Unleashing Your Potential

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Imagine doing what you love every day, doing things that give you unlimited energy, so much so that you wake up before your alarm clock every morning. Everyone deserves to live their ideal life in such a way, but sadly most of us don’t. The art of using one’s full potential is the same as the art of shooting an arrow head. One begins by pulling the arrow back on the bow, and as the arrow is drawn back, it gains maximum strength for going forward. A useless shot will result if the arrow is not first pulled back. The art of using one’s full potential demands bringing the mind back to the field of absolute being, before it is brought out to face the many facets of life.

How do we live the most enriching and fulfilling life that fills our soul, brings the best out of us every day, and inspires others to do the same? The answer lies within us. If we go seeking outwards, the journey is endless. If we turn inward, it is just one moment and, in that moment, we are not pursuing joy anymore. Instead, our life becomes an expression of our joyfulness.

Below are a few techniques that can help us go within, perceive life beyond physical boundaries, and open doors to endless creativity and possibilities.

 

WHAT'S YOUR LIFE PURPOSE?

Every organization has a mission and purpose that makes the company stand out and inspires its employees to reach their full potential. But do we have a personal mission statement that directs our life’s purpose? According to a Harvard Business Review study from 2014, less than 20 percent of business leaders have a strong sense of personal purpose. It is no surprise that corporate leaders are some of the unhappiest, unhealthiest, and most stressed people in our society. Just as a company with a well-defined purpose is able to align decisions around a clear intention that drives success, so too can we align our personal decisions around a clear intention to drive us toward a more powerful and directed existence.

Let’s take some time to recognize our innate gifts and talents, cultivate them, and find ways to use them in our daily life to serve others in a positive way. Life will become richer and more fulfilling and you will start to see your boat rowing with the current instead of against it.

 

YOU CAN’T WIN IF YOU DON’T ENVISION YOURSELF WINNING

Henry Ford once said, “Whether you think you can or whether you think you can’t, you’re right.” If you take a look around, everything that was ever created by humans, first existed as an image in someone’s mind. Psychologists have been using visual imagery for years as a way to help people enhance performance, increase productivity, create desired emotional states, and achieve life goals. Broadly speaking, visualization is a simple technique that you can use to intentionally create mental images and bring it into your consciousness to create real-life outcomes. What we focus our minds on, we tend to create in our lives.

Before you head into your next important meeting, sit quietly for five to ten minutes in a quiet space and create a moving picture in your mind on what is about to happen. Once the meeting has started, lay back and try not to force the action but to allow it to unfold naturally. This will mentally and purposefully prepare you for an event that is going to happen and will give you an extra edge on others.

 

CLARITY BRINGS OPPORTUNITIES

According to the National Science Foundation, an average person has about 12,000 to 60,000 thoughts per day. With our minds racing at this speed and always trying to figure out what's next, we block our ability to respond creatively to what's going on in the present moment. We tend to get lost in our thoughts and give them the power to run us.

One technique that is proven to unleash our full potential and is used by many successful people like Russell Brand and Oprah Winfrey is Transcendental Meditation (TM). Most meditations aim to control or train the mind by a way of thinking. TM, on the other hand, involves no concentration, control, or training. This technique is a very simple and natural way of letting the mind go beyond surface level thinking towards a calm state of rest.

When practicing TM, you sit in a comfortable position with your eyes closed and silently repeat a mantra. This helps to transcend or go beyond our ordinary thinking process and allows us to enter into a state of pure consciousness. In this state, you can achieve perfect stillness, rest, stability, and a complete absence of mental boundaries. Practice this technique for 20 minutes twice a day, to ignite your creativity and inner power.

 

LIVING A LIFE OF BALANCE

Do you like many others find yourself doing more and accomplishing less? Being overly busy has become a way of life in the Western world. In contrast, some cultures place a higher value on relaxation. In countries like Spain and Japan, an afternoon siesta is still the norm, even at a workplace. Recent scientific research has proven that a midafternoon nap can be an excellent productivity boost, improving focus and efficiency. Even as little as a six-minute nap has been shown to improve memory recall.

Building regular activities into your life that help you to relax and rejuvenate will center you on your journey. Aim for ten to twenty minutes of real relaxation per day. You might add simple exercises to your office routine such as breathing exercises, a ten-minute power nap, or you might want to go for a stroll in a park during lunch. Once you start to incorporate these tools into your daily life, you will be on the path to improved self-awareness, balance, fulfillment and most importantly your ability to better tune in to yourself.

Remember that, as often as we look to the outside world for teachers, the ultimate teacher is within us. Our joy, our misery, our love, and our bliss all lie in our hands. There is a way out, and the way out is in. It is only by turning our awareness inward that we start singing the song of our heart and break free from the unconscious patterns that are holding us back.