How To Maximize Your Potential

Means Of Expressing One’s Potentials

Potentials are expressed through the following:

• Actions
• Interactions
• Works
• Service

Avenues For Expressing One’s Potentials

• The family
• The workplace
• Business ventures and entrepreneurship
• The society

The church or other voluntary societies

How Can You Discover Your Potential?

¡ By self-examination and reflection

¡ By self-expression in various activities

¡ By being adventurous, and learning from trials and errors

¡ At formal trainings such as workshops, seminars, conferences etc

¡ Through informal interactions with families, friends, colleagues etc

¡ Through divine revelation

¡ By chance and unpremeditated happenings

¡ During a coaching session

What Is Potential?

Dictionary Definitions:

Capacity to develop: the capacity or ability for future development or achievement. – Microsoft® Encarta® Dictionary

Natural abilities or qualities that may possibly develop and make someone or something very successful or useful. – Longman Dictionary

The inherent capacity for coming into being. – WordWeb Dictionary

A Personal Definition:

Potentials are the gifts, the talents, the endowments, the riches, the resources as well as the blessings inherent in a human that are yet to be expressed in his/her actions, interactions and works. Once these find expression, they cease to be called potential and then become skills and abilities.

10 Simple Ways To Know You Are In The Job You Are Naturally Cut Out For (Part 2)

Ok, now to the titbits: how do you identify the job you are naturally cut out for or ascertain the one you are doing now is it?

1.    You will enjoy doing what you do, and it won’t be a drag or drudgery to you.

2.    Time will not be “of essence”, and you will not be watching it, since you can start whenever you like and end whenever you like. I agree that this one may be a hard pill for the apostles of structure to swallow. But, check it out in the lives of those who are all fired up about their job.

3.    You flow seamlessly into the work, with minimal or no friction anytime, any day, and in most places. You also hands off your work with a teeny feeling of reluctance, but a soothing sense of accomplishing something.

4.    You are doing something by which people generally hail you or associate you whenever they see you or thoughts of you pop up on their mind.

5.    Money is not a major consideration for doing what you are doing. Although it is a necessity of life and a viable motivation factor, your primary drive is derived from your sheer involvement in and satisfaction with what you are doing.

6.    You want to learn all you can about the vocation, or certain aspects of it where you feel you can still be better.

7.    You want to make everyone who comes into contact with you an artisan in the vocation. You want to teach them, help them, guide them, and/or instruct them on how to do it. And you will be willing to do all these, even at no fee.

8.    You want to passionately defend, justify, or clarify certain notions about the vocation, or its operational aspects, that you feel is wrongly bandied or misconstrued by people.

9.    You are agitated when you see people who are similarly engaged doing the same work the way it ought not be done, either by underperforming, under-delivering, or not conforming to certain norms and standards pertaining to it.

10. You eagerly look forward to getting up from bed every day you have to work to get on the task or an assignment you have in hand. And you won’t mind sleeping late engaged in what you are doing. In the event you are busy doing something else, you are not so excited and you can’t wait to be done with it to get back to your love vocation.

Like I mentioned, this list is neither authoritative nor exhaustive. You may be presently engaged in the job you are naturally cut out for and not find yourself in any of the above bits. We will like to learn your own slant to this.

Cheers!

10 Simple Ways To Know You Are In The Job You Are Naturally Cut Out For (Part 1)

Dear friends,

I found myself in the meditation mode not long ago and the object of my rumination was why some people seem to derive so much fun in their jobs – bubbling in their productivity therein – while some only do the required rounds, watch the clock and tick the day.

I know this is a much-discussed issue in the career industry worldwide, with various postulations and sophisticated theories. So, I was under no illusion that I was going to come up with a groundbreaking solution that would land me a Nobel Prize for solving a nagging human problem. However, the Pilot of my flight of consciousness was not discouraged, but kept on conducting me to a point where I was able to capture some bits on what usually separates an excited worker from a placid one.

The distinguishing factor is interest – borne out of the natural configuration of each individual. It is a fact that we are not all wired the same way; even identical twins may not have identical emotional sparks. Therefore, individual interest plays an important role in job gratification, which in turn results in productivity. That does not discountenance some external or psychological variables that may facilitate or hinder job performance, such as remuneration, work environment, and self-esteem, to mention a few.

So, on the fulcrum of interest only, I came up with the following 10 submissions that will help an individual to ascertain what kind of job s/he is naturally cut out for, and if s/he is presently engaged in one. I’m not sure the list below can be described as authoritative, neither is it exhaustive; so, I’ll welcome inputs from you guys.

The Keyword To Personal Growth (Part 2)

To achieve this, you need to break out of your comfort zone, query some of your traditional mindsets and stretch beyond your imaginary limits to the realm of can-be. One word that must be your driving force – which I call the keyword to personal growth – is “more”, “more”, and “more.” To this end, you would need to:

See more: open your eyes wider and see on a larger scale. Open your inner eye and see beyond the present. See the big picture. See opportunities. See options. See avenues. See possibilities. See greatness. See seeds. See potentials. See, see, and see!

Ask more: ask more questions. Seek more information. Request for more explanation, more clarification. Increase your curiosity. Double your inquisitiveness about everything. By asking more, you get to know more and be more.

Read more: if you do not have a habit of reading, you need to cultivate it. And if you already have, then you need to read more, read wider, read over, read beyond your field. By so doing, you would be cultivating your mind for sound reasoning and better decision-making.

Learn more: you need to increase your bank of knowledge by consciously seeking information on different things, from different sources. Go out and learn more on what you already know, update your mind with the latest information. By learning more, you will become more.

Try more: you might have failed in an endeavour, try again. Explore more options. Try your hands on new things, you don’t have to get it perfect at first or even at all, just do something. Try this, try that, try here, try there. Don’t stop trying, it’s the key to growth and the best way to increase your capacity.

Work more: do more work than you are wont to do. Organise your life and time in such a way that will enable you to get more work done. Do more work than you are paid for. Whatever you are doing, work more at it and don’t rest on your oars.

Do more: take more actions. Expend more efforts. Do one percent more of what you are doing. Increase your action ratio. Go an extra mile; and you are on the path to self-development, happiness and success.

Give more: give more of yourself, give more of your time, give more of your resources to your family, your friends, your work, your church and your society. Don’t stop giving, it is the secret of getting and becoming. So give more.

Be more: be more than you are to yourself, to your family, to your friends, to your company, to your church/society. Be more than “me” to yourself, be your own resource person. Be more than a husband/father to your wife/children, be their mentor. Be more than a wife/mother to your family, be their inspiration. Be more than a friend, be a motivator. Be more than an employee, be a value-adder. Be more than a colleague, be an encourager. Be more than a member in your church/society, be a contributor. Do you understand now? So break out of the status quo and be more to all!

The keyword to personal growth and development is “more”. Always ask yourself ‘what more can I do?’, ‘What more can I be?’, ‘What more can I learn?’, ‘What more can I give?’ etc. You will be amazed at how fast you would grow as well as at what you are able to accomplish.

The Keyword To Personal Growth

Personal growth, or self-development, is a field of study that crystallised into an industry some decades ago. Ever since then, volumes of thoughts have been expressed on it in various forms, such as books, essays, CDs and multimedia tools, among several others. And many persons have risen to the status of expert in it, and thereby earn their living.

Personal development, in all ramifications (spiritual, mental, emotional, physical, social), is the foundation stone for all accomplishments. Many people are bewildered about how to pursue personal development because they tend to see it as an end in itself, and do not realise that it is the means to an end – be it success, wealth, promotion, balance etc. Adding credence to this, James Allen in his all-time classic, As A Man Thinketh, says, “Men are anxious to improve their circumstances, but are unwilling to improve themselves; they therefore remain bound.”

Jim Rohn, a leading authority in the field of self-growth, says that the key to wealth and happiness is to ‘work harder on yourself than you do on your job’. He then expatiates thus:

What you become is far more important than what you get. The important question to ask on the job is not, “What am I getting?” Instead, you should ask, “What am I becoming? “Getting and becoming are like Siamese twins: what you have today you have attracted by becoming the person you are today… Income rarely exceeds personal development. Sometimes income takes a lucky jump, but unless you learn to handle the responsibilities that come with it, it will usually shrink back to the amount you can handle… It is hard to keep that which has not been obtained through personal development.

The word of Jim Rohn sheds light on the importance of self-grooming toward attaining those ends that are the target of the daily pursuits of most men. Success, wealth, promotion, balance and the rest should therefore not be your focus; rather you should be committed to a disciplined and sustained cultivation of your person.