Chris Mance II - Mental Skills Coach

Potential is having or showing the capacity to become or develop into something in the future. Potential has nothing to do with your past. While it may seem that your past can limit or increase your future potential, that is only perception.

For example, if person 1 has a degree from an Ivy League school and person 2 has a degree from a community college, would you say person 1 has more potential than person 2? Maybe or maybe not. It really depends.

Achieving a goal like graduating from an Ivy League school is the realization of past potential, but the realization of potential is no longer potential. It’s an achievement. Moreover, while achievements may increase expectations, they don’t maximize your potential to meet those expectations.

The fundamental characteristic of potential one must understand is that it’s a product of behavior in the present, not past behavior. Specifically, how one’s behavior in the present aligns with high expectations in the future. When behavior changes, potential changes.

Therefore, high expectations alone are not the key to maximizing potential. Instead, it’s both the high expectations and doing what it takes in the present to meet those expectations. Moreover, one must both accept those high expectations as a goal then have a plan to be intentional each day with behaviors to realize that goal.

So, this means that potential and maximizing potential boils down to 3 fundamentals.

1. Consistently achieving progressively more difficult goals that increase expectations.
2. Self-motivation to use increased expectations as a compass to set more difficult goals.
3. Having a plan to align daily behaviors to achieve difficult goals.