Unleashing Your Maximum Potential

We all make mistakes, but when this happens do you only focus on what’s wrong with yourself and how bad you are, or do you accept the mistake as a part of your overall growth process? Every positive thing you say to yourself builds on a positive foundation of self esteem and forms the way you and others see you.

Every moment, with every word that comes from our mouths we are forming either a positive or a negative impression of our immediate surroundings.

A Mirror Image

It’s impossible to perform at our maximum potential if we feel negatively towards ourselves. The power of life an death are in the tongue. We begin in a state of neutrality until we begin to think and speak about how we see ourselves in any given situation. You see, we make these value judgements about ourselves that weigh heavy on our psychological development and motivation. If you think you can’t or you’re not worthy, then you won’t and you aren’t, and you will never experience your full potential. So how you see yourself is crucial to not only your success but your overall health.

Even if your desire level was turned up to a 10, if your self-esteem is a 5, then you will perform as a 5 or lower. Keep in mind that how you see yourself is how others will see you as well. What’s worse is so many people live their lives by how others see them instead of seeing the value in themselves and their efforts to define who they are. If you’re around negative people that don’t expect much from you, then you will at some point not expect much of yourself.

Imagine two flowers in two separate rooms. In one room, the temperature is perfect, the soil is full of nutrients, and it gets water on a consistent schedule. In the other room, the temperature is above or below the desired level, the soil is not full of nutrients, and it’s watered only when it looks like the end is near. Which one would produce a more vibrant flower? You are this flower, is your environment conducive to the growth of positive self-esteem? Or are you suffocating your potential with a bad environment but still expecting amazing results and growth.

Hitting Delete on Negativity

Be your own cheerleader. Whether you’re aware of it or not, you have a running conversation with yourself at all times. What’s the nature of your conversation? Do you encourage, or criticize? When you’re positive and encourage, you build a positive self-image, but when you’re negative, you undermine your self-worth. This negative thought usually stems from our upbringing. We are told from a very young age what we can and can’t do and we grow up believing it.

Luckily, how we were raised is not how have to continue to live. If you want to change the way you think of yourself, then change the way you talk to yourself. There are enough problems in life without you compounding them by being a self-hater.

When you do something good, don’t just let it pass you by. Get excited, pat yourself on the back, do a backflip, or simply give yourself a compliment. Wow, when was the last time you gave yourself a compliment? When you choose discipline over indulgence realize how you’re helping yourself and don’t say things like, “you should have anyway.” If you make a mistake, so what, just realize that mistakes are the toll you pay as a part of the growth process. Every little celebration of yourself with fuel positive growth.

There’s only one you. As a child I had a great friend that was an artist as well. We would draw every comic book cover we could get our hands on. I would often compare our drawings to determine which one was better. It took years for me to see how harmful this was to the way I saw myself and my skills as an artist.

You see, the bad thing about comparison is that if you think you are worse than the other person, in your mind, they are far ahead of you so you feel discouraged. If you think you are better, then you get proud and complacent so you stop pushing to be your best, whatever that might be.

Ultimately, comparison is a huge distraction and the only person you need to be compared to is you. If you set the goal of being better than you were yesterday, growth is on the horizon. Just focus on doing your best today; nothing more. When you look back in a week, month or a year, you will be amazed at how much progress you’ve made.

No Limit. Most people are agnostic when it comes to believing in themselves. There are many examples in society and in our immediate peer groups of people doing amazing things. Unfortunately, we disconnect ourselves from this type of success by limiting our thinking and what we are willing to do to make a difference.

“When a man has put a limit on what he will do, he has put a limit on what he can do.” – Charles Schwab

Be a blessing to others. People with low self-esteem tend to see themselves as inadequate or feel like victims (this often starts because they were actually victimized in the past), so they focus inordinately on themselves. Self-protection and selfishness become their “modus operandi” because this is how they feel they need to be in order to survive.

If this sounds like you, then you can break this cycle by being a blessing to others and adding value to them. Did you know that when you add value to others it lifts your self-esteem? I guarantee you it’s hard to feel bad about yourself when you’re doing something good for others, and the good thing is when you do this it creates a circle of positive feelings from one person to another.

Baby Steps

One of my long-time mentors once told me that life is 10% of how you make it and 90% of how you take it. With this in mind, it has been my goal to take in positive thoughts about myself and my position in this universe. I surely make mistakes and I’m not done, but I realize it’s not the end of me. It’s all a part of my growth process and without mistakes then I wouldn’t know what doesn’t work for me.

What we’ve shared are the basics of boosting your self-esteem and maximizing your potential. If you can remember to be your own cheerleader, that there’s only one you and there’s no limit, and to be a blessing to others, you will quickly recognize yourself as the confident and successful person you are. Time in = time out, and in many cases the time has never come out because the time has never gone in. Invest in yourself.