When I agreed to do a blog, I thought to myself, I should have one that talks about 3 different subjects each week: eyes, money, and gaming. Mary told me, you are biting off more than you can chew. I laughed, but still thought it would be possible. I typed up a few articles fairly quickly and thought to myself, see, I can do this. Now it has been a few months and I’ve already used up the extras I started out with and am still behind on getting just one article out a week. I hate to admit it, but she was right!
It’s funny to look back and see how many times I have had good intentions to do things. Just this morning I woke up intending to go out and jog (well, technically I’m just walking at a slightly faster speed). I imagine myself being able to run in a 5K race and think of the time I could do that in. Theoretically I could do it. Reality though has a hard way of making you realize that intentions will only take you so far. One of the reasons I didn’t run today was just because it isn’t the funnest thing to go out, breath hard, and collapse afterwards on the chair as I try to recover from the run. So I did what most people do, I made a deal with myself to run this weekend (like that will happen) and took the “day off”. I have good intentions on running this weekend, but as you can tell by the words I’m using, it is somewhat doubtful that it will come to fruition. Similar things can happen throughout life.
I don’t know how many times I have heard people say that person has so much potential. Of course, being the geek I am, I instantly think of physics and potential energy. In a nutshell, it is the amount of energy that is stored in an object just waiting for some action to release it. If I hold a ball in my hand, it has potential energy, but that energy isn’t realized until I release the ball and it falls.
I look at my life and see that in many different forms. I want to do many things, but they never seem to get accomplished. In my mind I should have a pristine yard, look buff, have great relationships, booming practices, doing great spiritual things while being the best spouse, father, son, brother, boss, doctor, businessman, and friend.
There are many things that can pull me away from using my potential. Some (like not running this morning) arise out of knowing what to do, have the capability of doing it, but just plain saying “I aint doing it”. I don’t know how many times I said this year, I’ll wait until next week. I’m busy doing such and such this week, so next week I can start and it will be so much better to do it then. I guess I’ve exercised my excuse potential. I can already hear myself saying, “it’s hot in August, wait until September to run” Then in September “school has started, probably need to wait until November” Of course some time around then the time changes and it gets darker in the mornings so it becomes too dark to run and besides, holidays coming up and it is close to the new year so I can always start then. I think this is my BIGGEST hurdle to accessing my potential.
I think the second thing that gets me is distraction. I am a self-proclaimed idea guy. I know I have the potential (you see what I just did there, right) to be on Shark Tank and hear them say, “that is an AWESOME idea” and to tell Kevin O’Leary “I’d like all the sharks on my team but YOU!” My problem is that I have ideas, but many times they only stay ideas. I feel sorry for Anne and Mary on my leadership team. I can get focused on one thing and then all of the sudden, switch to something else. Fortunately, they are good about bringing me back to reality and helping me stay the course. So, potential can be wasted because you try to spread your energy on too many things.
Distraction can also come about from the next best shiny thing. Since teaching the Dave Ramsey course twice and looking at several financial independence blogs, I have heard of the pitfalls of following the masses trek towards the next greatest thing. Listening to the hype and giving into the marketing can totally mess with your financial potential because you end up buying something you don’t need or paying interest to people because you cannot delay gratification. I’ve been there, done that. There are a plethora of people that will compete for your money whether current or future. I see it in my home life and in my business as well. I have to constantly be examining myself to make sure I am not justifying a want instead of a need.
If you look at our lives, one of the biggest stores of our potential is time. We have a limited amount that we can utilize each day. This morning I utilized it by hitting the snooze on my alarm twice so that I could rest a few more minutes. At work, my potential time as a doctor is best used by seeing patients and helping them overcome their problems. If I’m not seeing patients, I’m not best utilizing my time. As a business owner, it is best utilized by action. It needs to be directed action though, otherwise I’m off on one of my new ideas and not keeping the office on track. Home and spiritual both demand focused intentional attention. Otherwise I can end up at church thinking about work during the sermon.
So how do I tap my potential. If you talk to Dave Ramsey about financial potential, he’d tell you to start a budget. If you talk to a person that considers time important, they’d tell you to make a list. If you talk with a business consultant, they’d tell you to set goals. If you look at most of these, they are all just different ways of saying prioritize what is important, write it down, and take steps to complete what is the most important priority you have. I have had a monthly budget since teaching the Dave Ramsey course. My consultant has made sure that I have a yearly goal. My biggest hurdle is one of the hardest for me to do since it requires a commitment on my part to stick to it. It would be to prioritize my time and make a list of things to do in all areas of my life. I’m thinking since the year is already almost half over, it would be best to wait until January 1st to finish this so I can start everything fresh! What do you think?