Maximizing Your Potential

knowledge and skill gained by contact with facts and events.” By its very nature, experience is a product of the past and is, therefore, limited to and controlled by previous exposure. In spite of the fact that experience may be valuable for making decisions and judgments concerning the future, it is important to know that any significant measurement of growth, development, expansion, or advancement will require experience to submit to the substance of the unknown through faith. Unfortunately, experience has compelled many promising people to cower in the shadows of fear and failure because they were not willing to venture out into the uncharted frontiers of new possibilities. Experience is given not to determine the limits of our lives, but to create a better life for us. Experience is a tool to be used! My experience with driving over the years had conditioned me to drive a car monitored by the speed limits established by the society. Therefore, my driving capacity had become subject to the accepted norms of 45-60 mph. The fact that I have driven my cars at 45-60 mph for over 25 years does not cancel the automobile’s capacity to travel at 100-180 mph. In essence, experience does not cancel capacity. Therefore, my car’s capacity is determined not by my use of that capacity but by the capacity built into the car by the manufacturer. Experience does not cancel capacity. This is also true of our lives. At any point in our lives, we are the sum total of all the decisions we have made, the people we have met, the exposure we have had, and the facts we have learned. In essence, every human is a walking history book. Nevertheless, we must keep in mind that our personal history is being made and recorded every day, and our past experience was once our future. Therefore, we must be careful not to allow our past to determine the quality of our future. Instead, we must use our experience to help us make better decisions, always guarding against the possibility that it may limit our decisions. Remember, your ability is never limited to your experience. This world is filled with millions of individuals who are capable of traveling at a maximum capacity of 180 mph, but they have settled for 55 mph. Because they have overtaken some folks or have exceeded the expectations of a few others, they have compared their lives to these persons and have accepted mediocrity as excellence. Determine not to let your past experience limit your capacity. Be grateful for the lessons of the past, then accelerate with confidence on to the autobahn of life, being careful to obey only those signs that have been established by your Creator, who admonishes you, “All things are possible if you only believe” (see