So I was sitting at my son’s little league baseball game. What a proud parent I am. Yes, I admit, I am one of those parents… the kind with big smile, watching intensely as my son comes up to bat. I yell from the bleachers, “Let’s go son! Make it a homer!”, my husband yells out “Over the fence Luis, over the fence” . Luis comes up to bat, with a big smile on his face. He is a tall kid, lots of power. He is the kid that walks up to the plate and everyone takes 10 steps back further into the outfield. Then I hear the coach as he is standing on the pitcher mound say to him “You only need to get on base, son”… “Watch me, watch the ball..”… “you don’t need to hit a big one, just get on base”… This pattern was during the whole game. Parents would excitingly yell out “Smash it out of the park!” Coach would say “Don’t worry about smashing it, just hit the ball”. Funny thing, most kids would hear their coach and all of a sudden, instead of being excited to be there, they got serious, they put their “game face” on. They just hit the ball so they could get where they needed to go… because they did what they were expected to do; they listened to their coach and got on base.
Some would think, as I’m sure Coach did, that he was just lowering the expectation of the player. That he was taking the pressure off. Others would argue that he lowered the bar, and lessened and stunted the potential of the player. Both are right.
Potential, to me as I’m using it in the Holy Grail of Momentum, is the mental bar we set for ourselves. It is the second element of the HGM because you first need belief to determine why to set the bar.
I call this our realized potential. You have heard this before: “whatever you believe, you achieve”. Entire books have been written on why this is true. Heck, that was the core reason for the movie “The Secret”. So please don’t waste time proving this wrong. It is one of those natural laws you just accept. Instead learn how to have the law work for you.
I grew up being overweight most of my adult life. I’m intelligent and I know what I need to do to lose weight. It isn’t rocket science. Move more, eat less. Duh! If you ask most obese people, they will tell YOU what they need to do to lose weight. It won’t matter what diet they try, what new gimmick they buy… if they believe they are not worthy of being fit and healthy, if they believe they are always going to be fat, then well… they set a mental bar of their own potential and no matter what they do, they will reach it. This is why the diet and exercise industry is such a big business!I know I have lost a few hundred pounds during my lifetime already and gained them back. Because if I’m completely honest, I don’t believe I’m worthy of being a size 6, so I set my potential that while I will lose weight, I will go back to the bar I set within myself; that I’m overweight. So in order for me to lose weight permanently, I have to go back and find such a strong emotional reason to do so, I have to change my belief. That will change what I believe is my potential.
When you have big (or positive) beliefs then you set your potential higher. If you have small (or negative) beliefs then you set your potential lower.
Have you ever heard someone say, “We live paycheck to paycheck”? Sure, we all have heard and maybe even said it. Well, think about if you said it… what is your belief? That you don’t have enough money to pay your bills and you have to go to work just to make ends meet. So what is your potential? That you have to show up to get paid, you are only worth what you get paid, and you only can earn what your paycheck is written for.
Now, change the statement… “We want to earn so much money to pay for vacations and get debt free with our new part time business”… your belief needs to be that your part time business can in fact bring you that money, and your potential is that magic number in your mind that you believe will accomplish this…
If you don’t believe your business is the vehicle to help you accomplish this, your potential will be set low and you will reach it, which in this case will mean you won’t make the money you want. If you do believe your business will accomplish this, then your potential is set higher and you will reach it and you will make the money you want.
My son reached his potential when he went to the plate. Why? Because he believed his coach, he believed he could hit the ball and he knew he could get on base. Did he want to his a home run? Sure. Of course. Did he believe he could hit it? Perhaps. But his bar was set so he didn’t need to hit the home run.
Please understand you are reaching your potential according to your beliefs already. So if you are struggling in your business, go back to the exercise you did last time and review your true beliefs about you, your company and all the components you believe are important to you (your upline, your comp plan, your products/service)… find where you need to build belief, do it, and your potential will rise.
Many years ago, I heard the master distributor of our company say from stage, “The more you get into personal development, the bigger your check will be”. That shocked me… I always thought the more product I moved the bigger my check would be. A few years later, my check was pretty hefty. I had thousands on my team. I was excited. But I was searching for ways to make my check larger. I would set new goals, have new visions. I wanted to buy a dream home. I would try all kinds of contests, develop and introduce new tools, but the reality was my group didn’t grow. I was stuck. And as an overachiever, being stuck is worse than failing.
It wasn’t until I went back and realized that my potential was met as I believed. And in order to increase or set my potential higher I had to work on my beliefs… in myself. You see, my company did it’s job; they proved their products worked and their comp plan paid… basically I reached my potential within the company. In order for me to make more money, I had to go “beyond” the company and learn new beliefs, which would set a higher potential. That is when personal development became important to me.
So what can you walk away with from this post? Hopefully with a better understanding of how your potential is set, and what you need to do change it if you have too.
Remember, the HGM is this: Understanding your authentic belief is first; it sets your potential, which causes your actions, which leads to results, and that comes back to confirming your beliefs and this cycle continues and continues and continues.
This is a moving concept. It will work both postive or negative for you. It won’t stand still. Next post will be about the third part…. actions. Every wonder why you do the things you do?
Take care,
Donna
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