Sunken Potential
Off days are understandable, and these are times to take your break from whatever you may be doing day and night. But on your next one, try just applying some of the insights in this article to that off day to open your mind to your true potential.
During your normal days, you most likely have a profession or occupation that takes up most of your time. I am also assuming that this profession or occupation then provides you with a financial payout so you can take those very so off days.
The question that I want you to ponder upon throughout this read is, is your current situation one that fulfills your potential? If your answer is yes, you can stop reading, but if not please continue...
Although I don’t know your occupation, I now know you in fact see yourself as more than what you do today. But how will you go forward with leading a different path for your future? This is one of the most difficult questions to answer and do not worry about if you have the answer at this very second.
Let’s break down what you can do to make sure you consistently stay on track to acting upon this potential you see in yourself.
First, don’t go looking to others for inspirations or ideas on what you want to do. This is then building the narrative that you are building your potential based on external sights. Everything you focus on must be internal and must mean something to you.
An example, you know you want to leave your current job that pays you $15 an hour. You see that a buddy of yours makes over $40 an hour, you think it is a good idea to go get a referral and work with them making this hourly wage. You soon find out that you feel the exact same as before...
Why?
You conditioned yourself to relate a $ amount to what your potential is. Instead of pursuing and accomplishing something for yourself, you viewed another person’s position and targeted their path. In this case, you related your potential to $ and in order to get there you used a path that someone else was on. This is where you will reach Sunken Potential, a chase of something outside yourself.
Separate yourself from other’s paths and create your own.
Second, write down everything you have an idea about that envisions your future. No matter how tiny or large of an importance you may think it has, write down everything, your future self will thank you for this.
An example, keep a journal close to you. As you critically think about your future, make sure to write down what you envision about yourself. Make bullet points, paragraphs, diagrams or whatever you need to construct your thought on paper.
Third, look at everything you have written down and rank from 1 through 10 which are the most important points you have written down that you would like to see yourself accomplish in the future. After you have ranked them from 1 through 10, create a best and worst case scenario for each one of the 10 ideas listed. After you design the best and worse cast scenarios, rank your top 10 ideas again and see if the positioning of your ranking system has changed.
An example, you have chosen to rank your top 10 best ideas. Your number 1 is to open up a bakery. You would set up your best case and worst case scenario as simply as this:
Open up a Bakery
Best Case:
- You sell out almost every day
- Receive multiple food awards from the best chefs/network
- Have an exclusive recipe book
Worst Case:
- No one likes your baking
- Unable to pay your employees
- Are forced to close the shop
Now that you have listed the best and worst case scenarios, you have successfully listed out both extreme sides of the what ifs. Now that you see your own ideas potentials, you decide that it would be better to rank that a bit lower based on your confidence for its execution and you not being able to afford the worst case scenario.
Lastly, use this as a starting point to not only finding your potential, but understanding more about yourself. Often, we become so disconnected to what we can accomplish by allocating time towards things that don’t end us helping us in the future. Take about 10 minutes to attempt this framework that I have set before you. Hopefully, you can find out something about yourself that you knew was there but haven’t seen in a long time.
Remember, everything must have a beginning. Don’t be afraid to begin your path to finding your potential