“There is no heavier burden than an unfulfilled potential.” —Charles M. Schulz, cartoonist and creator of Peanuts
At some point, usually near the end of a year, you take stock in what you’ve accomplished. But, now, in the new year, you have likely a better vantage point from to which to see what you want to change, ultimately stretching your potential.
Stretching your potential comes in many different formats in many, if not all, areas of your life. You can make a commitment to losing weight. Or, you might be interested in managing some chronic pain. Further, you may be interested in learning a new language for travel overseas, changing your career path with some professional development, or expressing your creativity with some new art skills. Each of these faculties requires stepping out of one’s comfort zone, whether just a little or a great deal.
In this article, I’ll explore why you might be interested in stretching your potential, how to determine if you are doing so, and a method for taking this from possible to probable to practical!
For the Naysayers of Stretching Your Potential
“Fear and self-doubt have always been the greatest enemies of human potential.” —Brian Tracy
There is a misnomer that stretching your potential means to be doing stuff that is scary and tough. That couldn’t be further from the truth. Actually, most people, including you, do things daily that other people wouldn’t, can’t and, perhaps, shouldn’t. They could lack the skills you have, don’t enjoy doing what you do, or have health or medical reasons for not doing them.
Your potential is an abstraction of the best you can be. But, the reality is that it keeps moving. For the rest of your life, as soon as you reach the next level, there’s another level you can now achieve. You can do something better, faster, stronger, or otherwise. And, yes, sometimes doing things that seem large in your perspective can bring fear or anxiety and be tough, but usually they are doing small, conscious acts that you can achieve if you put your mind to it. More so, they are typically activities you have the skills or can develop the skills to do.
A bit of self-discovery goes a long way here. What are you good at, that either you know you are, or others say about you? What do you know you can do better, but simply aren’t right now (no matter the reasoning)? You can even take some personality assessment tests that might help enlighten you about your strengths and that might lead to a greater understanding your potential:
- Big Five Personality Test, or The Big Five Personality Test (by Truity), or
- one of Gallup Organization’s many assessments.
All this to say, that stretching your potential isn’t as bad as it sounds for everyone for every activity. Potential means simply doing more of what you know you can already do, so you’re already standing on your own current accomplishment. Of course, if you want to go beyond that dramatically and “step outside your comfort zone.” Let’s explore your comfort zone and whether you’re possibly already stretching your potential?
Are You Stretching Your Potential?
“Don’t cheat the world of your contribution. Give it what you’ve got.” —Steven Pressfield
We live in a society and culture that values success and achievement, sometimes to excess. So, it’s important to understand yourself in any discussion of potential and where you are in pursuit of it (along with your motivations for doing so).
A next step is to understand, what is your “comfort zone?” Plainly speaking, your comfort zone are activities that make up the habits and routines of your day. Pretty much everything outside of that behavioral space is going outside your comfort zone. So, as you can see, it’s pretty easy to do! But, focusing on strategic activities that stretch your potential are a tad more difficult because you need to identify them and work diligently toward them.
Now, are you pushing your limits of your comfort zone? Some symptoms that you are outside your comfort zone in a positive way are feelings of eustress (or, “good stress”…as opposed to distress, or “bad stress”). These signs of good out-the-comfort-zone excursions include, but aren’t necessarily only,
- you’re excited to start your day, project, or next task toward achieving some goal,
- you feel feel antsy, anxious (in a positive sense) to to achieve an outcome (such as a feeling of exhilaration when you are on a roller coaster ride, perhaps),
- your mind wanders, but is focused on activities toward goals you’re trying to achieve presently, not switching goals, careers, relationships, etc.,
- you feel a sense of progress about what you’re doing daily, weekly, monthly toward your goals, and
- you have set standards or metrics to achieve and you’re reaching them, furthering your potential in the way you want to be.
Now, honestly, how well do you feel about each of these afore statements? No judgment here, and don’t lie to yourself as that won’t help either. If there’s something you’d like to change positively about your life based on the above, stepping outside your comfort zone toward stretching your potential is probable.
Striving for Continuous, Incremental Improvement
“Continuous effort—not strength or intelligence—is the key to unlocking our potential.” —Winston Churchill
One way that we can view making change happen in our lives is through dramatic, big overtures that impact us drastically. Sadly, that’s usually disruptive, expensive, and if you fail, highly demotivating to retry achieving the same goal again.
What if there was a way to get to goals that stretch your potential, even pull you out of your comfort zone, and still get you across the finish line? The answer is kaizen.
Kaizen is an ancient Japanese concept that translates best for our purposes as “continuous improvement.” And, it’s your best bet for continually improving your world for the better, thereby stretching your potential. So, here and now, decide what does change for the better look like in one category of your life? Choose that one thing and decide now that you will change it.
Next, let’s take the kaizen principles and corollaries to answer questions that will ultimately identify incremental change for the better:
- What can we remove (obstacles, clutter, problems, excess energy) and how can we organize our daily lives to make the work easier toward a goal?
- How might this goal match up with your current habits and routines? It’s best if they flow easily in between those parts of your day-to-day life. Sometimes you’ll need to make small or bigger tweaks to make them work, but determine those now.
- How can we group activities together to make them more efficient? What activities can we also group with other people for accountability?
- Do you have all and the right tools and resources to make your goal happen?
By looking at these kaizen principles, you can next determine what systems need to be built around stretching your potential toward a specific goal. Finally, you can identify what you can do to move forward continuously, incrementally toward improving your life’s work.
You will realize after you realize your potential and identify your comfort zone(s), and you’ll be more productive, more resilient to change, and achieve more life goals. Remember that it’s nice to step in and out of your comfort zone to stretch your potential; your comfort zones are the well-worn paths of your everyday life and adventures outside of them allow you to come back home from them and rest, rejuvenate and tackle the next set of activities or goals tomorrow.
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So, as we make our way into the first part of this new year, take stock in your potential and where you are in your comfort zone right now. Do you plan to make changes that are truly stretching your potential? Or, are you merely treading water? Carpe diem! Not because you have to, but because you want to live fully today and every day.
How will you stretch your potential this year? Let me know in the comments, check out these 10 “stepping outside your comfort zone” ideas, and I look forward to hearing all the great ways you’ll be stretching your potential.