14 Ways To Change The Way You Think To Fulfil Your Potential
Human being has huge potential within them. Everybody has the same kind of psychosomatic structure but the person who recognizes the hidden potential within him gets the desired result and rediscovers himself. There are following are a few ways to determine the hidden potential existing in the individual for a successful life.
1. Belief System
Everyone has self-limiting beliefs and that is a hindrance to revealing true potential. But there is the good news, you can gradually change your belief system. Your self-image depends upon what type of books you read and with what type of people you associate with. You are the average of your few friends. Replacement of negative thoughts with positive thoughts is a major factor in changing your self-belief and reaching your fullest potential. The size of your success or achievement is determined by the size of your belief.
2. Think Big
David J Schwartz has said, “Remind yourself regularly that you are better than you think you are”.
Your thought process decides the quality of your life and your achievements. While climbing the mountain Sir Edmund Hillary failed several times but he challenged the mountain as follows,
“I will come again and conquer you because as a mountain you can’t grow, but as a human, I can.”
With the above challenging statement, he was energized whenever he approached Everest. Finally, he conquered. Constant reminders of the words on his adventure made history. The mentality to never settle for less is the key to being on top of the world.
3. Plan Your Journey Leading to Goal
Goals are the road map for success. Without a goal, life is like a football game without a goalpost. Goals are the fuel and starting point for the destination. Goals develop the real person in you. Goal creates the burning desire to build self-efficacy. Written goals are deeper encoded. When goals are written and repeated several times, they are fed into the subconscious mind so that the law of attraction happens, and the achievement process becomes faster.
4. Prioritize Your Tasks
In today’s environment due to hectic schedules, most people are lost just like a wooden log floating in the water. When the log reaches a waterfall from a height, there is no control, and the log breaks into pieces. People have a very casual approach to personal growth or inner development. James Baker said, “Prior preparation prevents poor performance.”
However, it was quoted as “Proper Planning Prevents Poor Performance” and was cited in print in 1961. “The PPPPPP factor applies: ‘proper preliminary planning prevents poor performance” was cited in print in 1966.
5. Be Passionate And Focus On What You Love
One of my friend’s sons was very fond of photography, especially wildlife but he was compelled to study civil engineering. He graduated from college and started searching job for earning. Due to cutthroat competition, it was difficult to get a secured job however he settled his profession with a builder who has the least value of his skills. He did his graduation in steam because his father had a niche of becoming a civil engineer but he could not achieve his goal, therefore, he always gave importance to and explained to everybody that there is a lot of money and demand once you get the degree of civil engineering. His son started earning an equal amount of money from photography, but he wanted to quit the job but failed several times in front of his father to express it and he was waiting for the death of his father so that he could quit the job.
6. Stay away from your comfort zone
Every human has a natural mentality to be more and more comfortable. Nobody wants to be disturbed even the child. Check your son or daughter when he or she is playing with toys. You ask them to do some work which they can easily do even offering them a couple of toffies. They will simply say no they are busy with their task and do not want to change the hitherto engaged activities.
7. Health And Fitness
Health is a primary concern as it is very much important to how you live and how long you live. You can live with several ailments in your body, or you can be the fittest. Once you are healthy the benefits are not only in your life but also there is a tremendous impact on others. I have seen people in corporate life when they are very busy earning their livelihood through very busy schedules and ultimately the amount of money earned during the span is spent on medicines and hospitalization. When you are sick you are not only fearful but also give an undeniable bundle of worries to your family. But when you invest your money and time towards health and fitness you are not only happy but your contribution may be extended to your country men the service you render to society.
8. Consistency And Persistency
In a stone mine when laborers are stamping hard with hammers, the stones are not broken immediately but the minute particles are unleashed by continuous blows. In the same way when you are working on any task even despite hindrances your task carried out continuously is derived. In the same way, regular and continuous unchanging focus culminates into the desired form of outcome.
9. Deserve First And Do Not Blame Others
There is a famous term called defense mechanism in psychology. It is consciously or unconsciously used to defend oneself from being blamed or being a victim of the outcome. It is the very old story of a fox who was trying to eat the grapes from a tree but after so many efforts when it did not reach to grab the fruit, it said, “Grapes are sour!” It is the satisfaction of ego and relief from anxiety.
I have seen people rationalizing when they sometimes fail in the tasks allotted to them. Most of the time they are not sincere to accept their fault. The daughter of the great psychologist Sigmund Freud, Anna Freud proposed rationalization as less threatening which shows the conscious level of excuses, and the person is quite prepared to believe their lies. When a person finds a situation difficult to accept, they will make up a logical reason why it has happened. For example, a person may explain a natural disaster as ‘God’s will’.
Dale Carnegie said in his book ‘How to make friends and influence people that “Any fool can criticize, complain, and condemn — and most fools do. But it takes character and self-control to be understanding and forgiving.
10. Safe Harbour Is Dangerous
It is usually found the tendency of average people to be safe in every act. In an organization generally, it is seen the result or outcome is derived from 20% of the workers. 80% of them do not produce the outcome that is derived from 20% of the lot.
John A. Shedd said through one of his quotes,
“A ship in harbor is safe, but that is not what ships are built for.”
If you are not able to take any risk in various walks of life the whole purpose of your existence is defeated.
Safety is advisable, but when you are completely safe, you really can’t achieve much. To do things, you have to leave at least some of your safety behind and take risks. You have a prominent role in balancing safety and risk, what you have in the absence of risk is hardly much of a life. Several times when fuel finished in helicopters while undergoing sorties during my active service in Indian Air Force, we had landed safely with the help of autopilot technique but the moments of struggle were so exciting that it always filled the mind with a feeling of great enthusiasm.
11. Avoid Procrastination
“Every morning in Africa, a gazelle wakes up, it knows it must outrun the fastest lion or it will be killed. Every morning in Africa, a lion wakes up. It knows it must run faster than the slowest gazelle, or it will starve. It doesn’t matter whether you’re the lion or a gazelle-when the sun comes up, you’d better be running.
–Christopher McDougal
Procrastination is the act of delaying or postponing a task or set of tasks. It is the internal mental and emotional force that prevents you from following through on what you set out to do. Procrastination usually involves ignoring an unpleasant, but likely more important task, in favour of one that is more enjoyable or easier. This undesirable but devastating gesture leads to negative self-esteem and low performance.
12. Do Not Try To Be Perfect
Perfection is man’s ultimate illusion. It simply doesn’t exist in the universe. If you are a perfectionist, you are guaranteed to be a loser in whatever you do.”- David D. Burns
Perfection is considered to be a state of flawlessness. Everybody wants perfection and the desire to be perfect burdens everybody and leads almost to unhappiness. We are social animals, and we have many advantages over other animals. It is human nature to improve more and more. As an individual, we seek perfection, but it is sensitive to the judgments of others. These judgments are most often imagined. Everyone has an opinion, but elevating someone else’s opinion to the status of being a judge is silly. After all, someone else can’t judge you unless you confer upon him or her the power of being a judge.
13. Learn From Mistakes
Mistakes are a part of life; we take action, and we learn from them. Mistakes have the power to turn you into something better than you were before. The success ratio depends on how you deal with your mistakes. Your attitude towards the mistake plays a vital part in your achievements in life. When the whole factory of great scientist Thomas Alva Edison caught massive fire, everybody was disturbed and upset but when Edison showed the fire and fumes, he told his son,
“Call your mom, she must have not seen a huge fire and fumes in her life!” Any other person would have died of a heart attack due to million-dollar losses. When people came for condolence, he uttered to them, “My all mistake burned, let me start with a new one!”
The situation of failing 9999 times for inventing the electrical bulb was criticized by many and he was asked, “So you made 9999 attempts but failed?” He replied, “I have not failed in these attempts, but I could learn 9999 ways by which the bulb cannot be invented.” And this attitude and learning not only could ignite the bulb but make easy life of billions of people on earth.
14. Positive Self Talk
The brain of a person ascertains the thing it perceives. Thoughts become powerful with the strengths of neurons. The stronger the neurons on a particular subject or issue, the stronger the thoughts and thoughts become things. Therefore, it is rightly said that whatever happens in the brain becomes reality in outer world. Our neurons are conditioned mainly due to two things. Repetition of word of command and the image you perceive through your organs, mainly the eye and skin make thicker layers of neurons. If your commands are positive or negative, neurons do not recognize but the related thoughts become stronger whether positive or negative and the outcome is derived accordingly.
It is very easy to have a conversation with others but difficult to have a conversation with self. Similarly, It is difficult to have a positive talk with others but difficult to have a positive talk with oneself. Most of the time you are with yourself but most of the time you have a negative conversation with yourself. Most of the time the individual is having a silent conversation with oneself. The thoughts and the words spoken deeply give impact on the subconscious mind. Our self-talk can be cheerful and supportive or negative and self-defeating. Human nature, unfortunately, is prone to negative self-talk, including sweeping assertions like “I am a total failure.”, “I can never be successful in life.”, “My all attempts are useless.”, “I cannot do anything in life.” etc.
Our self-talk can be very much optimistic as following,
“I can make my way out of struggles, I am the captain of my problems, my goals are always bigger than my fears, I am brand in myself, I have a life of significance, I am successful, the strength of whole universe is with me, and nobody can stop me to become legendary!”
So let us focus on the brighter side of life and be a better human.
