Unleash Potential
How to Explore Your Hidden Potential
Potential is a word I have always avoided using because I feel it is overused in the personal development space, and too abstract in concept.
After reading ‘Hidden Potential’ by Adam Grant, my perspective on the idea of potential has shifted. This book covers many of the core principles that enable us to unleash our full potential (or at least a lot more of our potential).
I believe that the greatest joy in life does not come from success per say, but from the knowledge that we have given it our very best efforts, to know that we are at the max. (or close to the max) of our innate potential.
In this article, let’s dive into what is behind the idea of potential, how we explore more of our potential, what gets in the way, and how we can overcome such obstacles.
Potential & Human Sponge
One of the points that stuck with me from Adam Grant’s book ‘Hidden Potential’ is the concept of human sponge: absorb everything.
Success doesn’t come down to raw talent, but primarily to character skills that we develop, such as perseverance, grit, proactivity, and collaboration.
The best way to improve our character skills is to be a sponge, to absorb everything, to always be willing to learn, keep an open-mind, ask for feedback and be proactive in our learning.
To be a human sponge, you need to both be proactive in your learning, actively seeking out what you need to learn in order to improve, and growth oriented (not ego driven). That sweet spot of proactivity and growth orientation is the human sponge.
I think of this as a combination of Steven Covey’s first habit ‘Be Proactive’ and Carol Dweck’s work on ‘Growth mindset’. By cultivating the proactivity in our actions and in our learnings, and the growth mindset in our perspective in how we work, this is a recipe for unleashing our potential.
Proactivity consists in:
Actively seeking out opportunities for learning
Analysing our own knowledge gaps
Regularly seeking feedback from the right sources
Taking initiative in actions and behaviours
Growth mindset comes from:
Exploring new paths
Embracing discomfort
Not limiting ourselves to past successes
Believing that we can overcome our limits
Adam Grant is a great example of being a human sponge. When he was younger, he became fascinated with springboarding one day when going to swimming pool. There and then, he decide to becomea springboard diver: jumping in the air and diving all while performing multiple flips.
When Adam first began to learn to be a springboard diver, he was terrified. Each day, each time was a hurdle. He could only attempt a front one-and-a-quarter rotation and then would flop on his stomach. Yet, he sought out support from his coach (proactivity), and continued to believe (growth mindset) he could master the one-a-half rotation in spite of the multiple failures. It took him over one year of daily practise before Adam was able to perform a one-a-half rotation!
Progress is not linear. To become a human sponge, we need to let go of control, find the right support, continuously believe and persevere in spite of lack of progress and be willing to fail in order to reach success.
Obstacles to Potential
Though most of us feel that there is an inner core that is limitless, that we could move mountains, and reach the moon, we often still get stuck.
On a daily basis, obstacles get in the way of us reaching our potential, hinder our performance and prevent us from achieving the types of goals we know we are capable of.
Some of these obstacles include:
Discomfort: We have evolved to preserve energy, seek pleasure and prevent pain. Actively pursuing discomfort is biologically speaking absurd. Our brain does not want us to be uncomfortable. When we are in stressful circumstances, cortisol is released in our body, and sends the signal that we shouldn’t do this again. Yet, the more we practise being ok with discomfort, the more discomfort loses its grip on us. We get to tame our brain to cope with uncomfortable situations simply by exposing ourselves to such situations over & over again.
Perfectionism: One of the defensive mechanisms we use to try to avoid pain and control our experience of life is to be perfectionist. If everything is perfect, we believe that we won’t get hurt, and that it will prevent us from being judged, rejected or humiliated. Not only is perfection an illusion, but it also often blocks our proactivity and progress. Re-wiring our brain to focus on progress over perfection allows us to create new habits and behaviours to support us in our growth.
Motvation & Plateau paralysis: When we are working towards a specific goal, we often hit a plateau, such as the plateau of latent potential that James Clear discusses in his book ‘Atomic Habits’. In such moments, our motivation hits rock bottom, and we need to find new ways to uncover that intrinsic motivation to keep going.
Fixed Mindset: When we mistakenly believe that our skills have a limit, that failure equals incapability, and that we can’t improve: we have put a cap on our potential. Once we see failure as a stepping stone towards something greater, that we realise that all our failures are data and experiments and that with each struggle, we get stronger, then we are developing a growth mindset.
Environment: Our surroundings, environment and peer group shape us. If we are surrounded by people who believe in us, who have high standards, and who are proactive, we are far more likely to raise our own standards and become more proactive. The impact of our surroundings can be one of the key levers to unleashing our potential (think for example of a Coach and Olympic Athlete)
Breakthrough to Full Potential
How do we then tap into our full potential? A magic combo of aiming high, believing it’s possible, learning from our failures, finding the right support and environment, and developing our character skills (grit, perseverance, proactivity…).
How to you become more persevering? Each time you don’t ‘feel like it’, or ‘can’t be bothered’, you still push through. Not with sheer force, but with compassion and self-belief. Knowing that each time you still exercise when you’re not in the mood, you are growing the muscle of grit. Realising that each time you try something new and challenging, you are training yourself with being ok with discomfort. And when you face rejection and rebound, you are building inner strength and resilience.
There may not be such a thing as full potential, but one thing is for sure, we all have multiple areas in our life where we can grow, learn, improve, and tap into that reserve of internal potential that is available to each and every one of us.
Thank you for reading,
Katie