DID YOU LIVE UP TO YOUR FULL POTENTIAL TODAY?

© Rhoberta Shaler, PhD

Can you ever know if you are living up to your full potential? There are some indicators that can help you to determine the answer.

If you go to bed happy every night, satisfied with your accomplishments, you may well have lived up to your full potential for that day. There is a big difference between over-extending and fully extending yourself, isn't there? Our culture pressures us to over-extend. This simply leads to dissatisfaction and unnecessary stress.

It's completely out of hand, this craze to do more and more. We've become caught somewhere between the wisdom of 'knowing our limits' and the pull of 'limitless opportunity'. How can you know what's best for yourself? You know what is best when you can honestly say each evening that you have attended to what's most important to you each day in some way, when you can look back on your day and say, "Yes! It was a good day!"

Some folks do comfort themselves with false information, though. When you make someone else responsible for your thoughts, feelings and actions, you are giving yourself false information. No one can make you feel a particular way. Their words or behavior can elicit that feeling but they do not MAKE you feel it. You must take responsibility for your feelings as they arise. Folks who give their power away will never realize their potential because they never take responsibility for it in the first place.

That's not you, though, right? You know your priorities and insure that your focus remains clear. You know what you can and cannot do right now as well as what you will and want to do next. Yesterday I was having lunch with a speaking colleague. He said that he wondered if he was living up to his potential currently because he was unwilling to fit all that was possible into every day. Should he really be creating product in those late hours after his children have gone to bed? When he asked for my input, I told him that I try to remember that I CAN have it all, I just cannot have it all at the same time. When children are young, they need to be our focus. When they grow up, the focus may turn to other more personal pursuits. There is a good time for everything. You cannot squeeze a lifetime into one day. Some things are well saved for ten years from now.

Living up to your full potential is a daily opportunity. When your priorities are clear and your time and energy are focused, you cannot help but live up to your potential. You decide. That is where your power resides.

© Rhoberta Shaler, PhD All rights reserved.

Dr. Rhoberta Shaler is a ‘people skills’ expert—a noted speaker, author, executive coach and founder of the Optimize! Institute in Escondido, CA. Dr. Shaler works with entrepreneurs, executives and their employees to master the 'people skills' that grease the wheels of business and life—communication, negotiation, conflict and anger management, mediation, networking. She is the author of ‘What You Pay Attention to Expands’ as well as other books and audio programs. Free coaching consultation. Visit www.OptimizeInstitute.com or call 760.735.8686.