Choosing to be fully yourself

“The key to it [a truly fulfilling life] lies not in what we have inside of us, but rather in what we are willing to own that we have inside of us. There is no point in waiting until we are perfect in what we do, or enlightened masters, or Ph.D.s in life, before opening ourselves to what we’re capable of doing now.” Neale Donald Walsch, Conversation with God, book 4.

Considering my passion for the human potential, these words have a powerful meaning, and I find them to be absolutely true.

Your potential can’t be anything until it is triggered by your choice to use it. As long as you don’t allow yourself to identify with the talent you possess, and you invent justifications for why you don’t feel ready to use it, that talent can’t produce any results.

This is the story of so many of us. Wasted talents. Talents that have never bloomed.

Why? Because we do not feel enough, because we feel different, because we are convinced we do not have the right gifts, those that society rewards.

I suspect nobody has ever explained to you in a very clear way that success is not a neutral and objective story; it depends precisely on your ability to understand, possess and express the mix of talents (absolutely unique) that you possess. Those who succeed simply have the courage and determination to believe in who they are.

Most of us do not like ourselves or love ourselves because we haven’t been taught to do so; we compare ourselves to external benchmarks and we feel like losers. It's so easy to feel inadequate in the society we live in. But we are making the problem bigger because, instead of looking inside, we always look outside of ourselves. Instead of understanding who we are, we pretend to look like someone else. And in doing so we deplete most of our energy without really shining. The others should simply be an inspiration, a model for a stronger version of you.

We all have tremendous potential. But the real value of this potential is in its "ownership": understand it and own it at its best. Put it in motion, spend it. It may help you to look at how others have done it, but you have to tailor the recipe to who you really are. When you don’t feel ready yet, when you postpone the choices that would allow you to own this potential, you are just lying to yourself, you are hiding behind a fear. Because your potential has been there forever and only in using it will you discover how amazing you are. 

Do not choose to be shy, to feel small and insignificant. If you do, you are wronging yourself and wasting your ability to have an impact on the life of this planet. Life asks for your unique capacity, your imagination and your desires. Life asks you to feel proudly different and to shine in your uniqueness. Life asks you to love yourself deeply, because only those who love are really focused and fully engaged.

Do not let anything stop you. Any pitfall on your way is just an opportunity to open a different pathway.

You are bigger and stronger than anything you can do; please have the curiosity to turn your potential into capacity so that you can experience it. As long as the petrol is left inside the tank, it does not produce any movement. Only when it is used and burned by the engine has it the ability to push the car forward. And you, like me, like everyone else, can move to marvellous new highs when you turn your potential into capacity.

(Picture courtesy of Flickr - Charles Rodstrom)