???? Ready to unleash your full potential? Dive into this latest blog post for 40 actionable tips that will empower you to reach new heights and achieve your dreams. ???? It’s time to STRIVE – THRIVE – GROW.
Danny Nandy @successmystic.com
Have you achieved your full potential? Or do you feel like there is still more for you to achieve? If it’s the latter, do you at least feel as though you are on the right path to achieve that potential? Or do you feel like you have strayed from your path?
Don’t panic – there isn’t a wrong answer, there’s only an honest answer. And, if you want to achieve your full potential, it begins with honesty. In truth, your potential is a moving target. The closer you get to achieving that potential, the further away it might feel.
You evolve and with your growth your potential changes because ultimately, your potential is limitless. It is a never-ending journey, but that doesn’t mean there aren’t ways and means to draw you closer.
So, how can you expand on your potential and move closer to achieving it?
Define Potential
Your journey begins with defining your potential. You might have heard people dismiss you or your efforts by telling you that you aren’t living up to your potential.
What does that mean?
Change the question. What are you capable of?
Your potential is quantified by your determination and aspirations combined. And if you want to reach it, you have to live your life aligned with your highest self, and your belief that you can. A lot of people fall into the trap of living to avoid losing instead of playing to win.
If you aren’t playing to win, what are you doing? Living in your comfort zone, terrified of the least bit of discomfort or failure? Failure is progress because it means you’re trying.
You get so caught up in that pattern, the pattern where you play to avoid losing that you forget about reaching your full potential and you forget that you should play to win. Or at least play.
Remember, when it comes to expanding and achieving your potential – you have an active choice. That choice is what empowers you. It’s a reminder that you set yourself up to succeed.
40 Tips To Achieve Your Potential
Embark on a journey of self-discovery and excellence with 40 proven tips to achieve your true potential. Don’t miss this opportunity to elevate your life!
1| Nurture a Growth Mindset
The only way to truly grow is to push past your comfort zone, and you need that to achieve your full potential as well. So, developing and nurturing a growth mindset is key. When you do – nothing will stand in your way. A growth mindset is simply a recognition that you can develop skills and reach beyond your current position to do greater things. You can be smarter, you can work harder, you can learn how to do better. So, set goals, achieve them, and keep pushing yourself toward your potential.
2| Be Wary of Routines
A routine can be a useful tool. A healthy routine will help you achieve your full potential, but you need to be wary of getting lost in your routines. If you do, it can lead to stagnation which is the opposite effect you are trying to achieve.
It’s really easy for those routines to lull you into a false sense of security where you are lost in your comfort zone. So, look for ways to break out of your routine to embrace new opportunities or to try new things. Consider your routine as it is now and interrogate where it is holding you back. That’s the part of your routine you need to tweak.
3| Rely on Support
The support network you rely on is key to achieving your full potential because the idea of someone being self-made is utter nonsense. There is no such thing as being self-made, everyone has help along the way.
So, don’t convince yourself you are too big or too good or too bad or too needy or too anything to rely on the support system in your life. If you reach out, you will receive the support you need. So, ask for it.
You can’t thrive in isolation, the most successful people understand the need to rely on others sometimes. Just be sure you choose your inner circle and support network carefully.
4| Trust
A big part of the journey through life means learning how to self-manage, and a great way to contribute to self-management is by learning to trust. You can’t expect other people to place their trust in you if you don’t return the favor.
It can be a difficult thing to do, especially when people make mistakes or hurt you. But it’s part of the journey and it’s vital to build a support network that will help you as you try to achieve your full potential.
5| Goal-Focused
If you are living a life of purpose and you want to achieve your full potential, then you need goals. What is it that you want to achieve? Long-term goals give you the framework you need to achieve what you want. That framework is key to building motivation and momentum to exceed even your own expectations.
When you attach actionable steps to all of your goals, you have a blueprint that will keep you on track. Just be sure to follow the SMART plan and make goals that are specific, measurable, achievable, relevant to your ultimate goal, and time-bound.
It’s worth remembering there needs to be a balance between outcome and difficulty. You should have to push yourself to achieve a goal, but if you make them too difficult you will give up. So, if you’re chasing something particularly difficult, break it down further.
6| Establish Foundational Practices
Never underestimate the importance of drinking plenty of water, managing stress, sticking to a set bedtime, and getting a good night’s sleep. It’s key to setting yourself up to succeed.
7| Keep Dreaming
If you want to achieve your full potential, then you have to learn to manage your willpower and passion. It’s a delicate dance, and sometimes, what holds you back is the restraints you put on yourself. You have to lift those limits habitually and keep your eye on the prize. The problem is that people get caught up in believing the prize is the destination when it’s actually the journey.
8| Be Authentic
The only way to be your authentic self is by living a life that aligns with your values and beliefs. And when you do this, you can uncover life’s deeper meanings. It’s one of the most powerful things that you can do, which is a big part of achieving your full potential. So, be you.
9| Use Failure
Failure is a normal part of life and it’s one you shouldn’t shy away from. You can’t grow unless you risk failure, so look at it as something you can use to achieve rather than a hindrance that is going to derail you. It will only push you off your path if you let it.
10| Nurture Emotional Intelligence
Emotional intelligence is an important factor in success, and you can nurture yours by paying attention to your emotions. Take time to identify what you’re feeling and what might be causing it. Don’t bottle things up.
11| Know Your Emotional Triggers
Your emotions sway your thoughts, they impact your mood, and if you want to achieve your full potential you need to learn how to manage your emotions. There is no better way to manage your emotions than by identifying your emotional triggers.
You can be flexible when it comes to your emotions, especially when you know how to adapt to any given situation. Don’t avoid your emotions, don’t deny them, and don’t push them down and ignore them. You have to process them.
12| Build Mental Toughness
Mental toughness will carry you through failure and beyond to achieve your full potential. Mental toughness helps you view a challenge as an opportunity and that is necessary for achieving your potential. Start by building self-belief and no matter what – keep trying.
13| Increase Willpower
Intelligence is helpful, motivation is good, but willpower is even better. And if you have all three? You’re unstoppable. Increase your willpower through practice, and use distraction as a technique. For example, if you know you have specific moments of weakness, use distractions as a practice to increase your willpower.
14| Use Intrinsic Motivation
What motivates you? Are you chasing dreams because you want to earn more money or because you’re passionate about it? Extrinsic motivations are a useful tool for short-term goals, but if you have long-term desires, you need to dig deep and find the intrinsic motivations.
15| Nurture High Potential Traits
From conscientiousness and courageousness, there is a wide range of high-potential traits that can contribute to your journey to achieve your true potential.
16| Avoid Burnout
With chronic stress comes the risk of burnout, and that is going to prevent you from achieving your full potential. So, take active steps to manage your stress levels to avoid burnout. Self-care is key to achieving this step – sleep well, eat healthy food, and take time out to enjoy your hobbies.
17| Work With Hard Workers
Moods are contagious and if you surround yourself with negative people, you will start to feel negative. Likewise, if you surround yourself with people who aren’t passionate or hard-working, it will rub off on you.
So, make sure that you surround yourself with people who work as hard as you do. Surround yourself with people who are passionate like you. Be with people who encourage, motivate, and challenge.
18| Identify Weaknesses and Strengths
It’s easy to identify strengths, but not everyone takes the time to do it. And even if they do, they probably don’t go so far as to identify weaknesses. You need to have a good handle on what you’re capable of, and what you’re not capable of.
When you know what your weaknesses are, you can take steps to overcome them. Or, to mitigate them. You can do the same with your strengths.
19| An Objective View
It might be tough, but taking an objective look at yourself, and your situation, is a good way to help you reach your potential. Earlier, we highlighted the importance of identifying your strengths and weaknesses. If this is something you continue to struggle with, you can speak to your colleagues, family members, or partner about it. While you should put little stock in the opinion of others, you may benefit from their perception if you are struggling to get there on your own. Just be sure to ask people who will be honest and not people who will seek to tear you down.
20| Organize Your Workload
If you want to achieve your full potential, you need to be organized and manage your time. You can’t get by without a to-do list. Lists and organization help you manage your time effectively so that you can develop, train, rest, laugh, love, and enjoy life.
A lot of people poke fun at people who make lists, but you only need to find a way to organize your workload for you. It’s an important part of managing stress and it ensures you make the most of your time.
21| Never Stop Learning
How can you ever achieve your full potential if you allow your learning to stall? Never stop seeking knowledge, whatever you are passionate about or interested in learning.
Whether you want to pick up a new language, learn how to cook French cuisine or paint impressionist art, take steps to develop yourself.
Go out of your way to attend events to undergo training, network with professionals in your industry, and pursue hobbies that stretch you and force you to push yourself out of your comfort zone.
22| Develop Yourself
With knowledge comes development, but just because you push yourself to learn doesn’t necessarily mean it’s developing you in a particular direction. So, if you want to develop yourself, pursue training that will guide you in the direction you want to go.
What will help you move closer to achieving your full potential? That should be your aim.
23| Self-Belief
Self-belief is key to achieving your full potential. People who don’t believe they deserve success or a promotion or love or rest or fun are going to struggle with achieving their full potential.
And if you deny yourself, deny your talents, then you will struggle. If you want to improve yourself, if you want to achieve your full potential, then you need to develop self-belief.
24| Get to the Root of Your Motivations
Motivating yourself at the start of a project is simple – it’s when people are most pumped to get going. It’s the adrenaline and excitement that come with kicking off something new, it’s when the going gets tough that things become more difficult.
So many people lose momentum and lose their motivation as a project continues and they give up. You can’t reach your full potential if you don’t understand what truly motivates you. Think about what motivates you and how you can utilize it to achieve your potential.
25| Channel Your Emotions
We already discussed the importance of managing your emotions, but when you feel overwhelming emotions, you can channel them into something productive. While some people rant and rave when they’re angry, other people stuff it down and try to swallow it. Don’t do that – don’t be the internalizer, be the person who takes that big emotion and uses it as an energy to push yourself to achieve.
26| Avoid Drama
We touched on the importance of emotional intelligence, which will play a major role in this part of your journey to achieving your full potential. Don’t get sucked into the drama from other people, don’t seek out the drama you see, and don’t let anyone else’s emotions rule your emotions. Gossip might seem like mindful entertainment, but it’s spreading negativity and that is only going to prevent you from pursuing your potential. You never know when it could come back to bite you.
27| Avoid Complaining
Can complaining truly derail your bid to achieve your full potential? Yes, because when you are caught up complaining, you are wasting time you could be using to solve the problem. If you get caught up complaining beyond simply expressing a big emotion, you paint yourself into the role of victim.
And once you do that, it can be difficult to claw your way out of that role. So, forget complaining, forget to lay blame at someone else’s door, and look to solve the problem.
28| Focus on the Present
The past is important – it has helped shape you into the person you are today. It is also a lesson. Your thoughts on the past should only be in the form of self-reflection where you find the lessons to apply to your present.
What you don’t want to do is get caught dwelling on the past. You can learn from the mistakes you have made, but if you obsess over them, they will rule you. Everyone makes mistakes and all of yours have led you to this point in your life, so you need to keep moving forward.
29| Avoid Being Overly Critical
There is no quicker way to kill your morale than with scathing feedback or overly critical opinions. Often, your negative self-talk is more brutal than anything anyone else can say, and it’s because nobody is capable of hurting you as much as you.
You know exactly where to poke and prod to hurt yourself most, so as you journey to achieving your potential, you need to get a grip on your negative self-talk. And you might want to find a way to shut out overly critical opinions of others as well. You have people you can trust, seek their feedback, and ignore the rest.
30| Don’t Give in to Pressure
Everyone is on their own journey – everyone has their own path to walk to achieve their full potential. Sometimes that leaks. Parents often allow their dreams and wants to leak onto their children, sometimes it’s a grandparent to a grandchild. Teachers project their disappointments onto students they see themselves in.
Friends and other family members do it too. It’s a natural part of the human experience and in most cases, people don’t truly realize that’s what they’re doing. They think they’re helping.
That’s why it’s so important that you know what you’re chasing because it is often easier to give in to peer pressure. It can be difficult to stand up to that pressure when you don’t have a clear path marked out for yourself.
31| Trust Your Intuition
Your intuition, your gut, your inner voice – whatever you want to call it, it’s more trustworthy than you give it credit for. It’s that tug you feel when you faced a dangerous situation as a teenager and decided to retreat to safety. It’s the anxiety you got when someone wanted to take a step you weren’t ready to take.
Your body is constantly sending you messages, and it’s up to you to determine how to read those messages. So, trust your intuition – listen when it’s guiding you toward or away from certain paths.
32| It’s Not About Talent
You might think what you really need to achieve your full potential is talent, but that isn’t the case. What you really need is hard work. With hard work, you can build a higher level of talent. With hard work, you can increase your level of knowledge on any subject. At the root of talent and intelligence is hard work.
You aren’t limited by who your parents are or what genes they gave you. You weren’t born with all of the intelligence you will ever have. And you aren’t limited by what you know now. You are capable.
Whatever you want to do, you are capable if you are willing. And if you are willing, then you have it in you to work hard to achieve your full potential.
Don’t fall for the false belief that you have a ceiling. There’s only a ceiling on your abilities if you put it there yourself or believe the lies others tell you about yourself. You have the talent, and if you don’t – you can build it. You have the intelligence, and if you don’t – you can obtain it.
33| Get it Together
There is a balance to be struck – on one hand, people think that life should be fun, easy, light, and lovely all the time. Then there are people who don’t have time for fun, easy, light, and lovely – they think it’s all about constant hard work and eventually, they can enjoy the rest. It’s both.
There is room for both – you can work hard, graft, and push yourself to achieve your full potential, but you can also make time for the fun, easy, breezy, light, loveliness that everyone deserves.
Life is full of setbacks, and ultimately, it’s how you bounce back from that setback that truly matters. You can crumble or you can brush yourself off and try again. If that means you have to stare at yourself in the mirror to give yourself a pep talk – then do it. If that means you have to shout at yourself in the mirror – do it. Whatever it takes, get it together.
34| Embrace Healing
You can’t achieve your full potential if you don’t give yourself time and space to heal. Everyone has baggage, and it comes in different shapes and sizes. When you carry that on your shoulders, it’s almost impossible to move forward. And, even if you do manage to move forward, that weight makes it difficult to keep going in a straight line consistently. First, you have to recognize the areas of healing you need to address and commit yourself to doing the work to heal. Own it.
35| A Clear View
You need a clear view of who you are, where you are, and where you are going. Nobody is all bad or all good. If you try to lean too far in one direction, you can throw it off balance. But the point is that you locate the good parts and work on them.
You can locate the bad parts and improve those too. If you have a clear view of yourself, then you can’t be caught off guard. One big issue with people chasing their full potential is self-sabotage, and you can prevent that by having a clear view of yourself. It is a helpful exercise, but it can be hurtful when you go too fast, too hard on self-reflection.
So, when you engage in self-reflection, know when to stop. Get into a routine – self-reflect on your day every evening and then use those notes at the end of the week to have a full self-reflection session.
Be open about admitting your flaws, it’s a critical part of the process – just make sure you aren’t slipping into overly critical territory.
36| Identify Blind Spots
Everyone has blind spots, and the reality is that your blind spots could prevent you from achieving your full potential. So, what are your blind spots? A blind spot is anything about you in terms of growth or personal development that is holding you back, but you aren’t aware of. It’s easy to ask the question – what are your blind spots? It isn’t quite as easy to identify them. But you can.
Look at the types of events, situations, people, or things that elicit a strong emotional response or trigger a negative reaction. Explore those because that is where your blind spots are. Once you have a good view of them – you can mitigate how much power they have over your development.
37| Exceed Your Limits
You can’t rely on other people to push you – that’s your job. While it’s important to surround yourself with people who can motivate you, that is useless if you aren’t capable of motivating yourself. Life is one big challenge – physically, mentally, and emotionally. You can’t let failure derail you because failure is inevitable.
You can’t let a mistake take you off your path because mistakes are inevitable. So, assess what went wrong, take accountability, and make a plan to ensure you succeed. It isn’t willpower, it isn’t motivation, it’s a combination of everything and that’s what it takes to exceed your limits. Use all of the tools at your disposal.
38| Go Easy
You are human – you will experience emotional outbursts. If you don’t slow down and process those emotions, they will consume you. You have to make a conscious decision to give yourself a break. Go easy on yourself, but also give yourself the space to process what you need to. Your immediate emotional reaction is often big and unwieldy. But you can’t let that take over.
39| Commit
If you want to achieve your full potential, you need to commit yourself to the journey. That means you commit to personal growth, it means you commit to learning, you commit to developing yourself, and you prepare to do whatever it takes to get there.
You can write a million plans – make a thousand promises and say it until you’re blue in the face. But, unless you commit and put it into action, it’s all empty. Remember, the results won’t be immediate, it’s going to take work – but you’re more than capable
40| It’s Your Choice
If you want to achieve your full potential, then you can – it is your choice. You can actively make decisions every day that push you forward, pull you out of your comfort zone and prod you closer to achieving all of your goals.
If you have a dream, you can make the choice to chase it. If you have a passion, you can make the choice to pursue it. Ultimately, achieving your full potential is completely in your hands.
Final Thoughts
Your potential has been within you all along – it has just been laying dormant waiting for you to find the tools you need to take full advantage to achieve it. All you need to do is reach in there, grab it, and pull it out. There are plenty of ways for you to pursue your potential, as long as you’re willing to put the work in.
