TITLE: 10 Reasons Why You Haven’t Fulfilled Your Potential

AUTHOR: CHRIS DESSI

WEBSITE: Inc.
URL: http://inc-asean.com/the-inc-life/10-reasons-why-you-havent-fulfilled-your-potential/

DATE: 21 MAR 2017

You're frustrated that you aren't where you think you should be in life. With your career, your
family, your bank account, and you can't put your finger on the problem. You just want to be
happy.

Here's the brutal reality you need to confront. The problem is you. You have to get out of your
own way.

Here's what's holding you back:

1. Fear by default
You like to daydream about starting your own business. Quitting the mundane job you hate and
finding your true purpose, but you live in fear.

Fear is your natural default. Stop daydreaming. Take a deep breath. Be present. Feel that fear,
push through and do it anyway.

2. Failure to launch
Sure, you like to hear advice, but you never take it. You pretend that listening to constructive
direction is like taking that direction. It's not.

You're fooling yourself. Taking action does not happen by osmosis. Listen. Absorb. Follow
through.

3. No direction
How you do what you do is as important, if not more than, what you do. The how will get you to
where you want to go. What are your goals? What are you doing to get there?

You can't fly by the seat of your pants and hope to land on success. You need a process and a
plan to get you there.

4. Not measuring up
You're not measuring your progress. If you don't measure it, how will you improve? Without
improvement, you're not growing and expanding.

That adds up to never measuring up to your full potential.

5. It takes a village
If you're surrounding yourself with the village idiots, you'll never reach your potential. Find the
people who challenge you to achieve more.

Spend more time with those who push the envelope and positive thinkers. They'll feed your
motivation.

6. Negative beliefs
"I'm not good enough" is rattling around in your head. If you don't believe in yourself and your
skill set how can you expect anyone else to? Create small wins and celebrate them based on the
work you do.

You deserve it. Believe it. This will build confidence. Confidence breeds confidence, and you
can say goodbye to those negative beliefs.

7. Death by perfection
You think everything has to be perfect. If it's not perfect, you put it off. Perfection leads to
procrastination. Procrastination leads to the destruction of a dream.

Don't waste time trying to find the perfect time. There will never be a perfect time. Ever. Trust
me. Take the first step.

8 Unreasonable reasoning
You think your reasons aren't excuses. Here's a reality check for you: Reasons are excuses with
lipstick. They're still excuses.

Stop with the unreasonable reasoning. Go with your gut.

9. Mother may I?
You're waiting for permission. Why do you need permission to do what you want, and to be who
you are?

Stop waiting for validation and someone else to tell you to take the first step. If you're on a
mission, you should never have to ask for permission.

10. Do you even lift?

Courage and creativity are like muscles. And bro, your muscles have atrophied. When you take
action and create things every day, you exercise and build your muscle. Yes, you'll make
mistakes, and with that, generate much-needed scar tissue.

This habit of creation, failure, creation, failure will build your resistance to failure. It will help
you break the inertia of creation. Creation will become your default.