I want you to be able to reach your fullest potential every single day. Even during the days where you relax and recharge, I want you to enjoy every moment. When it comes to reaching your full potential every day, it’s all about planning. If you’re not a good planner, you’ll have to start learning! Those who are good with time management and are organized usually experience a more productive day. So, how to reach your full potential?
The Key to Reaching Your Full Potential: Your Mindset
A recent study described two ideas about our way of thinking that differentiate beliefs that our abilities are innate and limited and beliefs that our abilities are malleable: fixed mindset and growth mindset.[1]
A Fixed Mindset
A fixed mindset is one where you have concrete beliefs about yourself. Someone with a fixed mindset came up with “their story” in childhood and it hasn’t changed much over the years. They may believe that they aren’t good at public speaking, math, or writing just because they struggled with those subjects in school. A common thought for someone with a fixed mindset is “What an idiot, I knew I wasn’t any good at that.” Or “Well that just confirmed what I already knew, I won’t be doing that again”. Having a fixed mindset just reinforces negative thoughts and attitudes, making it harder to reach your full potential.
A Growth Mindset
A growth mindset, on the other hand, is exactly the opposite. With a growth mindset, you believe anything is possible, but don’t confuse this with being delusional! It’s more of the way you think about and approach problems. Let’s go back to the issue of not being good at public speaking. A person with a growth mindset will analyze what went wrong and come up with solutions to make it better next time. They may take a class on public speaking at their local community college, or join the Toastmaster’s organization. Whatever it is, they don’t look at failure as an insurmountable roadblock, but rather as a minor detour on the road to their destination.
How to Live Up to Your Full Potential and Succeed
Here are 9 ways to help you reach your fullest potential in life:
1. Focus on the Big Picture
What does the big picture look like to you? What are the goals that you want to accomplish? When it comes to reaching your potential every day, it’s important that you know what the big picture looks like. Why do you do what you do? What is the reason that you go to work or come home and provide dinner for your family? When you have purpose and reason in your life, you’re more able to live out each day to your fullest potential. If you are able to see the big picture in your life, you don’t have to just live day-to-day. When you know your purpose, you will be motivated to live each day to your fullest potential: What Is the Purpose of Life And How to Find Purpose in Life
2. Develop a Goal
When setting goals, try using the SMART goal method. It’s important to keep in mind four things:
Specific
Instead of saying “I want to live up to my full potential in life”, a more specific goal would be “I want to become the best (salesman, artist, internet marketer) that I can be.” This is a much more specific goal.
Measurable
You should be able to measure your progress towards the goal. Again, it’s much easier to measure your progress to becoming the best artist you can be than it is trying to measure your progress at living up to your “full potential”.
Attainable
Whatever the goals are, they need to get you closer to your ultimate goal while at the same time be attainable. Success builds on success, so achieving these small goals helps to motivate you to continue on to your bigger goals.
Written Down
This takes the goal out of the realm of wishful thinking and makes it more real. Additionally, studies show that writing about our future goals increases our belief that we are able to accomplish them – no matter how big or small.[2] Put your goals on your desk, or next to your computer just to remind yourself to keep moving forward. This approach to goal setting can help you improve your goal attainment and self-efficacy on your journey to reach your fullest potential.[3]
3. Time Management
Reaching your full potential every day is about planning your day in alignment with what matters to you.
Focus on What is Important in Your Life
Maybe it’s providing for your family or spending quality time with your spouse. When you are able to live in alignment with that matters to you, you will be able to reach your fullest potential every day.
Plan Your Week Every Sunday Evening
That way, you’ll be able to see your week’s schedule before starting your week. Make sure to add when you plan to start working and end working into your schedule. It is important for you to know when it’s time to turn off work mode and start spending quality time with your family. It’s also important that when you plan your week, you are realistic about what you want to accomplish.
Set Yourself Up for Success, Not for Failure
Create a to-do list for each day of the week on Sunday evening. Have about 4-5 tasks that you want to accomplish each day. If you have a big project, you should only include 2-3 tasks for that day. Planning and having good time management is a combination that contributes to your success and reaching your fullest potential every day.[4] Having good time management is important for you to learn because when you value yourself, you will value how you spend your time. Try these 7 Effective Time Management Tips To Maximize Your Productivity.
4. Practice Discipline
With so many distractions, it’s easy to get off track and not get anything done. That’s why staying focused on what you need to get done is key to reaching your fullest potential. If you get distracted by your phone, make sure you put it on silent when you’re trying to finish a task. Not only will get a lot more done, but you will also prevent yourself from negatively affecting your well-being.[5] Anything that distracts you from completing a task needs to be put away. The bottom line here is that while you may want to stop working at 5 pm sharp, or watch the game on Saturday, developing the discipline to delay satisfaction will help push your boundaries and reap the rewards that come from that extra effort. Learn How to Focus and Maximize Your Productivity (the Definitive Guide).
5. Have a Positive Attitude
When it comes to reaching your fullest potential every day, it’s important to have a positive attitude. When you have a negative attitude, you start viewing yourself and your life as being negative. How can you possibly reach your fullest potential when you have a negative attitude about yourself? It’s all about your perspective and how you view yourself and your potential. In order to have a productive day, you must have a positive attitude. With a positive attitude, you’ll be able to stay focused on what you want to accomplish every day. Here are 11 Tips for Maintaining a Positive Attitude.
6. Accept That You Will Fail
There is no such thing as an overnight success. Failure is a part of life and it happens to everyone. In fact, there is a whole body of thinking that failure is actually better than success. While most of us would agree that success is better than failure, when it does happen, here is something to keep in mind: Don’t take it personally. A failure in a job, career, business, or marriage is just that. It is not a reflection of you as a person. I had a friend who lost his entire fortune (over 20 million dollars) in a business deal. I called him shortly after and as expected he was very depressed. My only advice to him was: Move on, failures can be heartbreaking, embarrassing, and demoralizing. Take the time needed to go through those feelings and process the emotions. Remember that your goal here is to live up to your full potential and succeed in life. Dwelling on past mistakes and failures is the surest way to derail your progress.
7. Embrace Simplicity
When you want to reach your fullest potential, simplify what needs to get done before the day starts. An easy place to start is with your morning routine. If you can find different ways to save time and make your life simpler, you’ll be able to focus on reaching your fullest potential every day. When you are constantly all over the place and your life is far from being simple, you’ll experience stress and frustration on a daily basis. Simplify your life!
8. Recharge
You can only reach your fullest potential if you take the time to recharge. When you are constantly working without any rest, you will eventually burn out. It is not only important for you to recharge your mind– your body needs time to recharge too. Schedule downtime for yourself and use different strategies that help you relax. Try meditating or yoga. Reaching your fullest potential every day can become stressful if you don’t manage your time well and take the time to recharge. Take a moment and think about what recharges you. Maybe it’s spending some quality time with your spouse or taking a nice walk in the park. Whatever you decide to do, make sure you enjoy the process. It’s easy for our minds to wander, so when you’re recharging, focus on recharging!
9. Enjoy Each Moment
With so much going on, it’s easy to just go, go, go and not take the time to smell the flowers. Enjoy the moments that you experience throughout each day. This will help you feel grateful and appreciative of what you have in your life. Enjoy the simple things like having a roof over your head and being able to afford food for your family.
Final Thoughts
The success you’ll find from living life to your highest potential is its own reward. One day, we all will look back on our lives and think “I wish I would have done …” or “I had a chance to be a … but I was too scared,” but hopefully this article will give you the motivation and tools to push yourself to your full potential. Featured photo credit: Melody Jacob via unsplash.com
