What is potential? The dictionary defines it as “existing in possibility; capable of becoming reality.” It is the latent, untapped, unexplored, at this time unknown and as yet unrealized energy that exists within any person or thing. Your potential is all that you can become, all that you will achieve, and all that lies within your future influence that will live on after you are gone. It is all you are capable of doing, but so far it has not been achieved. Those people you will influence in life will carry your potential to countless unborn generations long after you. Your potential is unfathomable and you cannot imagine the extent of your influence. But it is all within you at this very moment, waiting to be seen and ready to be released into your sphere of influence.
There is a certain sense in which our potential is never realized, because potential by definition is what lies before us unknown. Everything that we have achieved up to this moment in our lives, everything that is the result of our influence in the past, is our history, our biography. It is a realized and actualized potential, yes, but it is also our history, and our true potential lies in our future! Don’t make the mistake of confusing your bio with your potential. It is too easy to live in the past. Many people do, and if you do, you are robbing yourself of all your future fulfillment and blessings. You are robbing yourself of the reason to live a meaningful life.
Because potential is what lies ahead unknown, in that sense it is never realized until it is acted upon, and then it becomes past experience. Your unknown future is always your potential, not what you’ve done in the past, so when you do something new, something you’ve never done before, you realize potential you never knew you had. It was there all the time. It was there in your possibility, hidden within your essence from the moment you were conceived, even though you had no understanding of its existence. However, once you’ve experienced it, of course it carries over into your biography, so you need to keep discovering the new experiences that are your potential. In this way, your life moves forward in a positive way, as long as your experiences add value to you, not detract from it.
Who can know the vast potential of a small and insignificant seed? Who can know the vast and dark potential within you? You are an incredible person. You have been given so much. What will you do with all that potential? How will you bless the world and add value to those around you, who in turn will impact others, and so on, in ever-widening concentric circles?
I heard heard recall the story of a wheat farmer in Alberta, Canada, who was showing off his vast farm to a visitor. He took him out into the middle of his fields and showed him as far as he could see in all directions, wheat, thousands of acres. He told his visitor that his grandfather had immigrated to the country many years before with only a handful of this special wheat seed. He planted that handful of seeds and harvested it, and then repeated that process for many years until the handful of wheat became seeds without number. This man’s son and eventually his grandson, who inherited the farm, continued to plant this wheat and only sold enough to live on. That handful of wheat grew into thousands of acres of wheat and produced many years of crops.
What great potential was contained in that handful of seeds. Her grandfather could have addressed that handful of wheat in the following way: Oh, great harvest! Oh thousands of acres of wheat! Oh thousands of great harvests! And it would have been true, because the potential was there to become all of that… and much more. That handful has become train after train of wheat, going abroad to hurt countless people. The potential was in that handful, unrealized, untapped, unknown, latent power and energy waiting to leap into visible reality. And that potential still continues today, both on the field and in the lives of the myriad people it has nurtured.
We can choose to tap into our potential whenever we want. It is currently inactive. We do not know its possibilities or its capabilities. We never need to use our potential if we choose not to. But we’ll never know what was in the offing if we made that decision. Typically, the only times people turn to hidden resources of potential is in times of crisis or emergency. Ordinarily, only when my appetite stimulates it, or some particular need arises in my life, do I invoke it. Otherwise, I stay in my comfort zone of familiarity and never venture out.
Most of us don’t wake up in the morning saying, “What new thing can I do today? What is something I’ve never done before? What tremendous possibilities exist within me that I can discover?” No, we are creatures of habit. We find a level of comfort within what is familiar to us and we stay there for the rest of our lives. We see no need to challenge our comfortable existence. Our lives are going as well as we know how. Our life may not be perfect, and we may not even like the life we are living, but at least it is comfortable and familiar. Why should we change? Why explore new things, new ways of living? Our attitude is often that we are very comfortable where we are, and our tendency is to become irritable when someone else rocks the boat and imposes change. Only when the pain of staying where we are becomes too great will we explore other possibilities. If only our appetite for the unknown, the unfamiliar, were as persistent as our physical appetite.
You see, I don’t know if this has occurred to you yet, but our potential is outside of our comfort zone. Everything we have done and are currently doing is within our comfort zone of familiarity, which as I noted earlier is our biography, not our potential. Of course, those things are potential realized, but now they are in our past history. The potential, I repeat, is our unrealized future, and the things we have never done are outside of what is familiar and comfortable to us. If our potential is outside of our comfort zone and we want to discover it, we must be willing to go where we have never been before, do what we have never done before, and become more than we are. That’s scary territory, but that’s where discoveries are made and greatness is achieved. That is potential territory.
I know that most people aspire to greatness of some kind, and everyone wants to be successful in some way, but of those people, few are willing to do what it takes to leave the ordinary behind and expand their comfort zones. Few are willing to face their fears head-on and confront the unknown, so these comfortable people never achieve much and certainly never reach their full potential. If you have a burning desire to achieve, you will be willing to step into the unknown and discover how much potential you really have. If that desire never goes away and living outside of your comfort zone becomes a way of life, you will achieve greatness; that is assured. You will discover who you really are, what you are capable of, and what potential has been hidden within you since birth. You will probably only regret not starting the journey sooner.
If it is true that influence is realized potential, then by influencing more people, I realize more potential. In John Maxwell’s book, The 17 Indisputable Laws of Teamwork, he writes, “The law of importance says that one is too small a number for greatness.” If I want to achieve greatness and importance, I need to find more people to influence. I need other people in my life who can complement me in areas where I lack or have no potential. I will recognize that I am not alone in this life, but that my life is inexplicably linked to the lives of many others. I will look for other people that I can help and who can help me so that we can achieve together what would otherwise be impossible. I will find people who also have dreams of achieving greatness and join them so that my potential and theirs combine to create an exponential force that is unstoppable. By exponential I mean that the entire potential of the team is much greater than the sum of the potentials of its individuals.
As illustrated in the biblical account of the tower of Babel, nothing is impossible for a team of people who will combine their potential to create something (Genesis 11:6). That story also illustrates the fact that potential can turn into something good that blesses and unites people, or it can turn into something that ultimately conquers and divides them. Either way, its possibilities are incredible, and it’s up to us to channel it in a positive way that hurts others and helps us leave the world a better place for being here.
I understand that my potential greatness is in the areas I don’t currently live in and the places I haven’t been yet. I have been challenged to live my life on the border of fear, to continue to expand that border and thus increase my comfort zone and my sphere of influence. The larger my sphere of influence, the more of my potential I can discover and the greater my success in life, provided I have chosen to influence in a positive way.
