ARE WE BLOCKING OUR OWN GREATNESS?

An adage that I’ve often come across is how at times, we ourselves come in the way of achieving our greatest potential.

So, I thought of penning down just a few pointers and behavior observations – which if we note carefully, can help us to remind ourselves that perhaps we need to take that leap and trust the process and allow ourselves to be propelled to the next stage of our growth:

1.      When we start to shy from embracing the discomfort of an upcoming opportunity: Any new growth opportunity will come with its fair share of discomfort, which would challenge the status quo of our comfort zones. But it is this discomfort, that could be the staircase to our next level. I guess it all depends on what we prioritize. If we prioritize becoming the ‘new’ us on the other end, I guess we will have more strength to endure the intermediate pains and give our greatness a fair chance.

2.      When past experiences start to hold us back from trying again: What we always celebrate is a success, what we often fail to see is the series of failures and failed attempts one must have gone through to reach that one final rainbow moment. Just as past success is no guarantee of future success, a past failure is not a reflection on how our next attempt may fare out – as long as we continue to learn from them.

3.      When we may become too stubborn to be coachable: In today’s age – we have much easier access to mentors, coaches, and people from our domains who could be our sounding boards. They may have several strategic nuggets for us to benefit from – as long as we are open to learning, adapting, recalibrating our existing hypotheses, and becoming open to being coached.

4.      When we may want to give up too soon: It takes several hammerings by a sculptor to metamorphosize a stone into a beautiful sculpture. Anything worthwhile, may not be very easy to achieve and may take several attempts. As long as every new attempt is helping us with newer insights, one needs to keep building their perseverance muscle to keep walking towards their greatness.

5.      Ad finally, when we start doubting ourselves by seeing others’ journeys: A lot of potential leaders fail to achieve the mark because of their own self-doubts on their capabilities, and also significantly because today we are only flooded with success stories of others – which leads to comparison and attempts to just emulate, not getting inspired. Yes, we may lack certain skills in the journey, but that should lead to the realization that we need to keep upskilling ourselves – not doubt our own convictions.

 I would love if you too can suggest some pointers here – some metrics that could warn all of us that our potential and greatness lie just beyond them – and all it may take is that strong mental leap.

 Till then, keep building your own paths!