Why You’re Not Living Up To Your Full Potential

“I’m not living up to my full potential.”

Today I woke at five, reached over for my phone, checked email and turned over to snuggle the dog and go back to sleep.

When the alarm went off at 6:30, I could barely open my eyes. I turned over and went back to sleep.

At 8:15, my partner messaged me. I was still in bed

I stayed in bed until past 8 today. Today is definitely a day I’m not living up to my full potential.

Procrastinating by staying in bed late is only one form of what gets in the way of you reaching your full potential. There are so many other wiley beasts in the psyche that you likely battle daily (or maybe you don’t and you just give in.)

“I wouldn’t know where to start.”
“I’m not confident I’d be successful.”
“It’s hard to …” (whatever that next big step is for you)
“I’m not ready for this.”
“I don’t know how to make enough money at…” (the thing you most dream of doing)
“I don’t have the focus.”
“I don’t see how I’d have the time to…” (do something that would benefit you)
“I want to focus on my kids now.”

The truth is, these are signs that you’re not living up to your full potential.

Why? What’s at work here is really..

Fear
Doubt
Confusion
Procrastination
Distraction
Busy-ness…

… which equals Resistance.

You are resisting your own intuition – your own inner goddess, the mistress director of all that your soul longs for and you are listening to the stories in your head instead. The evil gremlin, the mean girl, the one who’s afraid.

When this happens, you’ve lost your compass, and it’s sometimes hard to find your way back home. Dang, it can be nearly impossible without a good guide.

But then you rationalize…

“Now is not the time for me.”
“This paycheck is hard to walk away from.”
“I know it’s good for me, but I don’t think I can fit one more thing in.”
“I don’t even know where to start.”

So, let’s take a page (or two) – literally – from Steven Pressfield’s “The War Of Art” (note: this is required reading on all Great Do-Over retreats for just this reason)

RESISTANCE AND RATIONALIZATION,
PART TWO
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Resistance is fear. But Resistance is too cunning to show itself naked in this form. Why? Because if Resistance lets us see clearly that our own fear is preventing us from doing our work, we may feel shame at this. And shame may drive us to act in the face of fear.

Resistance doesn’t want us to do this. So it brings in Rationalization. Rationalization is Resistance’s spin doctor. It’s Resistance’s way of hiding the Big Stick behind its back. Instead of showing us our fear (which might shame us and impel us to do our work), Resistance presents us with a series of plausible, rational justifications for why we shouldn’t do our work.

What’s particularly insidious about the rationalizations that Resistance presents to us is that a lot of them are true. They’re legitimate. Our wife may really be in her eighth month of pregnancy; she may in truth need us at home. Our department may really be instituting a changeover that will eat up hours of our time. Indeed it may make sense to put off finishing our dissertation, at least till after the baby’s born.

What Resistance leaves out, of course, is that all this means diddly. Tolstoy had thirteen kids and wrote War and Peace. Lance Armstrong had cancer and won the Tour de France three years and counting.

RESISTANCE CAN BE BEATEN
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If Resistance couldn’t be beaten, there would be no Fifth Symphony, no Romeo and Juliet, no Golden Gate Bridge. Defeating Resistance is like giving birth. It seems absolutely impossible until you remember that women have been pulling it off successfully, with support and without, for fifty million Years.

Do you have a book to write? A song to sing? A business to launch? A non-profit to start? A shingle to hang?

What’s standing in your way? Are you rationalizing your way into resistance?

Resistance can be beaten. And you can live up to your full potential. First, you need to see resistance for who she is. Tell her, “I see you and I won’t let you control me. There is something I want so much more than to stay in this place of true rationalizations. I want to allow myself to fulfill my true potential.”

PROFESSIONALS AND AMATEURS
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Aspiring artists defeated by Resistance share one trait. They all think like amateurs. They have not yet turned pro. The moment an artist turns pro is as epochal as the birth of his first child. With one stroke, everything changes. I can state absolutely that the term of my life can be divided into two parts: before turning pro, and after.

To be clear: When I say professional, I don’t mean doctors and lawyers, those of “the professions.” I mean the Professional as an ideal. The professional in contrast to the amateur. Consider the differences.

The amateur plays for fun. The professional plays for keeps.

To the amateur, the game is his avocation. To the pro it’s his Vocation.

The amateur plays part-time, the professional full-time. The amateur is a weekend warrior. The professional is there seven days a week.

The word amateur comes from the Latin root meaning “to love.” The conventional interpretation is that the amateur pursues his calling out of love, while the pro does it for money. Not the way I see it. In my view, the amateur does not love the game enough. If he did, he would not pursue it as a sideline, distinct from his “real” vocation.

The professional loves it so much he dedicates his life to it. She commits full-time. She’s in it for the love of the game.

A professional is patient. She knows things don’t happen overnight. A good wine takes time to mature – as does a good idea.

A professional has a plan and a process. She knows where she is going, is adapt to change, but she’s got a roadmap to get to her destination.

A professional acts in the face of fear. The amatuer believes she must first overcome fear… the pro knows fear can never be overcome.

A professional accepts no excuses.

A professional plays it as it lays and rolls with the ups and downs of conducting business in the real world.

A professional is prepared. She is ready each day to confront her own self-sabotage.

A professional dedicates herself to mastering technique because no inspiration is birthed without good skill.

A professional does not take failure (or success) personally. Resistance will use rejection to paralyze you and prevent you from doing the work – this guarantees you never reach your full potential. The battle is in your head.

A professional recognizes her limitations – she gets help.

A professional reinvents herself.

A professional is recognized by other professionals.

That’s what I mean when I say turning pro.

Resistance hates it when we turn pro.

Give resistance a run for her money. Really… give it a try.

If this post hit home with you, give a comment below. And by all means, download The War of Art here.