Can Reach Your Highest Potential

By: Nate Leung

Have you ever heard of someone who achieved greatness in their lives just by using a mediocre amount of their talent or potential? All the great names that you will see throughout human history that have contributed to the human development and evolution in different fields had one thing in common—they all did what they did at their highest potential.

Whether it is Einstein, Gandhi or Martin Luther King, all of them achieved greatness in their domains just because they exhibited and observed their highest potential in their undertaking. Therefore, in order to be successful and achieve greatness, you must work to your best potential. Usually the highest potential is considered exertion of a greater level of efforts; however, working on the highest potential is easier said than done and there is much more to it than just exerting efforts.

Below, are 7 things that you can do to reach your highest potential.

1. Identifying your potential is key.

Before achieving the highest potential, it is imperative that you know what your potential is. You need to know about what you do best or the things you love doing the most. In most of the cases, it will be the things you love doing in which you have potential. Therefore, it is of grave importance that you identify the things you love doing before blindly exerting efforts. You must know whether you want to be a doctor or a lawyer instead of doing the wrong thing your whole life, and then wondering at the end why you did not achieve excellence in your profession. Ergo, before following a profession and exerting efforts, first identify whether you have the potential for that very undertaking.

2. Commitment is the compulsory factor.

Once you have identified the field in which you have potential, the next thing you ought to do in order to achieve the highest potential is to be committed to achieving a higher level of potential. When doing this, there are two things that need to be considered. First, you must know change is the only constant and that things will change around you; however, your commitment should be with the holistic goal. The second and more important thing to remember is that commitment requires inspiration; therefore, to ensure that your potential level soars, you need to find some inspiration, whether it’s in the form of some idols or something that is the voice of your heart.

3. Take small steps toward your potential.

You cannot possibly become a physics genius by reading the course of masters when you are in 8th grade. Thus, the journey to your higher potential must always comprise of small steps, where with every step your level of knowledge and expertise in your potential increase, which will eventually lead to the highest step of the ladder.

4. Accept failures as learning experiences.

Without disappointment you cannot appreciate victory. Failure is an important part of the learning curve, and failure is the condition where your metal is tested; therefore, it is important that you consider failure as an integral component of your journey toward higher potential. With each failure, you come to know one more way of not doing things; thus, you exert your efforts in the right direction, which ultimately boosts your spirit and morale leading to achievement of a higher potential.

5. Be confident in your ability to reach your highest potential.

Perhaps the single most important factor without which you cannot achieve even little potential, let alone higher potential, is confidence. You need to be confident of your ability pertaining to achieving higher potential. One major factor that can lead to you becoming confident about your abilities is when you love what you do, or you are someone who you love. When you are in such a mental state, then you feel confident about your potential. Thus, with time, confidence grows, and you reach a higher level of potential.

6. There is no shame in getting support.

I cannot understand why people feel shame in getting support in something which they can do on their own. In every walk of life, we have some ideals, some inspiration, and some personalities to whom we turn for guidance at the time of need. Therefore, if you can’t maximize your potential despite all your efforts, then you should not feel shame in getting support from a mentor or someone who has been in the same condition as you. Having a mentor will make your way to higher potential easier and more effective.

7. Listen to your intuition.

Intuition is a combination of instinct and experience; therefore, when you feel that the level of your potential has become stagnant, you need to consider the scenario from both the instinct and experience perspective. When you undertake an activity after deciding upon it with both experience and your gut feeling, you will feel confident that you will perform to your highest potential.