Who has hidden your potential?
People do not notice the potential they have because they do not understand how it was hidden from them. Realizing this is crucial in order to find freedom and the power you have in yourself.
How many times have you blamed yourself for not being the person you want to be?
Are you sure that you’re the only person responsible for what you think of yourself?
If you:
- criticize yourself for making mistakes,
- mistrust yourself and depend your opinion on authorities,
- compare yourself with others and compete with them to see who is better,
- your creativity has been buried long time ago, together with curiosity and joy of learning new things.
It’s NOT because there’s something wrong with you. Not because you’re a defective model. Not because you lack of something.
It’s because you were „programmed” this way. It’s what you were taught during all the years you’ve spent at school.
Not accepting your mistakes, submitting to authorities, competing and remaining stuck in the schemes – all of that was enforced on you every day for many years.
Far beyond all those destructive schemes there is you! Someone who:
- knows how to forgive himself for all the mistakes he makes and accepts imperfections,
- knows how to trust himself and says what he wants to say,
- knows how to appreciate the fact that everyone is different and treats people equally,
- is full of creativity, finds pleasure in learning new things, is fascinated by the world.
But of course, school was not the only place that deprived you of your potential. It happened even earlier. At your house, while talking to your parents or watching tv.
It’s like you have had a huge brightness in your heart as a child. It was crazy shining – strong and perpetually. At some point an intruder broke into it and covered your brightness with a cloth. So not a single ray of light could get in. As the years were running by you forgot about it, and when someone asks you: “Where is it?” the answer is: “That’s the way I am. I never really had it.”
It seems that you have to create a new version of yourself, change yourself, become better to shine again.
Sure, why not? You can put a new lamp in your heart, with a powerful bulb. But that won't be the same. So why wouldn’t you rather take care of that cloth and get rid of it to set your natural shine free?
As a coach I often meet people willing to work on their self-esteem and self-confidence. In most cases they think that something is wrong with them. That they are worse, defective. This belief accompanies them for many years, often from childhood.
But they don’t know the reason and blame themselves. “That’s who we are, it’s gonna be extremely hard to make things different.” They find it as something inherent and do not realize things weren’t always this way.
Many coaching books include this kind of advice – take full responsibility for who you are. It’s a very good one, but it doesn’t always fit.
You are not responsible for the fact, that your potential was hidden from you.
But you are very responsible for finding it in yourself once again.
P.S. When I realized that “lack of potential” is not an inseparable part of my personality, but some state I was pushed in by others (even those who were unaware of that fact) it was a kind of breakthrough. I felt….. free. How do you feel now?