Five Steps to Get Over the “I’ve Got So Much To Do, I Can’t Reach My Potential” Dilemma

I recently wrapped up my group and one-one-one coaching with members of my “It’s My Year’ Life Mastery Course™, and want to share with you FIVE BIG LESSONS I learned from that experience.

I always learn so much from my clients.  This time, session after session, I noticed the same problems showing up again and again.  In almost every instance, it was the question behind the question that I found telling about what holds us back from unleashing our full potential.

Here are the FIVE BIG LESSONS I took away from this experience.  I think you will benefit from them too.

1. You are much more brilliant than you give yourself credit for. 

Own it. Get on board with your gifts and talent by looking back at the value you have already added with your talent, business, product, service, or leadership. Think more about who you are serving and less about yourself and what you will get.

Unless you make the decision that who you are and what you do is valuable no amount of time or work driving to your fullest potential will make a difference.

It is hard to manufacture belief in yourself by trying to talk yourself into it.  We need concrete evidence that we are competent and capable. The best place to find that is in our past successes.

–>  Write a list of those individuals you have helped or contributed to with your talent, product, service, or leadership. If you are just starting, find that one person to whom you know your skill, wisdom, service or product made a difference.  Focus on that “yes,” and it will expand.

–> Destroy and release any thoughts that limit you and your expansion.  Believing in yourself is as critical to reaching your highest potential as knowing your target and having a plan.

–> What if today was the day you stopped judging you?  What if you stopped judging how far along you are? Stopped judging your sales, your body and your finances? Today live in YOUR NEW WORLD WHERE YOU OWN YOUR BRILLIANCE.

2.    You must be willing to put yourself in the spotlight.

If you want to reach your potential and make the income and impact you know you are capable of, putting yourself in the spotlight is EXACTLY WHAT YOU MUST DO.  Be willing to be exposed, seen, and vulnerable.

–>  Put yourself out in front this week.  Ask to lead an initiative at work, make an offer to your prospective clients, share something with your spouse that he/she does not know to increase your intimacy, or ask to speak to a local group about your service or product. Raise your hand and ask for the opportunity to share your gifts.

3.   You must start before you think you are ready. 

Stop waiting until you have enough time, enough confidence, all the training, all the information, all the answers, enough support, the ‘right’ team, or enough money.   If you wait for these conditions, you will never get started.

Shift from thinking “I’m not ready to do that” to thinking “I want to do that – and I’ll learn by doing it.” Jump in and go for it.

–>  Make an appointment with a person who will push your project forward.  If you say you are doing it, whether that’s getting a place for your conference, offering a new class, hiring help for your next project — you will now have someone else to be accountable to beside yourself.

–>  Put yourself in an environment that you don’t think you are ready for yet.  Request to give a presentation to a group of your potential clients. Attend a conference of ‘experts’ who are in your desired career. Set up a meeting with someone you think is out of your league, or do that thing you think is above your “level.”  Make the call today.

–>  GO PRO.  If you were the best in the world at what you do, what step would you take next?  How would you carry yourself, walk, speak, and act differently than you do now?  Show up ‘as if’ your success already exists.

4.    You must start with your high-impact, high-fulfillment work first.

 Each of us has a choice as to how we spend our time.  But it’s really easy to tell ourselves, it’s not our choice, especially when it involves some new habit, big goal or dream that takes energy and courage to bring into being.

We spend time on the unimportant, pretending it’s urgent to avoid high-value work because it is scary. We may fail, we may be rejected.

BEGIN YOUR DAY WITH THE MOST IMPORTANT WORK THAT AFFECTS YOUR BOTTOM LINE.

Brian Tracey refers to this as ‘eating the frog first’.  When you accomplish your toughest task early in the day, it sets the tone by creating momentum and building your confidence, both of which move you farther and faster toward you goal.  This one strategy alone can create wealth for you this week.

–>  What do you keep putting to the bottom of the list for tomorrow because you are “too busy?”  Do that action first. That’s likely your soul’s most important work.  It is time to stop hiding behind being busy and confused.  Remember, there is only a short list of things you should be investing your time doing daily.

5.    You must be willing to create a team.

Trying to do it all and not leveraging your time and talent means you will guarantee you are in the same place one year from now.  Your focus is to SPEND YOUR DAY IN YOUR ZONE OF GENIUS AND GET RID OF EVERYTHING ELSE.

Critical to you reaching your full potential is getting stuff off of your plate so you can do your best work, innovate and create.  Remember just because you can do it, does not mean you should do it.

Let go and open up to the thought, I DON’T HAVE TO DO IT ALL ALONE.  Who can do this?

Hiring people is the BEST money you can spend.  Do it before you think you are ready to so do.  The idea that you can’t afford help is purely a mental block.

Consider that hiring help is in the same expense category as buying a computer for your business.  Both are vehicles to unleashing your potential more quickly, efficiently, and with less pain.

–>  What support or expertise do you need to achieve your target and guarantee you take your business and life to the next level?

–>   Identify three experts (those more talented than yourself in this area) who could help you leverage your time and talent?  Hire at least one this month.  (Examples may include administrative assistant, copywriter, sales person, project manager, life coach, child care provider, accountant.)

–>   Identify two people you already know whose help you can enlist.  Who else could you ask?  Be willing to receive help.

Now it’s time for Rita’s On-the-Spot Action Coaching.

If we were coaching together, here’s what I would suggest you do to take action on the FIVE LESSONS I shared with you above.

–> What to do with the most important one hour of your day?  Identify the 1-5 actions that will make the BIGGEST IMPACT ON YOUR PROJECT’S BOTTOM LINE.  Of the five actions, start with the one you most want to put off.

–> Choose TWO action steps from the list above and put them into play today.  It is not what information you have but your implementation of it that counts.

I’d love to hear back from you.  What’s holding you back right now?  What one solution would help you the most?  Let me know at [email protected].