Activating Your Full Potential – How To See It, Believe It And Achieve It? By Joanna Howes

We are all born with self-belief, yet why does it tend to disappear, especially when we need it the most? One reason is that as we grow up, we are exposed to what the world thinks about us, from our school reports, getting picked last for the sports team or being accepted into groups of friends.  These life cues all become signposts of what we start to believe about ourselves.  We start to see ourselves through other people’s eyes.

This means you are relying on the external world to let you know what you think you can and can’t achieve.  In coaching we call these ‘limiting beliefs.  These limiting beliefs are what fuel that negative self-talk in your head. That voice that every time you think ‘this is it, I’m going for it’, reminds you that maybe you’re not good enough, or ready or whatever is the limiting belief you are currently choosing to believe about yourself. 

Connected to these limiting beliefs are three universal fears that everyone has, your beliefs tend to be rooted in one of these fears.  Yes, everybody has these and it’s important to acknowledge that.  You are not on your own here.

These universal fears are: The fear of not being enough, not being loveable and not belonging.

During these difficult times, we have all had moments that we have lacked self-belief and working from home has only heightened these isolating feelings. Joanna Howes, leadership and performance coach delves into the reasons why we may doubt ourselves and offers sound advice to help us all start achieving our true potential.

This should help to provide you with some understanding on how we lose our self-belief, however if you are reading this then I know you are ready for more, you are frustrated and ready to break free, it’s time for you to activate your full potential and be the person, both at home and professionally, that you know you can be.

Step one: Your Internal World

What a lot of people do not realise is that we have an internal world. This is the world we have inside of ourselves which unfortunately is often neglected as there is very little education on how this works. Due to this, when you reach adulthood it can be actually quite chaotic to start to look inside at what is going on, so a lot of people avoid putting in time for some internal self-care, however this is where the transformation begins.

• A great place to start is by building up your self-esteem.  
• Self-esteem is virtual to enable self-belief.
• Below is the Self Esteem triad.

You begin by establishing healthy boundaries (what is and isn’t acceptable to you and knowing that what you think, and feel isn’t what someone else needs to think and feel and vice versa), you then go on to understand how your emotions work and lastly you acknowledge your needs and if they are being met.

These 3 key areas are the beginning to building your internal world to know YOU are enough, YOU are worthy, and YOU belong. 

When your internal world is nurtured it fully ignites your self-belief and nothing can stand in your way.

Step 2 – Empowering beliefs

• It’s time to set these limiting beliefs free and embed some new empowering beliefs.
• Beliefs are not real.  They have been created by events, words, thoughts and feelings.
• So if the belief is not real, then you are fully in control to change them.
• Start by listing out all your limiting beliefs and then next to them write what the new empowering belief will be.
• Then each morning say your new empowering belief out loud and you will build new neural pathways in your brain to activate your full potential.

Step 3 – Your language

Be very mindful of the words you choose to use.  This is a simple change you can make and has the largest and faster impact to your results. 

Your words are food to your brain and if you are putting junk in then you will not feel good about yourself and proceed to beat yourself up.

Instead of pressure words like:

1. I can’t
2. I struggle
3. I should
4. I have to
5. Use possibilities words like:
6. I can
7. I want to 
8. I will give it my best
9. I could

Choose words that will fuel your potential and boost your self-belief. 

Implementing these 3 steps will help you to activate your full potential and accelerate you towards being the person you want to be – achieving the success you deserve.